On Monday, Comcast announced the purchase of One TwoSee, a company that provides real-time sports information that is useful for online betting predictions, based in Philadelphia. One TwoSee was created by Chris Reynolds and Jason Angelides, and was launched five years ago.
Since its launch in 2011, One TwoSee applied real-time analytics that are seen on television news and sports, using the information to track the momentum of games and player statistics, presenting the information in easy to read graphics.
One TwoSee is considered a pioneer in bringing sports and big data together.
In an interview, Chris Reynolds said that One TwoSee was about applying what he and Jason Angelides excelled at, then visualizing the data and figuring out how to apply it to sports.
Reynolds and Angelides had previously worked together at traffic.com, a website that ran traffic data. As sports fans, they had been conditioned to root for their teams, so they decided to consolidate their experiences as fans into an interface that they designed.
In the last year, a number of big technological firms have been paying attention to One TwoSee, and some had made offers to buy the company from Reynolds and Angelides, but Comcast beat them to the punch.
According to Comcast officials, the company wants to expand the specialized content it provides its customers on cable.
The terms of the agreement between Comcast and One TwoSee, which was finalized last week, have not been released. One TwoSee has 16 employees, but it is unknown if Comcast will retain them or bring their own people in.
The current One TwoSee employees will remain at their current office for the remainder of the year. However, they will have the option of moving into the Comcast Tower currently under construction. The Comcast Tower will be the company’s entertainment division, as well as the home of the company’s engineers and product developers.
Comcast typically does not acquire startups in the Philadelphia region because the area isn’t a technological hotbed, compared to areas like Silicon Valley. However, the success One TwoSee achieved in a short period of time selling its services to clients like Fox Sports, AOL, Tribune Media, and Canada’s Rogers Cable, made the company an exception to the rule.
According to a Comcast representative, the company installs an average of 40,000 cable boxes in homes each day. The representative also said that the analytics provided by One TwoSee are a big part of the sports app that comes with the boxes.
Tech companies like Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter are also working on similar content platforms for sports fans. These companies are trying to get their platforms off the ground quickly so they can be part of the second screen experience sports fans currently enjoy.
Comcast already has millions of subscribers using its service to view live sporting events, but the company also wants to include second-screen options through its X1 platform, which users will have access to before, during, and after the games.
Even though they sold their company to Comcast, Chris Reynolds, and Jason Angelides plan to continue adding new features to their technology. The new features will make it easier for fans to get access to stats for their fantasy football teams, and also provide highlights of their favorite teams.
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