Austin-based media company leveraging former athletes and sports and tech veterans to disrupt the sports media industry
AUSTIN, Texas (Sept.1, 2015) – In the past two years, FloSports has doubled its live events coverage and grown ad revenue by 250% thanks to new clients such as Nike, ASICS, Gatorade, Under Armour and Got Milk?. FloSports co-founder and CEO Martin Floreani attributes the rapid growth to the company’s diverse talent.
“Our staff is the driving force behind our mission to create the best content for athletes – by athletes,” Floreani said. “We’re really excited about our trajectory, and our all-star team positions us to drive our business forward. We will never get complacent, just like the elite athletes we cover.”
With start-up roots, the company began with brothers Martin and Mark Floreani traversing the country interviewing wrestling and track and field coaches while attending tournaments and competitions.
Since 2006, FloSports has grown to a team of more than 100 employees thanks to a roster of talent comprised of former athletes, sports and brand executives, as well as tech industry veterans. Many of the executives played competitive college athletics, including Martin, who wrestled at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and Mark – co-founder and COO – who was a track All-American at the University of Texas.
David Weiss (Executive Vice President of Multimedia Sales) and Phil Wendler (Senior Vice President of Global Rights Acquisition and Subscription) developed their careers working at USA Today and ESPN, while Nick Schenck (Vice President of Customer Acquisition and Marketing) spent more than a decade working in the National Football League, most recently as Senior Director of Integrated Media for the Houston Texans. Ray Machuca’s (Chief Creative Officer) work has been featured previously at the SXSW Film Festival, G4, and the AOL Top 40 Music Video Charts.
FloSports also brought together the best from the technology industry; Pat Noonan (Vice President of Business Development) cultivated e-commerce and digital marketing insights while working at Facebook. Tim Sullivan (Vice President of Product) sold his start-up to Zynga in 2011, and subsequently led the design and creation of the HTML5 version of Zynga Poker.
Within the last year, FloSports has raised $11 million, including an $8 million investment from Causeway Media Partners, and has doubled its network of sites. Dedicated sites under the FloSports banner include: FloTrack, FloWrestling, FloElite, MileSplit, FloSoftball, FloGrappling, FloMuscle and Gymnastike.
The Austin-based company has also garnered nationwide attention this year. FloSports ranked among the Top 20 media companies on the Inc. 5000 list, which highlights the nation’s fastest-growing private companies, and finished among the Top 25% of all companies who made the list.
“The story of this year’s Inc. 5000 is the story of great leadership,” Inc. President and Editor-In-Chief Eric Schurenberg said. “In an incredibly competitive business landscape, it takes something extraordinary to take your company to the top.”
Complete results of the Inc. 5000, including company profiles and an interactive database that can be sorted by industry, region, and other criteria, can be found at https://www.inc.com/inc5000.
For more information, visit www.flosports.tv.
###
ABOUT FLOSPORTS
FloSports, an innovative sports media company based in Austin, Texas, offers authentic content and a new world of coverage that true fans have been waiting for. Focused on three areas – live programming, original content, and owned and operated events – the company takes fragmented communities and provides them the platform to connect with the sports they love.
Through live streaming of premiere events, original video programming, weekly studio shows, branded entertainment, and event creation and execution, FloSports is changing the game for the sports, the athletes and the fans.
FloSports owns exclusive broadcast rights to in-demand events, and broadcasts more than 25,000 hours of live sporting events each year. From a content standpoint, FloSports has 1 million+ videos in their library. FloSports features the #1 webcasts per sport, high-quality, in-depth documentary series and 5M+ athletes ranked within their respective sports.
Current verticals under the FloSports header are Grappling, Bodybuilding, Softball, Elite Fitness, Wrestling, Gymnastics, and Running, including MileSplit.com.