Buzzer ‘Winding Down Operations’ Despite Promising Start

The company’s official Twitter account released a statement announcing the decision and thanking its users over the last several years.

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Buzzer, a mobile application centered around short-form live sports content initially as a direct-to-consumer platform, is “winding down” its operations due to fundraising developments and market conditions. The company recently transitioned into being a technology provider and partnered with the National Hockey League, National Basketball Association and PGA Tour on various projects.

Buzzer was initially founded by Bo Han with the mission to connect Gen Z sports fans with their favorite leagues and teams. The company’s official Twitter account released a statement announcing the decision and thanking its users over the last several years.

Han was critical in expanding Twitter’s presence in sports as the leader of live sports rights acquisitions for over seven years. In building the Buzzer brand, he wanted to appeal to younger generations of consumers and centered the programming interface on instant gratification.

Whether it was through mobile notifications or instant highlights, the operation intended to reach different segments of the marketplace and raised $44 million in total investment. Prominent athletes involved in the funding of the platform included Michael Jordan, Wayne Kretzky, Kevin Durant and Patrick Mahomes. Buzzer’s app was officially shut down on May 19 to focus on “Powered by Buzzer.” That effort has abruptly concluded.

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The company was looking to license technology related to sports notifications and had deals with the subscription service DAZN and sports betting company, FanDuel. Moreover, microtransactions were a key factor to its business model, a space that is still early in its development in terms of using it to access content.

Ultimately, the app wanted to give users the ability to tune into a game live through informing them of action via a push notification. While the concept has the potential to work down the road, Buzzer will not be moving any further into the space.

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“The game was discussed on multiple national sports shows Thursday morning.”

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The sports media took notice of women’s college volleyball Wednesday night. The University of Nebraska hosted a crowd of 92,000, the largest in world history to watch a women’s sporting event, inside of Memorial stadium in Lincoln.

The Cornhuskers defeated Omaha in straight sets, but bigger story was in the stands.

It as a record setting crowd for women’s sports. It was also the largest crowd Memorial Stadium has drawn for any event in history.

While women’s sports continue to grow in popularity, the scenes emanating from Lincoln was enough to turn even more heads than usual.

The game was discussed on multiple national sports shows Thursday morning.

"That gives me chills just watching that." @golic and @mikegolicjr react to Nebraska Volleyball setting a world attendance record in Memorial Stadium pic.twitter.com/Y1Q6c4XwzM

"I think it's absolutely incredible what happened in Nebraska last night..That was so wonderful to watch and I felt so great for those athletes" ~ @Theismann7#PMSLive pic.twitter.com/cMUUwRQAsi

Other sports media personalities weighed in as well, awestruck by the sight of more people showing up to watch women’s volleyball than have ever poured into the stadium to watch Nebraska’s football team.

Phenomenal!!! 92k for #WomensVolleyball shout out to @HuskerVB and @OmahaVB 🙏🏾🙏🏾 https://t.co/pkBy4M0UAo

Nebraska fans are ABSOLUTELY AMAZING. World Record 92,003 fans at a Women’s sporting event. WHAT A SCENE for this Volleyball game pic.twitter.com/nGqtvAOUBM

This is too cool, Nebraska. pic.twitter.com/RC7FEMjIOG

Soooooooo sick!!!!! https://t.co/psl5mMxiJN

For the record, this is the best story in sports today. https://t.co/jCUwkuMlxp

This is so damn cool. https://t.co/scoOyz0zoE

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Portnoy, who is known as “El Presidente,” stated that the company is in the process of trying to reach a “break-even thing.”

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Barstool Sports is reportedly set to lay off 25% of its 430 employees, according to a recent report from the New York Post. Company founder Dave Portnoy retained control of the company as part of the transaction that ESPN completed with PENN Entertainment to launch ESPN BET, agreeing to a set of conditions to reacquire the brand for $1. About 100 people are expected to lose their jobs on Thursday, and those remaining, according to Portnoy, will need to “step the f**k up.”

Portnoy divulged that Barstool Sports was losing millions of dollars before he bought the company back, leading to nearly $850 million in losses. PENN had fully acquired Barstool Sports earlier this year for $388 million, but had caused impedance towards how the brand is operated to retain its regulatory licenses. When popular personality Ben Mintz uttered a racial slur on a livestream, the parent company demanded he be fired, despite resistance from Portnoy, CEO Erika Ayers Badan and Pardon My Take co-host Dan Katz. As soon as Portnoy became the owner, he immediately re-hired Mintz and welcomed him back to Barstool.

