By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
The world of sports and sports licensing is changing, and part of that change is generational. Older fans are figuratively handing over the baton to a new generation with very different ideas of what sports they want to watch, and how they want to watch it.
At the very heart of that change is a company called Overtime which has rapidly become a sports, marketing, and licensing giant, fuelled by an irreverent approach to sports and fan engagement.
If you haven’t heard of Overtime yet, don’t worry; your kids probably have. The company is growing at a shocking pace, and now has its own basketball and football leagues, as well as a boxing promotion. It has more than 100 million rabid fans and followers in the US and abroad who tune in to Overtime content via TikTok, YouTube, and other social channels, racking up an impressive 3 billion+ views a month.
And at its heart is a sports empire made up of star next generation high school athletes, who are attracting millions of followers now becoming celebrities with their own fan base, licensing deals, and agents, and are sourcing their own brand deals through NIL (name, image and likeness) agreements.
Just eight years ago, the founders of Overtime had the idea of covering sports in a different way. Rather than relying on the multimillion dollar video setups you’d see at the NBA or the NFL, Overtime’s first venture was to have fans themselves filming highlights at high school sports games, using the Overtime app, which they could then post to the brand’s channels.
Chief Brand Officer Tyler Rutstein says the concept took off in a big way, but also highlighted a problem with major league sports.
“The genesis of Overtime really happened when our CEO and founder Dan Porter (in photo at top, and at left) was fielding a lot of calls from all the major leagues, who were basically concerned about their viewership,” Rutstein explained. “With viewership declining, and the average fan being 42-plus years old, some of the stadiums were thinking they might have to retool their suites as WeWork spaces! But Dan and our co-founder and president Zack Wiener figured out that the real problem was that no one was creating sports content in a way Gen Z likes to consumer content.”
Initially Overtime focused on short-form content, highlights of high school athletes, captured on an iPhone app. “Basically you’re recording the game, and then when you see the dunk or the highlight, you press a button and it records the last 15 seconds and the next 15 seconds automatically, uploads it to our mainframe with or without good Wi- Fi,” Rutstein says. “We can then watermark it, log it and so we were the first ones to really some of the most viewedpost all of those highlights.”
That initial success also highlighted something that few people were looking at the time, which was the inherent popularity of high school sports in America. popularity , that was then amplified with Name, Image and Likeness deals for college and or high school athletes,.
Suddenly, talented athletes could actually make a living at their sports, and brands began working with younger players whose talent on the court or the field was amplified by their skills with social media and their connection with the next generation fan.
“We basically started with a niche focus that everyone else bet against, because everyone thought no one really cares about high school sports,” Rutstein recalls. “So, we started showing up at high school gyms all over the country. We had a network of contractors who shoot games for us. Turns out this was content a lot of people wanted to see, and media players like Bleacher Report and ESPN started reposting Overtime. We grew organically because we were the only ones covering the space.”
It didn’t hurt that players Zion Williamson and Trae Young later became NBA stars, whose stories and skills were originally highlighted on Overtime.
Overtime’s rapid growth on social media attracted major investors, and with a healthy war chest behind it, the company began working on longer form content with the launch of OT Films which included awith a docuseries on Cade Cunningham and Justin Fields.
The social media videos and documentaries were hugely popular, but it was when the team at Overtime decided to create their own professional leagues that the company really took off. And that happened, Rutstein says, because the company’s leadership sat down to listen to players, coaches and parents at the first-time event called the Overtime Takeover.
“2019 was a big year for Overtime, because our eyes were opened to the flaws in the existing system for high school sports,” Rutstein says. In May, we held the Overtime Takeover, where we hosted many of the country’s top basketball players and their families, and our conversations made it clear the system was broken.”
Overtime then met with top prospects and their parents, and learned there were three main problems that needed to be solved. The first was to improve player development; the second was to improve the focus on academics and applicable skills training for athletes, and the third was to help players realize their market value, and make a living from their sport.”
Overtime responded by literally remaking high school sports, creating their own professional leagues in which players are paid a minimum of $100,000, but also get help with their education and learning skills that would help them in their sports careers.
Thanks to the overturning of the ban on NIL income, the athletes could also participate in the league, and still go on to attend college.
Overtime works to benefit its young athletes while they’re in the league, Rutstein says, which helps them, but also helps the league.
When we first started (the basketball league) Overtime Elite (OTE), it was maybe 25% of players had representation,” Rutstein says. “Now almost all of them do. Sometimes their parent is also their representative, but now they all have agents or managers, particularly in terms of what stature they have in being bound for the NBA, or if their social following is really high and they’re getting a lot of inbound brand deals.
“When the NCAA changed the rules around NIL, that gave our players a lot more options, so they can also become our influencers for all of our brand partnerships and for our own apparel, but they’re also eligible to go on and play college basketball.”
