FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:

Harold Topper

203.614.9599

harold@crowdplayapp.com

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Fan Engagement Start-up, CrowdPlay, Is on a Winning Streak‍

(Boston, MA—March 10, 2020) Boston-based start-up CrowdPlay, a fan engagement platform for live sporting events, announced it has closed a $1.325 million Series Seed funding round as it moves to sign additional partnership with sports teams and venues at a record pace for 2020.

Across the board, live sports venues are struggling to attract, retain and expand customers as fans complain of sky-high ticket prices and the slow pace of action. Meanwhile, sponsors increasingly lament the high cost of advertising and limited availability of high-visibility on-premise sponsorship opportunities at stadiums and arenas.

“An average NFL game lasts 3 hours and 12 minutes, but on average only 11 minutes of that whole experience is spent watching live action on the field,” says Andrew Pizzi, CrowdPlay Co-Founder and CEO. “And for Major League Baseball, downtime can be as high as 90%. That’s a lot of downtime for fans in the stadium. The CrowdPlay platform is revolutionizing the way fans enjoy and interact with live action sporting events while expanding opportunities for sponsors, teams and sports venues to interact with those fans.”

How It Works

The CrowdPlay app engages fans with event specific questions and trivia throughout a live game’s lifecycle—pre-game (before the game begins) and in-game (during breaks in play). Every question is contextual and relevant to the action in the game as fans compete against each other in that venue. Meanwhile, as users accrue points, they climb the leaderboard. Those who finish inside the prize pool rankings are rewarded a cash prize, but regardless, all players can use their accumulated points for redemption of exclusive sponsor rewards as well as at select concessions and fan shops. CrowdPlay creates pinpoints throughout the game, changing the behavior of when fans go on their devices. Seizing the fans’ attention (once called impossible) is now a reality through CrowdPlay— the much sought-after, scalable solution for the second screen experience.

A Powerful Sports Marketing Tool

Featuring a sleek and easy-to-use interface, CrowdPlay offers advertisers a more consistent, effective and targeted means of advertising. The main functionality of the CrowdPlay application allows advertisers to sponsor question categories and interactive screens, in a format that is unlike ordinary ad queuing displays. “Only CrowdPlay provides a non-obtrusive means of interactive advertising without breaking the user experience at live sporting events,” says Harold Topper, Executive Vice President of Partnerships at CrowdPlay. “Post-game user surveys are baked into the experience and we routinely see that while user recall of traditional in-venue sponsorships hovers around 10%-15%--recall of in-app CrowdPlay sponsors is consistently above 90%.”

"We saw the value CrowdPlay would bring to our fan's experience, from the first time the CrowdPlay team approached us to offer their fan engagement application and platform at our games at Dunkin Donuts Park,” said Mike Abramson, General Manager of minor-league Hartford Yard Goats. “We are excited to expand that relationship for 2020 knowing that our fans are being offered one of the most unique, fun, and engaging ballpark experiences available today." While minor-league and college sports partnerships (Hartford Yard Goats, Quinnipiac, Sacred Heart, and Yale to name a few) continue to fuel CrowdPlay’s early growth, their successful Series A Seed Funding round, led by Jennus Innovations, is assisting in ramping up and expanding CrowdPlay. “At Jennus, we have our finger on the pulse of sports technology,” says Chris Jenny at Jennus Innovations, “and we recognized right away that CrowdPlay is a truly innovative and timely solution for elevating fan engagement. We’re excited to join the CrowdPlay team and leverage our network to expand team and sponsor partnerships.”

“We’ve had tremendous momentum in 2020,” says Michael Cusano, CrowdPlay Co-Founder and COO. “We have a terrific new partner in Jennus, a growing roster of iconic sports programs and enthusiastic sponsors—we’re really on a winning streak.”

ABOUT CROWDPLAY

CrowdPlay is the #1 fan engagement platform for live sporting events—revolutionizing the way fans enjoy and interact with games they’re attending while providing a unique and exclusive forum for sponsors, teams and sports venues. For more information visit: crowdplayapp.com.