Genius Sports joins Rams and Verizon to delight fans with data

“Instead of looking somewhere else or digging through your phone or trying to understand the immediacy of what you just saw, we show it within seconds of the actual game taking place,” Schuler said.

Schuler compared the internal iterations to the increasing advances in technology that fans see in NFL coverage every season. She specifically pointed to the overlays seen on Amazon’s alternative Prime Vision stream Thursday Night Football (which also uses NGS) and CBS’s Genius Sports-powered RomoVision NGS visuals.

According to Genius Sports advertising director Manny Puentes, these similarities are intentional.

“The Arena extends from ‘The Arena’ to your digital ecosystem where you live your daily life,” said Puentes. “The arena is a global arena.”

At SoFi, the replays and graphics give casual fans another way to experience the game, while real-time stats from across the league – highlighted in Rams blue for on-field action – add additional value to more avid fans. For Verizon, in turn, it draws fans’ eyes away from their devices and toward the partnership and messaging the brand is investing in.

“Each year when we bring a partner together with a feature opportunity, we naturally take a look at the partner’s KPIs for the coming year, the brand message they want to convey, and how we can achieve our desire to be the most innovative sport “To be able to reconcile being a team,” said Schuler. “If we can bring a third-party partner into the mix to provide data, insights and ads that are the first of their kind in an NFL stadium, you have a home run.”

The bigger game

The partnership between the Rams and Verizon is just one part of Genius Sports’ broader strategy to connect leagues and their sponsors with fans using game data. Earlier this month, Genius Sports brought its 20 years of collected sports information into a new platform – FANHub – designed to streamline the sports media buying process for marketers.