The rapid growth of Overtime really is quite mind boggling. The company was only founded in 2016 and raised $2.5 million in a seed round with the Greycroft fund and former NBA commissioner David Stern.
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In 2019 Overtime announced a partnership with MSG Network to develop simulcasts for NBA Games, and by that time had raised another $21.5 million in capital. That was also the year of the fateful Overtime Takeover event that led the company to launch its own leagues.
To do so, the company raised $80 million from major investors like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, and a number of NBA players like Trae Young, who was featured so prominently in early Overtime videos.
The Overtime Elite basketball league tipped off in 2021, but the next year, in 2022, the company got an even bigger boost when the entrepreneur, investor, and television personality Daymond John joined the company’s board of directors. John is the founder, president, and CEO of FUBU, an investor and star of the ABC reality TV series Shark Tank, and founder of The Shark Group.
In June 2022, Overtime launched a low-contact, seven-on-seven football league called OT7, and by August the company raised another $100 million led by Counterpoint Global (Morgan Stanley) and Liberty Media Corporation.
In October 2023, Overtime announced a multi-year partnership with adidas as the exclusive apparel and footwear sponsor of Overtime Elite, OT7, and Overtime Select. In November 2023, Overtime and the NFL announced a partnership that allowed Overtime behind-the-scenes access to produce content at key events, including the Super Bowl, the Pro Bowl, Combine and the draft.
In addition to its football and boy’s basketball leagues, Overtime now has a girl’s basketball league called Overtime Select and a boxing promotion called OTX, which staged its first fight series in August 2023.
But, as Overtime rolls out its leagues, Rutstein says the company hasn’t forgotten the Gen Z aesthetic that got them where they are today. Unlike major league broadcasts, Overtime games remain irreverently funny, with broadcast teams who speak like the fans.
“There’s this one group called AMP, which stands for Any Means Possible,” Rutstein says. “They’re these six guys who all live in a house in Atlanta and they’re absolutely huge Twitch streamers and content creators. The most famous one is called Kai Cenet, who won Twitch streamer of the year.
“These guys are not your typical sports broadcasters,” Rutstein adds. “They do a ton of comedic and really funny YouTube series and shows, but we brought them in to broadcast our games because they do the play by play. They are absolutely hilarious, but the really important thing is, they talk just like our audience.”
Thanks to its Gen Z approach to sports, Overtime has grown remarkably quickly, and with the millions of eyeballs now focused on its various leagues and teams, the company has attracted a wide variety of licensing partners.
In fact, licensing and merchandise has always been a core part of the business, and Overtime apparel is a huge business in itself. Their e-commerce portal has posted swift sell-through, with many collections selling out within weeks of launch, and the company’s brick and mortar business is also growing. After launching a 50 store test at PacSun, Overtime merch is now offered at more than 100 PacSun stores across the country.
But the company really accelerated its licensing activity when it signed on with The Brand Liaison as its exclusive agency.
“Daymond John sits on the board of Overtime, and (The Brand Liaison CEO) Steven Heller And Daymond have a ton of partnerships and are close friends. So I spoke to Daymond, and he introduced me to Steven and The Brand Liaison, and we decided let’s go for it, let’s start working through different types of opportunities.”
Those opportunities are already coming fast. Overtime teams are encouraged to find names that are rooted in Gen Z culture, and one of those teams, JellyFam from New York City, recently inked a major licensing deal with Nickelodeon and its enduring hit show SpongeBob Squarepants, which remains the most watched animated series in the world after 22 seasons.
Uniforms are now being co-branded, SpongeBob and his sidekick Patrick are mascots at the games, and a collection of co-branded merchandise is launching this month on shop.overtime.tv , including a limited-edition collection of hoodies, shirts, shorts and pajama pants.
Rutstein says Overtime’s new drive for branded collaborations represents a significant opportunity for companies in the licensing industry, particularly those trying to reach a younger audience.
“We’re really interested in working at a deeper level than most of our competitors, because we want to be involved in good storytelling, which is really the cornerstone of our business,” Rutstein says. “We’re able to truly execute across all of those fronts, including with NFL and NBA players and influencers, and with our own talent.
“So, for me, I think we’re now primed at a place that no one else can be at, and if you have an opportunity from a licensing standpoint to work with Overtime, you can expect the best of the best.”
Right now, for example, Overtime is seeking global partnerships in the areas of HBA/Body sprays, branded throws, and kinesiology tape, and outside North America, the company is seeking partners for regular and performance apparel and accessories.
The company will also be working at Licensing Expo through its agency The Brand Liaison.
For those interested in licensing opportunities with Overtime, the contacts at the Brand Liaison agency are either Steven Heller or Laurie Smith, available by email at Steven@thebrandliaison.com and Laurie@thebrandliaison.com.
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