When Nick Busto was in high school, his dad would sit behind the dugout at his baseball games with a camcorder, capturing footage to help Nick get recruited. It wasn’t convenient, but it was the best option for getting game highlights at the time.
The tapes paid off and Nick went on to play baseball at Cornell, where he met teammate Ben Swinford. Ben had noticed the same issues Nick faced when it came to accessing game highlights – but he had a solution. There was an explosion of fans filming with their iPhones in the stands in 2015 and Ben wanted to make that footage accessible to all.
“We believed the content being captured individually could reach its full value if we could help see that content be distributed amongst the micro fan communities,” Ben said. “The enthusiasm people have for their personal or local sports teams is even greater than their local professional teams, but there was a lack of available video content to share and celebrate.” With that, Rapid Replay was born.
Rapid Replay is a video content engine for local athletes, teams and communities, used by media outlets, brands and over 1,500 schools. It includes a video player that’s embedded on customers’ websites, as well as a free mobile app and video upload tool that audiences can use to capture clips at games and upload them to the video player. This creates a more sustainable site and better way for fans to watch highlights.
But when Nick and Ben co-founded Rapid Replay in 2017, it was exclusively an app with a camera built in to capture game footage. The company has evolved over the past three years, progressing from an app to an end-to-end video solution for athletics. Rapid Replay has partnered with several notable media, news and sports organizations including SportsEngine, KGW8 News, Comcast, the MCLA, GateHouse Media and VNN to bring video to their customers’ sites.
VNN was also one of the company’s first partnerships back in 2017. This past October, VNN announced that Rapid Replay video players were coming to all VNN SportsHub platforms, where ADs, coaches and fans could upload their favorite sports clips. It’s safe to say that the players have been a hit across the VNN network, as Rapid Replay videos recently surpassed one million views per day. You can check out some of the best clips here.
Nick said it’s been rewarding to see schools get creative with the videos they upload. Along with highlights, archives and game clips, he’s seen brand new facilities, ADs giving COVID-19 updates and coaches encouraging sign-ups.
“The real estate is there. Everybody has a video player on their homepage and everybody has a video section, so it’s really cool to see the new and exciting ways they’re communicating, especially during COVID,” Nick said. “With shutdowns, hopefully this tool is a way for schools to keep their communities engaged and ignited.”
Along with helping athletics departments stay connected with their communities during the pandemic, Nick and Ben have big plans for the future of Rapid Replay.
“We see Rapid Replay becoming a preferred platform for all prep sports video,” Ben said. “Our most recent step was launching an affordable full game film platform for teams, similar to Hudl. Since launching the game film platform, we’ve seen tremendously positive feedback. And soon we will be rolling out live streaming support with this.”
“We’re hoping to dive into live streaming to really become an end-to-end video solution,” Nick continued. “Then we can provide film during the game, after the game, as well as the aggregation and publishing of highlights.”
In the meantime, the company continues to provide high-quality video experiences for thousands of clients across the United States – growing and building new partnerships along the way.
Interested in learning more about Rapid Replay? Download the Rapid Replay app here.