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The Southern ConferencePublished: 5/20/2024, Last updated: 8/2/2024
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The Southern Conference and BOOST Announce Strategic Partnership To Elevate Fan Engagement Experience

BOOST Operating System to Deliver Unified Data Management and Enhanced Digital Destination for University Partners, Student-Athletes, Media & E-Commerce

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Spartanburg, SC. – The Southern Conference today announced a strategic partnership with BOOST to deploy a state-of-the-art fan data platform, deliver powerful fan-facing experiences, and drive new revenue streams for the conference.
 
As it navigates the perpetually changing landscape of college sports, the SoCon chose BOOST to deploy a modern fan engagement and data management operating system. The SoCon vision: deliver benchmark content, efficiency and security, while also accelerating advertising, sponsorship and merchandising revenues.
 
The new soconsports.com site will launch in July in conjunction with the scholastic year. The new site will transform the conference’s digital presence into a state-of-the-art fan-facing digital channel with new features that provide quality content and a unique user experience. These features include personalized content feeds, videos and automated highlights, live scoreboards, social media integrations, and advanced filtering for stats, standings, and schedules. 
 
Beyond the numerous fan benefits, BOOST developed additional features for sports information directors and communications teams to maximize the administrative efficiency of creating and managing content and statistical information for the 20 sports and nearly 4,000 athletes across its membership. These features include a mobile friendly nomination and voting system, e-commerce plugins, an intuitive content management system, and an automated data pipeline for game and event data. (A comprehensive list of planned features is included at the conclusion of this news release.)
 
The BOOST UNIFY end-to-end data analytics solution will allow the SoCon to integrate any source, connect to any destination, and activate audiences – all in one platform. This includes infrastructure; 200+ integrations to ticketing, merchandise, marketing, CRM, social media sources and destinations; identity resolution and enrichment; data transformation and modeling; customer modeling; audience segmentation; out-of-the-box performance dashboards; real-time reporting; predictive modeling; and prescriptive modeling.
 
"From our first conversation with the team at BOOST, we knew The Southern Conference had found kindred spirits around the use of data in decision making,” said Michael Cross, Commissioner of the Southern Conference. “The new SoCon website and staff will benefit from AI-driven writing and video production. Our revenue generation will grow by integrating analytics into our decision making. Most importantly, regular consultative and strategic conversations will bring their creative talents and vision to our efforts. We end every conversation with BOOST's team smarter than when we started.  We're looking forward to leveraging their expertise to benefit The Southern Conference's member institutions across a variety of communication and revenue generation opportunities."  
 
The BOOST platform ingests, enhances, and standardizes fan and sports data and media; creates compelling content with proprietary generative artificial intelligence (AI); and integrates third-party solutions to commercialize always-on storytelling. Automated content produced by BOOST can be customized, personalized, and scaled across any digital channel, including the end-to-end website developed for The Southern Conference. For the new SoCon website, BOOST is also deploying seamless integrations to position it for a future conference merchandising partner.
 
"We are excited to team up with SoCon for an innovative and collaborative partnership,” said Nate Schnader, BOOST President & Chief Revenue Officer. ”Together we will create quality content and unique experiences that will energize a passionate and demanding fan community. Through digital storytelling, one-to-one connection, and frictionless commerce,the SoCon will be deploying the most innovative technologies available to create the future for SoCon schools, athletes, fans and their partners."
 
About The Southern Conference: The Southern Conference, which is in its 103rd year in 2023-24, is a national leader in emphasizing the development of the student athlete and in helping to build lifelong leaders and role models. The Southern Conference is the nation's fifth-oldest NCAA Division I collegiate athletic association. Only the Big Ten (1896), the Missouri Valley (1907), the Pac-12 (1915) and the Southwestern Athletic (1920) conferences are older in terms of origination. The conference currently consists of 10 members in six states throughout the Southeast and sponsors 20 varsity sports and championships that produce participants for NCAA Division I Championships. 
 
About Boost Technology: BOOST is a sports technology company that builds digital experiences designed to unify and engage sports properties and fan communities. The BOOST operating system supercharges engagement through personalized, relevant content and experiences, including websites, apps, ads, narrative and video. In addition, BOOST delivers a modern end-to-end analytics solution that integrates any data source, connects to any destination, and activates audiences through creation of a single fan record – all in one platform. 
 
New soconsports.com features for fans will include
  • Personalized user content feeds

  • Video & highlights / content

  • Live scoreboards

  • Team & player pages

  • Game pages

  • Recaps, previews & insights

  • Advanced filtering for stats, standings & schedules

  • Social media integrations

  • User accounts

  • Notifications

 
New features for The Southern Conference SIDs and Communication Teams will include:
  • Mobile friendly nomination & voting system

  • Automated data pipeline for game & event data

  • Intuitive content management system

  • Interactive tables for historical data

  • E-commerce plugins

  • User management system