Today, just in time for NFL Thursdays, i.TV launched a new televised sports app, Spit. It’s a game for the game and doesn’t take umpteen hours to set up like a fantasy league.
Users download the app, invite friends, and then answer questions throughout the broadcast like, “will the next play be a run or a pass or an intercept?” The questions run on a ten second timer and there’s a leader board for your crew and for the entire Spit audience. Founder and i.Tv CEO Brad Pelo says:
What we discovered is that fans of sports tend to be a little bit more engaged around second screening, but there’s a great opportunity to get them to competitively engage. We built a feature last year for Nintendo, for their second screen experience and we watched , specifically for sports, the metrics just skyrocket. It became the second most used feature on the platform.
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So it wasn’t much of a choice to tap into that audience. The app is set up to work with all nationally televised games, and football season is a good place to start. Pelo says they’re looking for the casual gamer, or even the casual football fan, if there is such a thing.
Pelo said his friends don’t play fantasy football — which is more of a commitment — but when he gave them the app to test in beta, they stuck with it for the full game.
It’s easy to get people to sign up with you, he says, as people’s sports affiliations are something we either already know about or don’t mind sharing with each other. It’s all about “arm chair quarterbacking,” says Pelo. There’s a chat feature, too, “so you can trash talk the screen or each other,” he jokes.
The app is available to download here and you can find out more or see screenshots here.