Sports and Entrepreneurship

The Orlando Sentinel yesterday ran a very nice story on a neat entrepreneurial company…XOS Digital. If you’re not familiar with the company, that’s probably OK but rest assured that all of your favorite college and NFL football teams, along with teams in the NBA and NHL know this organization very well. For those teams, XOS can be the difference between winning and losing. XOS was founded by Dan Aton in 1999 after he did some work for the Orlando Magic. Today, XOS is the dominant player in the digital sports space serving “more than 480 partners representing more than 900 teams in the NCAA, NFL, NBA, and NHL.” Dan is a great entrepreneur who took an interest and passion, and matched it up with a problem in the marketplace and in the process created a successful enterprise. For entrepreneurs and sports fans, the article is an interesting one to read: Lake Mary Company XOS Digital provides data for many college, pro sports teams.

ESPN and Corporate Innovation

Sometimes, even big companies can be entrepreneurial. One of my favorite websites is ESPN.com and along with their TV channels, are the go-to place for folks like me who love sports. Thanks to Sean Branagan, take a look at the article: ESPN bypasses corporate red tape with iPad and Xbox360.

I particularly love the line, “Put simply, ESPN's techies have no interest in wasting months and years creating proprietary IP that they could theoretically sell to others in the future. Instead, they're interested in serving the fan, and serving the fan involves using whatever tools are readily available in order to push the envelope faster than the competition.” For ESPN, it’s all about serving their core customer…the fan. They aren’t taking their eye of the ball, and they are remembering that it all begins and ends with getting content to the fan, and making their experience…FUN!