US digital sports media company Barstool is setting its foot further into the college sports market with its own brand-new college basketball tournament called the Barstool Sports Invitational taking place on November 11 in Philadelphia.
Barstool’s New Basketball Tournament Barstool Sports Invitational
New York-based Barstool is organizing, producing, and broadcasting its first college sports tournament in November. The tournament called Barstool Sports Invitational will feature two men’s basketball college games, which will be hosted by the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.
The first game will be between UAB and Toledo and will take place on November 11. The second game will be a battle between Mississippi State and Akron.
Barstool will be responsible for everything for this event – from selling tickets to producing a show during halftime and it will also broadcast the event. Further details about the tournament are yet to be announced.
Barstool Setting its Foot Strong into the College Sports Scene
Just about two weeks ago on September 14, Barstool launched its very own Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) marketplace which will help college athletes connect to advertisers and brands. The platform called TwoYay builds upon Barstool’s own college athletes’ network, which has over 150,000 athletes already signed up.
So far Barstool will not be making any revenue from the venture as the company will not take any commission either from the athletes or the brands. However, the initiative will help promote Barstool and its services to the so-called generation Z audience.
Eventually, the company may decide to charge commissions. However, it has made a commitment that it will never charge the athletes themselves but only the brands and advertisers.
Currently, TwoYay has signed 30% of all college athletes across all sports and US states, which gives it a considerable advantage over its competitors in the NIL marketplace. This means that TwoYay has the potential to quickly become a market leader and turn out to be quite profitable for Barstool.
Other Upcoming Initiatives by Barstool
As Barstool will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year, the company is launching a lot of new initiatives.
Barstool has partnered with NBA player Patrick Beverley, who will host a new podcast starting in October, which will be produced and broadcast by the company.
Eric Sollenberger who is currently the co-host of the podcast Pardon My Take will also start his very own show, which will focus mainly on NFL.
Furthermore, Barstool has acquired exclusive media rights for the broadcast of the Arizona Bowl, which will be renamed Barstool Sports Arizona Bowl.
Additionally, Barstool will expand its reality show offering with a few new shows centering around Barstool employees. One show will feature eight employees that will be placed in the wilderness to survive, another will have employees road-tripping around the country and yet another will put 16 Barstool colleagues living together in one house.