Stephanie Calabrese With HiCast Sports Network

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Stephanie Calabrese with HiCast Sports Network. Welcome.

Stephanie Calabrese: Thank you. Glad to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, so excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about HiCast Sports Network. How you serving folks?

Stephanie Calabrese: Sure. Well, we are sort of a leading live and video on demand streaming platform, and it’s a subscription based service specifically for the amateur and youth sports market.

Lee Kantor: So what’s the backstory? How did this idea come about?

Stephanie Calabrese: Well, my business partner, Robert Stribling, who’s the CEO of our company, I’m the CEO. We had been friends for a long time we had each had children who were playing youth sports, multiple sports, travel sports, multiple locations. And we were kind of lamenting over the fact that, you know, we couldn’t be in one in more than one place at the same time. We were missing games from one child or the other child. And Robert’s background is very much sort of more of a mechanical inventor engineer. He loves coming up with physical products that help solve problems. I come from sort of a digital media software design background, and we got together and we thought, gosh, there’s got to be a way that we can set up one camera that would record an entire game. And then for each of us as parents, we could just go in and grab the moments of our own kids that we wanted to preserve. And so we set out on that journey back in 2010, which was before live streaming was actually even a possibility and just evolved a prototype into a product, and we’ve been building on it ever since.

Lee Kantor: So what was kind of the beginnings of this? Did you have to you went after the, I guess, the teams that your kids were on as, as beta testers, or did you find other people that were interested in pursuing this?

Stephanie Calabrese: Well, we actually started with the concept of partnering with the venue. So we figured that the best installation for like a fixed camera network solution was to capture as many games as possible using a camera that would be remote controlled. So you wouldn’t need a human manning the camera. So we partnered with a handful of venues, one of which was East Cobb Baseball Complex here in Georgia, very popular travel baseball park. In fact, one of the first in the country. And we set up our camera network and started partnering with the venues initially.

Lee Kantor: And so how did the partnership work? They just gave you permission to put a camera Somewhere? Yes.

Stephanie Calabrese: Yep. So we had venue agreements where we partner with a venue. In the beginning in particular, we would put we would invest in the equipment and the installation of our network at the venue, and then we built a platform where we could basically remote control camera schedules to make it, you know, as minimal of an impact on the venue. Right. So these travel parks really are focused on programing, running the tournaments, running the games, caring for the facility, caring for the patrons at the park. And so because they, you know, really didn’t have a lot of bandwidth to get into and understand technology streaming, you know, all that it takes to provide that video coverage, we took on the burden of all that for the venue. And so in the agreements, you know, we would set up the network, we would manage subscription sales. And then we also do revenue share back with our venues. So really it’s a win for them in that they receive a brand new amenity for their park, which is super compelling for patrons who can’t attend the games in person. It generates social media content for them and it generates income, which is always helpful for these venues.

Lee Kantor: So, um, how did you know that you were on to something when you put the camera up? Were people, like, clamoring for this? Were they, you know, sending links to their relatives around the country? Like, how did you know that you were onto something good?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes. I mean, in the beginning, I mean, we launched the first app in the iTunes App Store back in 2017, which was very, very early, um, for live streaming in general. And so, um, we just got great feedback. I mean, at first, you know, patrons were pleasantly surprised to hear that they could remote watch games at these venues so early on. And then in the Covid years of 2020, that’s when it really became more of a, uh, a critical amenity for these venues where parents and grandparents wouldn’t be able to attend the venue. And so we really saw a lot of growth coming out of 2020. And it’s it’s been pretty rapid growth ever since.

Lee Kantor: So, um, what’s happening now? What stage are you at? Are you just trying to spread it around the country and just get more and more teams and fields and locations?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yeah. So we’re increasing our venue count by the year. So we have venues. We cover more than 30 venues, which which spans about 250 live streams across the country. So as far west as, um, Colorado, um, up and down the East coast, central US. Um, so yeah, our plan is to just continue with that growth, partnering with these venues who really are travel sports. Um, so high volume of games. Um, and we’re just a great partner for those top venues across the country.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the qualities of a top market would have, and you’d be interested in partnering with them?

