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genz:
around the campfire

Overtime: Gen Z's New Fave Sports Network

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Overtime.TV:

  • A distributed sports network available across Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, on TV (through a partnership with regional sports network SportsNet New York) and through Overtime.tv itself.   They report  50 million followers across all of its social media channels and receives 1.7 billion views a month.

  • Overtime's coverage helped introduce a number of young high school athletes to national audience, including Rex Cassady, Trae Young, Jordan McCabe and Shareef O'Neal.

  • Programming is provided by a network of paid contributors, who attend games and upload highlights in real-time from their mobile phones using a special app that makes it easy to capture and produce highlights. 

 

Overtime Elite:​

  • In 2021, Overtime announced that it was forming a new professional basketball league called Overtime Elite that will pay 16, 17 and 18 year olds  a $100,000 salary and offer equity in the company. Players would have to forego playing traditional high school or 

  • Kevin Ollie was hired as head coach of Overtime Elite in April 2021. The league signed 5-star rated players Matt and Ryan Bewley as the league's first signings and NBA prospect Jean Montero from the Dominican Republic as its first international signing.

  • Former NBA Executive Aaron Ryan serves as Overtime Elite Commissioner and President and Former NBA-Champion and Sacramento Kings executive Brandon Williams is the league's Head of Basketball Operations. Carmelo Anthony, Jay Williams, Dan Porter, Zack Weiner and Aaron Ryan are on OTE's board of directors with potentially others to be added

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Gen Z and Gaming: Its a Way of Life

  • Vast Majority of Generation Z Is Gaming At Least Weekly: A new digital media trends survey suggests that Gen Z might be turning away from television and embracing gaming as their primary entertainment.

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  • While "watching TV and movies at home" still proved the most popular entertainment activity, Generation Z looks to have the potential to buck that trend before long. 26% of Gen Z-ers put "playing video games" as their top option.

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GenZ: Not necessarily "video" first

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  • Gaming is projected to be a $94 billion industry by 2024

  • With 90% of Gen-Zers in the video gaming ring, it’s time for a broader range of brands to enter the fight for their attention.  

  • Not convinced? One study found that 33% of Fortnite players spend 6 to 10 hours per week playing, and 15% of high school and college students report missing either school or work to play. 

  • Though in-game ads are not available now for all games and platforms – in the future they could be and Amazon is banking on it. So much so, that they launched a rival game to Fortnite, called New World Order.

Gen-Zers are "in the video game ring" 

90%

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Why Gen-Z Chooses Video Games: 

  • Video games are clearly shown in the report to be a huge part of people's lives. A whopping 87% of Gen Z respondents report playing video games in some form at least weekly, with many playing daily for escapism, to connect with friends, or simply to pass the time.

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  • On top of that, 45% of all respondents reported subscribing to at least one paid gaming service like Xbox Game Pass, with gamers allegedly having, on average, three active gaming subscription services. 

 

Source: Deloitte Insights and GameRant, by Maximillian Fagandini, 4/19/21

Gaming Events  Become Cultural Moments:

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How Brands Can Join the Top GenZ Gaming Campfire

  • Branded Sponsorships/Partnerships

    • Following its mission of empowering women, dating app Bumble formed a partnership with the multinational esports brand Gen.G to create Team Bumble, an all-female esports team that competes in Fortnite.

    • Fashion powerhouse Louis Vuitton has brought its brand into gaming in multiple ways. They designed the case for the League of Legends World Championship trophy and introduced clothing, known as skins in gaming, which could be purchased by players for their in-game avatars. To complement the digital versions, Louis Vuitton also created a 47-piece real-world clothing line that sold out within an hour of launching

 

  • Blended in Game Ads

    • Advertisers can place ads on billboards, signage, player jerseys, or any other in-game object.  Using advanced ad tech, brands use programmatic campaigns to align  with  player’s interests by leveraging  targeting options while still compliant with  data privacy regulations. ​

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Gatorade added its logo to coolers, which are seen as coaches talk to players during 60-second timeouts during NBA 2K19 

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Samsung ran  ads across  video games: via in-game billboards as players raced through virtual worlds and splashed across soccer stadium fields. 

Top Games in 2021:
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Gen Z TV: Top Ten Tune In 

Top TV as Voted by GEN Z:

  1. Euphoria

  2. Sex Education

  3. The End of the F***ing World

  4. I Am Not OK with This

  5. On My Block

  6. Atypical

  7. Big Mouth

  8. Elite

  9. The Society

  10. Trinkets

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Zillenials -  Top 10 Shows Right Now:

  1. Grey’s Anatomy

  2. The Boys

  3. Lucifer

  4. Power

  5. Family Guy

  6. Stranger Things

  7. The Walking Dead

  8. All American

  9. Riverdale

  10. The 100

Source: Ranker.com

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Source:  YPulse

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