We’re in Day Three of the winter weather at-home protocol with the kiddos. I’ve taught them to forage, track and even build a fire in their respective rooms as we battle this lingering snow and sleet.
Thursday, we sharpen sticks and go on our first hunt. My 19-month-old is concerningly stealthy.
Social media measurement firm Videocites has a new name: Ripple Analytics. Ripple Analytics
Eyal Arad has had to adapt plenty in his 12 years as co-founder and CEO of the artificial intelligence-powered social media measurement platform Videocites.
His company first specialized in anti-piracy detection. But as sports industry leaders grew to crave more data on user-generated content (UGC) on the internet, Videocites also evolved to track social media engagement with rights holders’ brands outside of their owned channels, providing powerful data for talks with commercial partners or strategies for fan engagement.
“The ‘ripple effect’ is something that we’ve been using in every discussion with every rights holder and brand,” Arad told SBJ. “Measuring the ripple effect in social media is the biggest thing that we’re doing today.”
In turn, Videocites is now rebranding as Ripple Analytics (as advised on by Chicago-based communications firm The Branded Agency) and will soon roll out a series of platform upgrades.
MediaTrack, the best-known product Ripple Analytics (new name starts now!) offers, will split into two offerings:
MediaTrack Lens will continue providing analyses of Ripple clients’ social media performance across owned/affiliate channels and UGC, but with deeper layers, including an AI feature that analyzes the sentiment of audio/video content.
MediaTrack Landscape, a new offering, lets rights holders benchmark themselves against competitors (e.g., the NBA versus other major leagues) in metrics such as raw views and effective media value, a monetary measure.
“Every brand on the planet needs to know what its content is doing, what it’s worth, who is engaging with it and how can you make it bigger,” Arad said. “That’s something we’re striving to do, not only at scale, but at speed.”
Ripple Analytics' platform enables sports properties to benchmark the performance of its social media content across owned and derivative channels and compare it against competitors. Ripple Analytics
Adding vital perspective for sports properties
The NBA, an early adopter of the technology and a Ripple investor, recently extended its relationship with the company on a multiyear basis. NBA SVP/Digital and Social Content Bob Carney said Ripple has been an effective tool for finding content creators posting about the league for potential partnerships, broadening the ways the NBA reaches both new and existing fans.
“It’s becoming harder and harder to reach your core audience that follows you, because we’re all at the mercy of these ever-changing social media feed algorithms,” Carney said. “If you want to continue to reach people on these platforms at scale, you need a lot more people, a lot more accounts, publishing NBA content. We’re using [Ripple] to find accounts that we believe that we can partner with that will become extensions of our brand.”
Elevate, a fellow portfolio company of Ripple’s lead investor, Velocity Capital Management, sees value in Ripple’s services as an input into its AI-powered data platform, EPIC (a nominee for the Best in AI category at this year’s Sports Business Awards: Tech).
“Having the ability to benchmark one [brand or property] against the other — across owned, affiliate and UGC type platforms — has given us a really nice perspective and made us a trusted advisor to a lot of clients,” said Elevate Senior Director/Insights, Sponsorships and Brands Alyssa Melanson (a member of SBJ’s New Voices Under 30 class in 2024). “If [a brand] comes to us with a request to look at a WNBA partnership, or a WNBA team comes to us themselves and says, ‘Can you help us value this [asset]?’ we can help look at historical data in real time and turn very quickly recommendations on pricing, or negotiation strategies, or just even partnership stack strategies.”
Ripple closed 2025 having doubled revenue since the start of 2024, with dozens of league, team, brand and agency clients that span several major sports. It also secured an undisclosed follow-on investment from Velocity, which the firm’s founding partner David Abrams said has been used to expand Ripple’s sales, marketing and distribution.
“This is not a product you should view as an expense; this is an investment,” Abrams said. “It’s a competitive environment for dollars, and everybody is competing for the same dollars from brands. You’ve got to prove to a brand that they should be spending their money to reach your audience.”
The SBJ: Tech trophies await the winners among this year's nominees. Marc Bryan-Brown
This week, we announced our finalists for SBA: Tech, which serves as the launch point for SBJ Tech Week. While all the winners won’t be announced until our May 18 ceremony, I’m honored to accept the Favorite SBJ Tech Reporter award now. I’ve selected myself for three years running, and it’s truly an honor.
Instead of just throwing a list at you, I wanted to offer a few things that caught my eye with the announcement.
Meeting fans where they are: The idea of forming connections with fans, whether they’re in the venue or anywhere else, is a constant conversation in this industry. That effort is being reflected in our Best in Fan Experience Technology category, which features two streaming innovations (the ESPN App and the NBA’s Tap to Watch) and the Mets’ loyalty program, which leans on both in-ballpark and daily interactive opportunities to earn points. To me, it’s showing that bigger payoffs are coming for the fans who cannot regularly attend games but are as dedicated as those that do.