Stephanie Calabrese: Really the biggest one is volume of play. So it makes sense to install a fixed camera network where you’ve got games played, you know, daily and throughout most of the year. So we manage our camera schedules and, you know, more often than not we’re we’re running cameras, especially in the summer months when when travel sports are so high for families, we’re running cameras from seven in the morning until until midnight. So really we look for volume of play is number one. We also look for venues who really do a great job of marketing their their programing and their services to their patrons. So, um, you know, that partnership is important because they receive revenue share. So for those venues that are really motivated to, um, you know, monetize, um, the live stream. In addition to advertising on the live streams. You know we are a great fit for those venues. Those include the Ripken Baseball Parks, which is part of Unrivaled Sports. Their facilities have been great partners with us. The Jackie Robinson Complex down in Vero Beach, which is owned by the MLB. Um, we just partner with a lot of great, a lot of great venues.

Lee Kantor: Is it primarily baseball, softball, or is it expanded to other sports?

Stephanie Calabrese: We have expanded into other sports. So we initially started with baseball, softball. Um, number one, because it really gave us the most difficult, uh, outdoor weather conditions. And so we wanted to be able to build a network that would be rock solid, whether it was sitting out in lightning in South Carolina or, you know, withstanding hurricanes in Florida or snow in the northeast. And so having that rugged outdoor solution was very important to us. We also had the ability to install just one camera behind home plate, which would give us a wide angle view of the entire field of play. And then a user has the ability to come in and zoom and pan to look at the area to find their kid that they want to focus on. Um, so we started initially with baseball softball, but now we’re sort of expanding. We cover an equestrian facility, and we’re looking to be expanding coverage in that area of sports as well. We cover volleyball and basketball. Um, and we’re now just moving into soccer, lacrosse and football on these rectangular surfaces. And they’ve been challenging in that the the field of play is so wide. So you can imagine one camera can’t cover an entire field of play. Um, we’ve tried two camera solutions and that works well in some cases. But now we’re using AI powered cameras that sort of auto track the play on these rectangular surfaces. And that’s exciting as we continue to expand into those other sports.

Lee Kantor: Are they like those cameras like in the NFL games that are strung across the center of the field.

Stephanie Calabrese: They’re not strung across the center field. Hopefully one day we’ll have that capability. But the eye cameras typically are at the center point of a rectangular field. It’s an extremely wide angle view. And then the AI technology follows auto zooms and pans to follow the play, whether it’s soccer, football or football or lacrosse on that playing surface. So it’s like an auto produced feed.

Lee Kantor: So, um, no swimming yet? I would think that’s a fairly easy to capture.

Stephanie Calabrese: No swimming yet, but we’re always looking to expand into new sports. Um, we also look at sort of the growth in youth sports. Right. What sports are having rapid growth? Um, knowing that we’ll have sort of a higher market of interest for those sports. Volleyball has had tremendous growth Recently. Also girls softball is is growing rapidly as well. So we also look at the markets too.

Lee Kantor: And so as you expand, what have what opportunities have kind of bubbled up for you? It sounds like you were getting more and more partnerships with some of these larger players. Is that kind of in the roadmap just to get more and more partnerships?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes. More partnerships with venues, definitely. Um, and I think another area of growth for us has been in the space of sponsorship and advertising. So for many of our venues, they’re already working with local sponsors. So, you know, of course, you’re familiar with you go to a baseball park, you see banners hanging on the fence, or you go into a gym and you see, you know, banners hanging on the wall. And we’ve built a very robust advertising engine within our product that allows us to serve video ads, very targeted. So we can send those ads specifically. For example, we’ve been partnering with Rawlings this year and serving, you know, ads for bats, custom gloves to our baseball and softball users targeted at the field level. Um, so that advertising space gives us the ability to help our venues, you know, further monetize to help them raise, raise more funds that allow them to then, you know, make advancements in their facilities. Um, you know, new netting, new turf, um, helps bring in dollars to support that. Um, in addition to additional programing. So the advertising space is definitely an area for growth for us too, because we can begin to sort of match up our individual users with the brands and products and services that bring them value to these families playing travel sports.

Lee Kantor: Are they advertisers? Are they mainly kind of these national brands that are just using the aggregate audience? Or can somebody, like you said in in the Carolinas. Have a local car dealer be a local advertiser on the on the videos.

