Digital Sports Network Overtime Launches Snapchat Series On High School Games

Digital sports network Overtime announced the launch of Hype School, a weekly Snapchat series about high school athletics.

Hype School’s first episode went live this morning on Snapchat’s Discover page. The show features high school sports highlights edited in a style typical of the platform it calls home. Episodes feature quick cuts and look much more like a friend’s Snapchat video than an ESPN recap.

Dan Porter, CEO and co-founder of Overtime, called the series “the young, energetic cousin of the traditional sports wrap-up show.” His aim is to make the series accessible to Snapchat’s teenage and young adult viewers, especially because it stars their “peers.”

Both Overtime and Snapchat have younger audience bases than “traditional” TV sports networks like ESPN. The digital sports network and the social platform cater largely to 13 through 24-year-olds. Overtime does this by sharing its content across social platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube as opposed to linear television.

A recent Ampere Analysis survey found that TV audiences between ages 18 and 24 were less interested in sports entertainment than older viewers, reported Deadline. “Creating a show tailored for Snapchat’s audience was a total no-brainer,” Porter said in a statement.

Sports content has been migrating to social, digital spaces for some time. Back in February 2017, ESPN’s SportsCenter started distributing original online shorts across social platforms, and NFL games have been streaming on platforms like Twitter and Amazon Prime for the past couple of years. This fall, you’ll be able to find select NFL games on Twitch.

New Hype School episodes will come out every Friday at 6 AM EST. Older episodes will remain available on Snapchat, which viewers can find using the Search feature.