ESPN added CSM Sports as one of its main partners in the ESPN Edge Innovation Center where he joined Accenture, Microsoft and Meta. This news was shared at the media company’s fourth annual innovation event in New York, as was the development of a new ESPN Tailgate destination in Meta’s Horizon Worlds VR experience.

“ESPN has been one of our best partners in pushing us to innovate,” CSM Sports co-founder Aviv Arnon told SBJ. “They’re really trying to do things differently, and the sheer scale of their content and what they need to do as a company gives us a lot of opportunities to innovate and impact their bottom line. So being part of Edge means having access as a partner to see under the hood what their next big challenges are and change direction with them, on the areas where they really need to invest more and more .

The ESPN tailgate part of The Horizon worlds of Meta will include VR games, such as Cornhole and Home Run Derby, as well as an interactive video element where fans can pretend to be broadcasters and share the clips on social media.

“Community and connection are a very important part of what we all love about the sports experience, and we are launching for the first time, soon, a fully embodied 3D environment and sports playground called ESPN Tailgate, where you can, like an incarnated avatar, play games with other sports fans,” Sarah Malkin, Metaverse Entertainment Director, said on stage.

“But my favorite part is that you can actually stand behind the First Take broadcast presenter’s desk and be recorded giving your own take on the hottest and most controversial sports topics of the moment. “

The Famous Group is opening a new headquarters in Kaiserslautern, Germany, to serve its growing customer base in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The office will be led by VP/Production Technology Erik Beaumont, who told SBJ that the company currently has three EMEA-focused employees, and is in the process of hiring “one or two” more and that it will grow from there in the years to come. .

“We’re getting a lot more (international) requests, and especially with these on-site, on-the-ground activations, bringing people in from the (United States) just doesn’t make sense,” Beaumont said. “We will cover the entire EMEA region from this location.”

Los Angeles-based Famous Group provides what it calls “immersive services” to more than 300 locations in 15 different countries. These offerings essentially fall into two pillars: products, like its popular fan engagement solution Vixi Suite, and services, like the mixed reality panther it produced for the NFL game in Munich over the weekend. last last.

Most of Famous Group’s clients are based in the United States, but the company has added several key international partners this year, including AC Milan, Atletico Madrid and the German Bundesliga. Famous Group also completed a project around the Paris Olympic Games this summer and recently activated Vixi Suite around a boxing match in Riyadh.

“Until this year, it would have been 95% in the United States,” Beaumont said of Famous Group’s customer base. “Now we’re seeing a trend where it’s maybe 85 or 80 percent.”

To meet demand in other regions, Beaumont is considering a multilingual business development manager as a key hire for the EMEA office. Adding operational staff will also be a priority.

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Speaking last night at the fourth annual ESPN Edge Innovation Conference in New York, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro has shared a few more details about what the media giant’s direct-to-consumer product will look like when it launches in early fall 2025.

“We’re not just going to make our content, our networks, our games, our studio programming direct to consumer,” Pitaro said. “We will do this with significant product improvements.”

Dubbed Flagship, the DTC subscription will use AI to create an optional personalized SportsCenter on top of the traditional broadcast, which Pitaro stressed would not go away, calling it a gem and a big part of the DNA of the network. Flagship should have more interactivity and customization, with connections to ESPN Bet, Fantasy and even merchandise.

“I’ve never been more excited about anything I’ve been attached to or worked on, mainly because I’m a sports fan,” Pitaro said.