Case Study - Rivals

www.rivals.com

solutions:

Key Impacts

Ability to concentrate on development of content and capabilities rather than infrastructure
Rollout new features, such as Rivals Radio, quickly with little lead-time required
Increased membership and associated monthly subscriber revenues—over 50,000 downloads a day of AMP video content, and over 130,000 subscribers
Increased ad revenues and new sponsorship opportunities
Saved money and time on otherwise onerous IT build-out

Rivals.com operates a fast-growing network of college sports and recruiting web sites, providing exclusive and in-depth coverage to passionate sports fans. Over the past several years, Rivals.com has enjoyed massive growth in subscriptions; to continue this growth trend, the company decided to launch two new broadband product offerings: AMP (All Media Pass), an on-demand video product, and Rivals Radio, a daily live radio broadcast. The added value of audio and video content would allow Rivals.com to grow two revenue streams: monthly subscriptions and advertising.

But what was the best way to delver on the promise of broadband content without letting sluggish or unpredictable performance impact the user experience? For a company accustomed to doing things its own way, looking outside didn’t come naturally. But when it became clear that a ‘home-grown’ solution would require a significant investment to set up and maintain—and potentially be underutilized during non-peak period—Akamai became the clear choice. With the Akamai EdgeSuite and Akamai Streaming in place, a massive and distributed server platform is always ready to serve rich, high-bandwidth content reliably to every Rivals.com customer—even on National Signing Day, when traffic can be 400% higher than average. The result? Happy fans—and continued growth for Rivals.com.

"We can jump online and provision a stream any time we need to… And, in a matter of minutes, we’re set up to deliver a new live stream of any type and any bandwidth. The Akamai solution is very, very turnkey, and we’ve been very happy with the freedom that provides us."
—Greg Gough, CTO, Rivals.com


www.rivals.com solutions: Akamai Dynamic Site Accelerator Akamai Media Delivery Akamai Streaming Key Impacts Ability to concentrate on development of content and capabilities rather than infrastructure Rollout new features, such as Rivals Radio, quickly with little lead-time required Increased membership and associated monthly subscriber revenues—over 50,000 downloads a day of AMP video content, and over 130,000 subscribers Increased ad revenues and new sponsorship opportunities Saved money and time on otherwise onerous IT build-out Rivals.com operates a fast-growing network of college sports and recruiting web sites, providing exclusive and in-depth coverage to passionate sports fans. Over the past several years, Rivals.com has enjoyed massive growth in subscriptions; to continue this growth trend, the company decided to launch two new broadband product offerings: AMP (All Media Pass), an on-demand video product, and Rivals Radio, a daily live radio broadcast. The added value of audio and video content would allow Rivals.com to grow two revenue streams: monthly subscriptions and advertising. But what was the best way to delver on the promise of broadband content without letting sluggish or unpredictable performance impact the user experience? For a company accustomed to doing things its own way, looking outside didn’t come naturally. But when it became clear that a ‘home-grown’ solution would require a significant investment to set up and maintain—and potentially be underutilized during non-peak period—Akamai became the clear choice. With the Akamai EdgeSuite and Akamai Streaming in place, a massive and distributed server platform is always ready to serve rich, high-bandwidth content reliably to every Rivals.com customer—even on National Signing Day, when traffic can be 400% higher than average. The result? Happy fans—and continued growth for Rivals.com. "We can jump online and provision a stream any time we need to… And, in a matter of minutes, we’re set up to deliver a new live stream of any type and any bandwidth. The Akamai solution is very, very turnkey, and we’ve been very happy with the freedom that provides us." —Greg Gough, CTO, Rivals.com	Customer List Case Studies Featured Sites