Stephanie Calabrese: Yeah, that’s the beauty of the ad platform. So we can work with local sponsors, more regional sponsors. We have the ability to target those ads on just a specific venue. So if it’s let’s say, you know, a local car dealership who may have been a sponsor for a venue for many years now, we give them a digital platform to serve ads to users at that same venue. And the beauty of that is each of the ads are clickable. So the, um, the user can go directly, you know, to that product or service to learn more. We track all of our analytics and share that back with the sponsors as well. So it’s a great marriage. And we’ve been you know, we’ve been very sensitive to the fact that, you know, parents and grandparents and fans are coming in to watch live play. More often than not. We do have video on demand availability too. But what we don’t want to do is disrupt that experience. And so we’ve found a very sort of elegant way to play those ads on the pre-roll, right when you come in without disrupting live play and that balance of, you know, being able to continue to make improvements to our product without having to increase the price of subscriptions for our family. So we’ve been very sensitive to finding a good balance between, you know, allowing advertisers to help support that growth and, you know, keeping a solid, enjoyable experience for the users.

Lee Kantor: Speaking of the users, is there a way to maybe like clip highlights of their kids so they can share it on social media? Is there any tools that you’re using to help in that regard?

Stephanie Calabrese: Yes, absolutely. So anyone who’s watching the footage live, they’ve got the ability to live. Tag a moment. So let’s say I’m a parent. I’m watching my daughter play softball. She has, you know, a great hit when she’s at bat. I can quickly live tag that moment and just continue watching live without disrupting that experience. And then it saves those timestamps. So after the game or between innings, I can go back to those live tags and then turn them into highlights. So any user has the ability to download as many, you know, 62nd highlights as they like, whether it’s a, you know, a great play or, um, you know, just a wonderful moment that happened on the on the field. They can save those highlights. They can share them in social media, they can download the highlights and then create highlight reels for college recruiters. Um, that ability to really save and share those moments that matter has been core to the business since the inception.

Lee Kantor: Now, is that something that the individual has to kind of be there in order to capture it, or can you just do a search for number 12 and then it’ll pull all the times number 12 was a bat or did something.

Stephanie Calabrese: It’s not automated to that degree yet, but hopefully over time using AI technology. That’s that’s definitely on our on our roadmap. But yes, the user would watch the play. They can have availability of a game for 90 days from the date of play, so they’ve got plenty of time to go in and replay those games and grab and share those highlights.

Lee Kantor: Now talk about the subscription. So if I’m a grandparent of a child, I can subscribe and I’ll be notified whenever there’s a game and I can watch.

Stephanie Calabrese: So basically subscriptions work. We’ve got a variety of different subscriptions options. If you’re playing in sort of like a one off tournament at one of our venues, you can do a seven day pass. That seven days gives you the ability to watch live and then plenty of time to watch on demand. So when your athlete comes home, he’s got time to replay the games and save and share any highlights that were important to him. Um, we also have monthly passes which can be canceled at any time. So for some of our venues like Buckhead Baseball in Atlanta, Georgia. Those players will be playing all season, so you can start your subscription at the beginning of the season in February and cancel it in May when your season is over. So we’ve got a variety of different subscription options. We don’t have the ability to notify a family when their team is playing, but more often than not, these families know their schedules and they can come in and watch the games, whether they’re live or if they want to watch them whenever it’s convenient for them. On demand.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share? Maybe how one of the venues partnered with you and they were able to maybe generate some revenue that they hadn’t had before and were able to, you know, uplevel their venue or their experience for their fans.

Stephanie Calabrese: Um, yes. I mean, gosh, we we share revenue with, um, you know, most of our, most of our venues are eligible for revenue share. So if we front the upfront equipment and installation cost for a venue. We will recoup that initial cost up front and then begin sharing revenue. So for many of our venues that may not have that capital up front for the installation, that’s a nice way that we can get them installed and then, you know, have them eligible for revenue share. Um, but we’ve got a handful of venues that, um, have received very nice revenue share checks, um, over the past several years. And they’re always looking at reinvesting that money back into the ballparks.

Lee Kantor: So what do you need more of? How can we help?

Stephanie Calabrese: Uh, we.

Stephanie Calabrese: Are always looking for new venues, new travel venues, um, any sport we are interested to talk to. Um, we’d also love for anyone who is playing at any of our venues. You can take a look at the venues that we do cover on our website, which is high caste sports.com/venues, um, shows, the venue list, um, anyone is, you know, is interested in sort of looking at our footage. They can subscribe and watch any games live and on demand. And of course anyone can follow us in social. We’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn. We’re always sharing our best highlights that users have shared with us across the network. And any time you are liking or commenting on a great play from a youth athlete, you are supporting that. And and of course we welcome that.

Lee Kantor: And that’s high caste sports. High caste sports.com.

Stephanie Calabrese: That’s correct.

Lee Kantor: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing your story today, doing important work and we appreciate you.

Stephanie Calabrese: Thank you. Lee. I appreciate you too.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.