featured image

Michael Schreiber calls his start-up the biggest sports network you’ve never heard of, and that’s okay.

Nearly two years ago, the former executive of Comcast Corp. Chester County sports advertising company Playfly Sports LLC, which now reaches 83% of U.S. sports fans and generates 230 billion ad impressions per year across 8,500 professional and college television games, streaming platforms, digital banners, radio shows, and newsletters.

It’s half of a mini-boom of sports tech companies in Berwyn with two companies and connections to Comcast. Playfly’s offices are located in a former runway on the outbound side of SEPTA’s Paoli/Thorndale line. Epoxy.ai, also a start-up founded by former Comcast executives, rents offices on the inbound tracks of the line, a stone’s throw from PlayFly. Epoxy.ai personalizes sports betting via mobile phones.

Monetizing the involvement of sports fans is what this is all about: Playfly through advertising and Epoxy.ai through betting. And the former Comcast executives know all about the economics of big-money sports, the persistence of sports TV ratings and the squeezing of value out of sports media rights.

“It was hard working on the programming side of Comcast without being involved in sports,” said Chris Reynolds, an Epoxy.ai co-founder who knew Schreiber and worked with him at the Philadelphia company.

Schreiber’s idea was to create a sports platform for national brands like TD Ameritrade or BMW to reach regional sports fans without those brands calling around to local sports teams. For example, an alcoholic beverage company could advertise hard-seltzer drinks in New York and low-calorie beers in Los Angeles “with one bill,” Schreiber said.

The sports advertising market is huge and diffuse. About 800 brands collectively spent $6.2 billion on advertising during NFL broadcasts during the 2020-21 season, according to an ad research firm and reported by the Sports Business Journal. The NFL is just one league and most of the ads are national. Playfly mines sports advertising on a regional level.

Andrey Mikhailichenko, a business professor at California State University in Sacramento, said sports fans are five times more likely to remember brands advertised during college or professional games than they are to remember the brand advertised during movies or general entertainment.

To jump out of the box quickly, Playfly has acquired seven companies that support Schreiber’s vision for more than $100 million, giving it access to a technology platform and ad inventory for professional baseball, basketball, and hockey games it can sell. to national advertisers. The main deals were three former Fox Corp. companies: Home Team Sports, Impression Sports and FOX Sports College Properties. Other acquisitions allow Playfly to sell sponsorships to colleges and sell name rights to arenas.

Schreiber declined to provide revenue for the private company, but said it was profitable. In addition to Schreiber, Sinclair Broadcast Group and Baltimore investment company Access Holdings have invested in Playfly.

Sports fans remember five times more brands advertised during college or professional games than during movies or general entertainment.

Andrey Mikhailichenko, California State University

The company has 50 employees in Berwyn. On its website, Playfly has posted job openings in Berwyn of Philadelphia. Playfly has 350 employees in other parts of the country, with openings in New York; El Segundo, California; Atlanta; Chicago; and Detroit. In addition, Playfly hires about 300 contractors.

In July, the Orlando Sentinel reported that Playfly had entered into a 13-year deal with the University of Central Florida, agreeing to pay the institution $125 million for its media rights.

“Playfly is betting they’ll make more than $125 million paying off Central Florida” for those rights, said Kirk Wakefield, a professor of retail marketing and sports advertising expert at Baylor University in Texas.

Playfly and UCF have confirmed in press releases that they have struck a deal. They did not disclose the financial terms.

In college sports, Playfly is up against heavyweight Learfield, owned by the investment fund Atairos Group Inc., Wakefield said. Atairos also has links to Comcast – deep. Michael Angelakis, former Chief Financial Officer of Comcast, is in charge of Atairos, located in Bryn Mawr and approximately nine miles from Playfly’s offices. Comcast agreed to fund Atairos with $4 billion.

Sports advertising used to be about a mass audience. But Wakefield said brands now want to know that their ads have “changed the minds and behavior” of consumers, he said. “The organization that can get in with that kind of data will win the day.”

For some fans, sports games and arenas already feel saturated with advertising.

“Satiety can occur when you are overloaded [teams] with easy money,” said Mikhailichenko, the Sacramento professor, pointing to professional hockey jerseys in Europe that had multiple brand logos on them.

But he also believes there is an “endless market” for sports marketing, as advertisers can segment audiences and target fan groups by demographics, lifestyle, geography, or behavior.

The proximity of the Playfly and Epoxy.ai offices is no coincidence. Towns in the western suburbs are Comcast bedroom communities accessible by Regional Rail, which also carries reverse commuters from Philadelphia to Berwyn.

Epoxy.ai “had a great team living mostly in Center City, and they had to be okay with a reverse commute,” Reynolds said. “And there’s nothing better to do than get off the train and walk to your office.”

Reynolds also said it was great to see spin-offs and start-ups in the region clustering similarly, albeit on a smaller scale, with Silicon Valley or other innovation hubs.

Schreiber, 46, a Baltimore native who worked at NBCUniversal, moved to the Philadelphia area when Comcast bought NBCUniversal in 2011.

“The goal was to take everything on the television in your living room and make it available on digital platforms like the iPhone,” Schreiber said of his first Comcast project.

Schreiber negotiated content deals for Comcast and said he realized that major advertisers can reach a general sports audience on ESPN and other national networks. But they couldn’t easily reach local sports fans who are the most passionate and valued eyeballs for advertisers.

In 2016, Schreiber left Comcast to take on a new position as chief content officer at Altice USA, a New York-based cable television and broadband provider. He didn’t want to move his family to Paoli, so he commuted by train to Altice’s offices.

Schreiber left Altice in June 2020 and a few months later he launched Playfly and started looking for a local headquarters. “I didn’t want to be in a strip square somewhere,” Schreiber said.

He was enamored with the Berywn Theatre, which opened its doors in 1913 and brought Broadway plays to the suburbs. Later uses included a roller skating rink and then law firms.

After $2 million in renovations, Schreiber opened the Playfly offices in the building in May. An indoor basketball court was placed in the excavated basement, and employees’ desks jingle above the court like a press box. Outdoor grass was laid on that ground floor, like a football field. Professional and college team banners cover walls. There is a gym and areas to hang out.

Before the interview, Schreiber threw a basketball. “Make a foul shot. You have to make one for every meeting.”