As YES Network's Digital Team Continues To Innovate, Engagement Grows

As YES Network's Digital Team Continues To Innovate, Engagement Grows One of the first digital teams embedded in linear-production workflow continues to pay off By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor

Monday, September 11, 2017 - 3:40 pm

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In today's multiplatform world, a broadcaster's responsibility in covering the game goes well beyond the live linear telecast. Nowhere is this more apparent than for regional sports networks, which must cater to die-hard fans constantly clamoring for more information and content about their favorite teams. YES Network and its Fox Sports Networks compatriots have taken on this challenge head-on, cultivating a digital/social-programming philosophy that hinges on the digital team being intimately embedded with the linear-production team.

Kevin [Sullivan, director of digital media] and I are very close, and there is a lot of communication between us - even in the offseason, says YES Network Coordinating Producer Jared Boshnack. The reason this all works is, the digital landscape that exists today has a lot of material that we want to spotlight on our air. At the same time, we also know there's an additional audience seeking more beyond [the linear telecast]. To me, [social and digital distribution] is a way to drive them back to the on-air product, while we can also serve our content to those fans online.

Kevin Sullivan (left) and Michael Spirito at the YES Network studio in Stamford, CT

In the case of YES, this has created higher visibility across the organization, resulting not only in high-quality digital programming but also in sizable increases in its digital and social metrics.

Through August, YES averaged 9.1 million video views per month (across Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and web) for the 2017 calendar year - up 193% year over year - and logged 11.7 million views for the four months of the Yankees season. In addition, YES now has more than 750,000 total followers on social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram). Meanwhile, Fox RSNs as a whole have grown their digital-video consumption more than 800% in the past two years, largely by embracing the principals YES helped to pioneer over the past decade.

The bottom line is, digital has had a seat at the table since I've been here [at YES] and is in close contact with [other operations]: on-air promotions, graphics, remote [production], studio [production], marketing, PR, everyone. And that strategy has resulted in our success, says Michael Spirito, head of business development and digital media, Fox Sports Networks. I'm very proud of how the Fox RSNs have bought into that strategy and embedded their digital functions with production and with higher visibility across the organization and have created fantastic digital programming of their own, growing their metrics extraordinarily impressively and setting the foundations for a viable sales channel.

The YES Production Team Learned To Think Digital

Although YES has seen its output and metrics skyrocket in recent years, its commitment to digital is nothing new. A decade ago, YES was among the first RSNs to make digital a priority, demanding that its linear-production team think with a digital mindset when creating content for studio shows. YES has been an active programmer and revenue partner on YouTube and an active Facebook user since 2007. In addition, the network launched the first in-market live-game-streaming product in MLB history in 2009 (as well as the first authenticated TV Everywhere product in professional sports). That commitment to digital was made possible largely by the buy-in from the linear-production team.

YES Network Coordinating Producer Jared Boshnack has embraced the role of digital within his linear-production team's operation.

During the 2009 World Series, when the Yankees beat the Phillies in six games, we were producing nightly shows and saw some added value from Twitter at a time in which it was exploding, recounts Boshnack. All the stats and insights were flowing in, and we suddenly had all this raw information, which, essentially, added to the storyline. I saw the value in it right then and there.

I was a believer at that point, he continues. Then it became more about how we could build on this: how can add to this very crowded landscape and make our presence felt? The answer was original content. It was a very organic process in which we all brainstormed, and I think it's paid off for both YES and the fans.

Facebook Live Goes Inside YES Production Meetings

One of the most significant outlets for that original content exploded on the scene last year with the launch of Facebook Live. Since then, the social-video outlet has become essential to YES's ability to drive tune-in to live games and generate new monetization opportunities.

Chief among these Facebook Live efforts has been YES's Yankees Production Meeting live show, which features producers, talent, and the digital team meeting before each Yankees series to discuss storylines and plans for the upcoming matchups. The show is a two-camera shoot, and the digital team uses Telestream's WireCast solution to cut the show and generate on-screen graphics.

We did a handful of these meetings last year shot on a cellphone, but, this year, we really blew it out: miking everyone up, using two cameras, and bringing in a WireCast system to produce it, says Sullivan. It all came together. We even got it sponsored and had some fun with the sponsorship for Papa John's by getting pizza delivered to the meeting. I believe they are getting better every time. The more we can show fans - both regional and global - what's under the hood and give them the most in-depth experience around the Yankees and Nets and NYCFC, the more we succeed on every platform.

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