The largest group submission we’ve ever seen: Best Technology Collaboration often features an entry or two with a sizeable participant list.
Twelve total groups played a part in TGL’s debut, which featured an exciting new playing/viewing experience that fits together like a series of intricate gears in a finely made wristwatch. It really illustrates that there is no cap to the number of companies that can work on an integration — and create something innovative.
A strong second-year grouping for Rising Woman of the Year: I’m a huge fan of this award, which we created in collaboration with SBJ Tech Week presenting sponsor Next League. What I enjoy most about this class is the wide-ranging representation of roles. We have women who work across data (both in athlete performance and business operations), a biomechanic lead of a movement intelligence firm, and the commercial leader for a GPS tracking provider.
I hope this cohort of finalists indicates two things: That we’re getting better at noticing the vast amount of talent impacting the sports tech industry on a daily basis. But also that women are continuing to get more opportunities in significant leadership roles and make sizeable impacts for the companies they work for and the clients they serve.
In case you missed it, here’s a full rundown of the SBA: Tech finalists.
Best in AI
Elevate Performance & Insights Cloud (EPIC)
F1 & AWS: Track Pulse
Fastbreak Pro Schedule
Magnifi
MLS AI Center of Excellence
SeatGeekIQ
WolfCycle
Best in Athlete Performance Technology
Catapult Sports: Vector 8
NBA Biomechanics Program
Plantiga
Rapsodo: PRO 2.0
WHOOP MG
XO Armor Technologies
Best in Fan Experience Technology
ESPN App
Ministry of Sports of Saudi Arabia: Inclusive Stadium Experience System
NBA Tap to Watch
New York Mets: Mets Connect
OneCourt
PixMob: NOVA LED Armrest
Best in Immersive Technology
ASB GlassFloor
Edge Sound Research
MLB App in XR
NBC Sports: Sandbox Segment on NBA Showtime
PixMob: Moving Video Transmitter
Best in Venue & Franchise Operations Technology
Mashgin
MyVenue
Retailcloud
SeatGeek Box Office UX
U.S. Soccer Federation: Matchday Planning AI Tool
Best Technology Collaborations:
Best Technology Collaboration: Baltimore Ravens x The Famous Group (for permanent virtual camera mixed reality system)
FIFA x 601 Analytics (for FIFA Venue Intelligence Hub)
Milwaukee Bucks x University of Colorado Boulder (for adjustable heated bench system)
NHL x Presidio x Apple (for NHL Watch Comms app)
TGL presented by SoFi x TMRW Sports x CapTech x Full Swing x Next League x SmartPin Cam x SYNLawn x Toptracer x Beau Welling Design x Hanse Golf Course Design x Jack Nicklaus Design x Piza Golf (for TGL’s full tech stack)
UFC x IBM (for UFC Insights Engine)
Next in Sports Tech: Rising Woman of the Year
Jess Brodsky/chief commercial officer, PlayerData
Lauren Fridman/lead biomechanist, Plantiga
Alison Lu/VP, business strategy and analytics, 49ers
Darolyn Pierce/VP of data, analytics and insights, Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment
Skye Reymond/senior director of data science, U.S. Soccer Federation
Technology Executive of the Year
Chris Benyarko/head of direct to consumer products, technology and operations, NBA
Matt Fleckenstein/chief product and technology officer, Genius Sports
Brian Kaiser/chief technology officer and co-founder, Hudl
Andrew Macaulay/chief technology officer, TMRW Sports and TGL presented by SoFi
Eric Orme/VP, live sports product and engineering, Prime Video
Christa Stout/chief strategy and innovation officer, Trail Blazers
The Jets hired IWAO FUSILLOas chief data and analytics Officer. Fusillo was previously EXL’s Field chief data officer dating back to April 2025.
Online prediction market operator Kalshi named JOHN BIVONA as its head of federal government relations. It’s a new position for the company. Bivona last worked for Intersection Government Relations. Before that, he served as SVP at Rasky Partners following a stint as White House Liaison for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Wondering why players haven’t been able to wear their Whoop wearables at the Australian Open? My colleague Rob Schaefer gets some clarity on the ban here.
AO Ventures, the venture capital arm of Tennis Australia and the Australian Open, made four investments since closing its first fund one year ago, Schaefer also reports.
SBJ’s Joe Lemire dove into the USPOC Performance Innovation Fund and the impact it made on Team USA in this week’s magazine.
The upcoming X Games League signed crypto fintech platform MoonPay as its title sponsor, SBJ’s Chris Smith reports.
Orreco acquired women’s athlete app Jennis, its second acquisition in as many months, Lemire also reports.
