TheScore founder and CEO John Levy jokes that at least part of Furious 7’s worldwide box office – US$800 million and counting in just two weeks – is down to Universal Pictures’ promotion of the film via the company’s mobile app.
“I’d like to take a lot of the credit because they were advertising with us,” said Levy on Tuesday, as he discussed a “stupendous” second quarter for theScore that produced a 68% increase in revenue and a 70% jump – to 264 million – in the number of average monthly interactions with its suite of apps.
“It probably has something to do with the millions of dollars they’ve spent with the universe, but it’s great for us because it performs like content,” added Levy. “They do neat stuff, and that’s the stuff that works so well in our space.”
Universal’s promotion of Furious 7 with theScore was built around the NCAA’s March Madness tournament, and included custom content incorporating key words and themes from the movie – such as a “Quick Exits” feature relating to first-round upsets.
TheScore’s March Madness partners also included Subway and Werner Ladder, the company that manufactures the ladders that teams making it to the tournament’s final four climb on to cut off the nets.
Various advertising partners including movie studios, sportswear/sports equipment manufacturers and QSR chains helped contribute to a 78% increase in advertising revenue that helped push theScore’s total revenues for the three months ended Feb. 28 up 32% to $3.2 million. (TheScore posted a net loss of $2.84 million for the quarter, compared with $950,000 in the same period last year.)
The company also reported a 100% increase in monthly active users to 10 million, with active monthly users of its mobile apps increasing 15% to 4.6 million and average monthly users of its mobile web platform increasing 446% to 5.4 million.
While acknowledging that theScore’s flagship app is a “challenger brand” to established properties like ESPN globally, Levy said theScore is “way out in front” in its home market – a position he is keen to maintain.
“From our perspective, the name of the game is to continue to expand our user base, continue to get the brand out there through social media…and keep making sure it’s amazing,” said Levy.
During The Masters this past weekend, theScore saw an average 160% increase in the number of daily users. The company partnered with Nike Golf on a promotion that included a custom “Round Recap” featuring a Nike logo alongside banner ads and social media content.
At the end of each of the tournament’s four rounds, theScore pushed and pinned Nike sponsored content to both PGA fans and the app’s “Top News” section. Features on Tiger Woods and Rory McIlroy also included Nike branding, while theScore also pushed to the recent “Ripple” ad featuring the two golfers.
The quarter also saw theScore close a deal to acquire the daily fantasy sports game Swoopt, providing it with a strategic entry point into the daily fantasy sports space; it also launched a new mobile app, theScore eSports, dedicated solely to competitive video gaming.
Levy said the company’s decision to transition to a mobile-first business with the 2012 sale of its sports specialty channel to Rogers Communications provided both the capital and the leeway to build the business that exists today.
“To me it was a great deal,” he said. “Even as progressive as [The Score] was, it still hindered our ability to do what we ultimately wanted to do in the digital world. We had one foot in one camp, one foot in the other camp. We loved both products…but this is where the future is. We weren’t making that decision, the users were.”
While theScore doesn’t provide guidance, Levy remained bullish on the company’s future, particularly as media consumption moves to mobile. “I have no reason to believe the trend we’re seeing isn’t going to continue and accelerate,” he said, noting that its U.S. sales office is currently developing “six and seven-figure deals” with advertisers in that market.
“We’re not winning every battle, but we’re winning more and more of them,” he said. “I don’t even think about whether it’s going to happen, it’s more a matter of how and when.”
