Blackbird to drive fast, flexible, efficient cloud native video workflows for Athletes Unlimited

Posted: 15/07/2021

15 July 2021, New York and London – Blackbird plc (AIM:BIRD), the developer and seller of the market-leading cloud native video editing platform, Blackbird, announced today that Athletes Unlimited has chosen Blackbird to drive fast, flexible and efficient cloud native video workflows.

Founded by Jon Patricof and Jonathan Soros, Athletes Unlimited is a fast-growing network of next generation US sports leagues covering softball, volleyball and lacrosse. Making key decisions regarding how the leagues are run, professional athletes compete in innovative versions of their sports scoring points to move up and down leader boards with the ultimate aim of being crowned Athletes Unlimited Champion. Via a tiered membership program sports fans are able to enjoy live games, a broad library of great content and engage with their favourite players.

Athletes Unlimited will deploy Blackbird for high performance, scalable cloud native video editing of its sports content. Using browser-based Blackbird, the media operations team will have instant access to live and file-based content for the rapid editing, enriching and publishing of content to the Athletes Unlimited website, social channels and broadcast partners for fans to enjoy. Blackbird will enable remote production eliminating the need to travel to a facility or event and also remove the need to transit material back and forth from multiple local storage environments. Blackbird will be deployed within Athletes Unlimited’s Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure.

Athletes Unlimited CEO and Co-Founder, Jon Patricof, said: “We are thrilled to engage Blackbird and their suite of world class editing and video collaboration tools that will enhance our digital storytelling during our softball, volleyball and lacrosse leagues.”

Blackbird CEO, Ian McDonough, added: “It’s fantastic to be rolling Blackbird out to another US sports client. Athletes Unlimited will use Blackbird, the world’s most advanced cloud editing platform, on a wide variety of sports in broadcast and digital workflows both live and file based. We are delighted to be a part of the monetisation and scaling of their sports leagues.”

Blackbird drives awareness, monetization and efficiencies for brands in the sports, news, entertainment and enterprise sectors.  The company’s customers include Tata Communications, EVS, BT, IMG, Univision, Sky News Arabia, A+E Networks, NHL, Eleven Sports, Riot Games, the U.S Department of State and 69 local US news stations with TownNews.