BAYSIDE, CALIFORNIA, August 5, 2020 — Pioneering SaaS-based streaming and podcast solutions provider StreamGuys continues to generate strong business with professional sports leagues and teams. The Carolina Panthers represent the latest sports franchise to leverage StreamGuys’ professional SaaS toolset and robust content delivery network, allowing them to flexibly create and deliver live and on-demand content to fans everywhere.
The professional football team has long embraced digital media and live streaming to diversify how they cover the organization. Taking notice that an increasing number of sports clubs worldwide were self-producing innovative content, it wanted to be at forefront of that movement. In addition to live simulcasts of gameday radio broadcasts, the Panthers’ digital media and broadcast teams have viewed podcasting as an engaging way to connect with audiences.
“Podcasting has allowed us to strengthen our innovation and provide more content to our fans,” said David Langton, Executive Producer for Radio, Carolina Panthers. “At the same time, we can serve the needs of our sponsors through smart and compelling storytelling. We see this as a new generation of audio production and digital communication.”
Pictured Above: A behind-the-scenes look with the Panther hosts at work on their next podcast episode.
Langton and his colleague, Matt Hogan, connected with StreamGuys to propel their digital media strategy forward. Familiar with StreamGuys’ work with the football league and other league teams, Langton and Hogan approached StreamGuys with the goal of differentiating their approach from their peers. “Their relationship with the league opened the door, but it was their willingness to innovate and be flexible that sealed the deal,” said Langton. “Their approach has helped us deliver our podcasts over multiple platforms, without any geographical constrictions. With every new request we make, the latest being a request to add Alexa skills, they quickly return with a solution that moves us forward.”
StreamGuys’ SGrecast software plays an instrumental role in quick and efficient podcast production for the team. The robust and efficient SaaS-based toolset automates the creation of podcasts, side channels and rebroadcasts, which makes Hogan’s front-end production work much quicker and simpler.
“The majority of my day is spent working with Adobe editing software, and StreamGuys takes over once the editing job is complete,” said Hogan, the Carolina Panthers’ Radio Production Associate. “I just need to upload the content to the SGrecast interface, and add titles and descriptions. I can also create shorter clips for social media through the video generator, which provides high-quality thumbnails of each scene. The processing is very quick, and it looks very professional upon delivery.”
StreamGuys automatically populates the podcasts to the Panthers website, as well as other podcasting platforms including Google Play, iTunes, Spotify and Stitcher. Hogan can also create video clips for use in future podcasts and save them within the SGrecast interface, which he compares to the simplicity of using a WordPress blog engine. The workflow not only accelerates the process of creating and publishing podcasts – it also allows Hogan to focus on other tasks throughout the workday.
Pictured Above: Panthers' Matt Hogan on the job with SGrecast at his fingertips.
“We produce 11 weekly podcasts, and their processes save me hours of production work each week,” said Hogan. “We don’t have to worry about having a hosting site, set up RSS feeds, or have coding background. They have helped us elevate our digital strategy without complicated workflows. There are only four or five franchises in the league producing as many podcasts as we are.”
The diversity of the Panthers’ podcasting content is a treat for fans, many of which are personality-driven podcasts that highlight former players, press conferences, gameday previews, and even more pop-culture-friendly podcasts around fantasy football and football-related entertainment. Langton adds that they also produced Spanish-language podcasts last season, and within all podcasts they are working in live reads of sponsor advertisements, which he explains as an organic way to monetize their efforts.
“We are looking at digital media as a universe with no boundaries, and StreamGuys is helping us reach the broadest digital audience possible,” said Langton. “They are allowing us to focus on innovative creation and pushing the limits on the front end, as opposed to being in the weeds with the technology. Our only challenge is to continue to find new opportunities to diversify and expand our programming into areas we haven’t yet touched.”