I cut the cord on cable several years ago, and feel like I subscribe to just about every streaming service. I’m also an avid Arkansas football and basketball fan (and baseball here and there), but so far I haven’t opted for Hogs+, the somewhat novel streaming platform the University of Arkansas Athletic Department launched in 2021 with Sport & Story, a company that builds streaming apps founded by longtime Arkansas sports personality Bo Mattingly. The service gets a look in the Wall Street Journal today.
Sport & Story founder Bo Mattingly is also the host of a popular Razorback athletics podcast called “The Hog Pod, ” and has previously produced several all-access television miniseries on college football for HBO and ESPN.
“It’s sort of like when you watch the Olympics and you don’t know who you’re really watching, and they give you that three-minute story beforehand. And then you’re all in,” said Mattingly. “Schools didn’t have a way to tell the stories of their athletes.”
Sport & Story declined to share subscriber data for individual platforms, but said that Hogs+, along with four other subsequently launched streaming services at Oklahoma State, LSU, South Carolina and Mississippi State, have acquired more than 365,000 subscribers in the last 17 months. To the surprise of athletic director Hunter Yurachek, about 68% of the Hogs+ subscribers lived more than 100 miles away from Fayetteville, Ark.
The service has been effective at promoting sports that don’t get as much attention as men’s basketball and football, the WSJ reports.
In the spring of 2022, Hogs+ released an emotional segment with K.B. Sides, a softball player who became 2022 Southeastern Conference player of the year after transferring from Alabama. The 11-minute video generated 62,000 views and more than 350,000 social media impressions, and sparked interest in the Razorback softball team as it headed into postseason play.
The team sold out the 3,200-seat Bogle Park nine times—a program record—and hosted the best-attended NCAA softball regional and super regional in 2022. A car dealership near Little Rock, Ark., Everett Buick GMC, also signed the entire 27-woman team to an endorsement deal aimed at raising the visibility of women’s sports.
Anyone out there subscribe and have a recommendation?