In recent appearances on the Barstool Radio show, Portnoy, who is known as “El Presidente,” stated that the company is in the process of trying to reach a “break-even thing.” Throughout his remarks, he expressed that Barstool is losing a lot and has to make these moves to ensure its prosperity. Portnoy does not like firing people, saying that it is the worst thing he can do but necessary at this point. Throughout the company’s time under the auspices of PENN Entertainment, it added nearly 300 employees and announced plans to open an office in Chicago, Ill.

Barstool held its first Upfront event in New York City last year where the brand accentuated its ability to “move product.” Within its presentations, the company lauded markers of success including 35% year-over-year growth on social media, more than 27 billion video views throughout the year and 85% of listeners being between age 18 and 34. Additionally, the company’s revenue grew 3650% and its workforce expanded 42%, numbers that could look different this year following the ownership change and consequential layoffs.

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“I’m looking forward to doing it a little bit differently here.”

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Chris “The Bear” Fallica will be launching a new digital gambling show and podcast series for FOX Sports, Barrett Sports Media has learned, continuing his indomitable presence on the podcast airwaves. The new property, titled Bear Bets: A FOX Sports Gambling Podcast, will release two episodes per week centered on college football and the National Football League, respectively. Fallica will bring his pristine college football intel to listeners in his new project following his collaboration with “Stanford” Steve Coughlin on their podcast. Coughlin was recently added to College GameDay on ESPN, while Fallica is now a member of Big Noon Kickoff for FOX Sports.

“We had a very successful with ESPN and I think the biggest question I’ve gotten in the offseason is, ‘Are you still going to have a pod with FOX,’” Fallica said. “I’m looking forward to doing it a little bit differently here [and] in a viewable, digital fashion as well. I think that could certainly only help the viewer and the listener.”

“We’re excited to provide ‘Bear’ the space to share gambling insights and real-life, actual bets with fans,” Michael Bucklin, senior vice president of digital content at FOX Sports, added in a statement. “To us, that’s what makes ‘Bear’ so interesting – this isn’t for picks’ sake and this isn’t all chalk, but this is high-value bets ‘The Bear’ and his real-life gambling group chat friends are actually making.”

Fallica chose to leave ESPN at the end of last year, ending his time on College GameDay, on which he worked as a research producer. He had been with the program for over two decades and the network for 27 years, starting as a production assistant and tape operator on its radio operations. For the 2023 season and beyond, he will be competing with the heralded mainstay from the “Worldwide Leader.” The maneuver came together very quickly and cultivated a new chapter of his career as a waging insider for FOX Sports.

“Everything that has happened since I made the decision to leave has reaffirmed that I made the right decision,” Fallica said. “….Everybody at FOX has been fantastic – they’ve treated me like someone who has been there forever. I think one of the things that I noticed in the transition is that FOX Sports is smaller-scale and there aren’t as many employees, so you kind of do get to know everybody on a little bit more of a personal level.”

The show will include contributions from co-host Geoff Schwartz and sports betting analyst Sam Panayotovich, engaging in debates about the upcoming games through the betting lens. Aside from Thursday episodes, presented by Big Noon Kickoff, and Friday editions of the show, special versions will air surrounding other championship events.

After keeping statistics for a New York Knicks game on WFAN, Fallica landed an internship at WFAN where he acclimatized himself with the radio landscape. He was added to the ESPN roster as a researcher in 1996 following working in a similar role for the NCAA Tournament, and ultimately made it on College GameDay as a talent in 2013.

Since then, Fallica has been promulgating and disseminating his insight and expertise on college football and sports betting at large through various outlets, including his popular podcast with ESPN. Now with FOX Sports, he will continue that endeavor, albeit in a new form, and appear on Big Noon Kickoff.

“It kind of goes together,” Fallica said. “The prep for the pod is essentially the prep for the column that will be released each week and Big Noon.”

Through his time with FOX Sports thus far, Fallica has contributed to coverage of horse racing, including the Belmont Stakes, and the FIFA Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. In this new chapter of his career, he looks forward to contributing to coverage outside of solely college football, although that will still be his primary focus. Fallica genuinely places all of the bets he shares with consumers and is fully invested in the action, recognizing the growing niche of the industry.

“I think the ability for people to know, ‘Hey, I’m actually betting these games myself,’ is a big deal,” Fallica said. “….I think the thing that I was most proud of on College GameDay was we were way ahead of the curve on this.”

The new program will make its debut on Thursday, Aug. 31 and commence its twice weekly format next week, aligning with the start of the NFL regular season. Fans can follow the digital venture on social media platforms @BearBetsPodcast, watch new episodes of the show on YouTube and listen on Apple and Spotify.

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