PlayOn! Sports Acquires Digital Scout

PlayOn! Sports acquired Columbus, Ohio-based Digital Scout, a leader in high school sports statistics tracking and live gamecasts. Digital Scout’s content adds depth and breadth to PlayOn’s existing consumer offering of live and on-demand video. The acquisition closed on Friday, February 14 and Digital Scout content will be fully integrated across PlayOn’s suite of products by the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year.

During the 2013-2014 school year, PlayOn will deliver live video broadcasts of more than 40,000 high school sporting events to fans across a wide variety of distribution platforms.  The destination for these events is the NFHS Network (www.NFHSnetwork.com), a joint venture between the NFHS, its member state associations and PlayOn.  Digital Scout’s play-by-play gamecasts and full box scores will be integrated into these live broadcasts, providing fans with the ability to watch the action while simultaneously tracking live in-game statistics.  In addition, the detailed play-by-play statistics will allow fans to search on-demand videos for specific plays, players, or highlights.  Digital Scout will also bring tens of thousands of additional events to the NFHS Network where live video is not available.  These live gamecasts will allow fans to follow live statistics and score updates for their favorite schools, teams, and sports.

“Digital Scout offers PlayOn the opportunity to create a more comprehensive and robust viewer experience for fans of high school sports,” said David Rudolph, CEO of PlayOn! Sports.  “By the start of the next school year, Digital Scout will significantly expand the number of live events on the NFHS Network, and the integration of live video with live statistics will create an unmatched consumer experience.”

Digital Scout was developed over seventeen years ago as a coaching tool, and now partners with more than 11,000 high schools that use at least one of their scoring applications.  Digital Scout’s easy-to-use mobile stat tracking apps allow high school sports teams to collect statistics and track team and player performances in real time.  Each stat tracking program is fully customizable and offers coaches access to in-depth player and team reports.  Stat tracking apps are currently available for football, basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball, soccer, hockey and track.

“We are very excited about joining the PlayOn! Sports team,” said Nathan Heerdt, CEO of Digital Scout.  “Integrating our live statistical content with live video broadcasts is a natural next step for our company and we are thrilled to join an organization that has the same passion and excitement for high school sports and its fans as we do.”

For the remainder of the 2013-2014 school year, fans will continue to access live and post-game gamecasts at HS Game Center (www.hsgamecenter.com).  By the beginning of the 2014-2015 school year, Digital Scout’s content will be fully integrated into the NFHS Network and its related products.

“This is another step in making the NFHS Network the premier destination for live and on demand high school sports,” said Rudolph.  “Digital Scout puts us several steps closer to our ultimate goal of covering every high school event so that fans and family members will never have to miss a moment.”