Press
We Know Big News
Some important company stats and a collection of press clippings.
About
Are You Watching This?! is the leading provider of real-time excitement data for college and professional sporting events around the globe.
We are proud to call companies like CBS Sports, FOX Sports, SBNation, and VSiN, all customers.
Data Services from RUWT?! empowers our corporate customers to create unique, revenue-driving experiences for their subscribers in the most DVR-resistant genre on television. Whether it's overtime, a no-hitter, a close finish, a big upset, a huge rivalry, or the playoffs are on the line, our engines are monitoring every game so that their subscribers can not only plan ahead, but be alerted immediately when they need to tune in and catch an epic moment.
Company Stats
- Company founded in 2006, based in Austin, TX
- Rating engine went online in 2007, understands more than a dozen sports, and has analyzed 400K+ games
- Three granted patents for Sports Excitement Analytics with the first filed in 2007, granted in 2016, and effective until 2033
- 100% self-funded, profitable since 2013
- Launched Sports Gambling spinoff in 2019 and a Sports Data Provider in 2021
- RUWT?! is run by Mark Phillip, a Brooklyn-born MIT Computer Science Major, and lifelong Yankees fan.
The Problem
- 1 in 4 days has 100+ sporting events
- The second Saturday in November is the busiest of the year, reaching as high as 613 games on November 15th, 2014
- 13,000+ different TV stations broadcast sports
- 2,800,000+ combinations of ZIP/Postal Code and cable/satellite provider across the U.S. and Canada
- As passable solutions for cutting the cord continue to proliferate, viewers' frustration in finding linear content worth watching among hundreds of channels continues to grow.
The Solution
- Rating engine analyzes real-time feed of sports data to pick out Instant Classics in the making
- System processes from, and translates data and IDs between all major Sports and TV data providers, including Sportradar, Opta, STATS, Champion, Gracenote/Nielsen, and Rovi/TiVo.
- TV lineups for U.S. and Canada are examined daily to determine games each user can watch
- B2B-focused company provides Data Services to larger companies to enhance their existing customer-facing experiences
- Engine incorporates multiple internal and external signals, as well as historical data. Put simply: the more games the engine rates, the better it gets at rating games.
Media
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Mark Phillip Headshots
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Super Bowl LI
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Sports Tech Tokyo Interview
Featured Articles
- "Our Semantic Analysis lets customers tackle integration with just two lines of code. From there, we can scan a page, understand the topics being discussed, and automatically display the tiles and markets that complement the content best." Wagers.com Earnings+More March 28th, 2022
- "Free-to-play and real money sports betting firm Chalkline and sports wagering software company MetaBet have entered into a new partnership centered around the two organizations' complementary sports betting acquisition and retention products for media companies and operators." SBC Americas May 17th, 2021
- "Catena Media has formalized a new partnership with MetaBet this week to leverage the company's suite of sports betting engagement and conversion tools across 20 of its igaming websites." SBC Americas December 20th, 2020
- "Perhaps the most intriguing possibility revolves around sports gambling, especially while the game is in progress." Cognitive Times December, 2019
- "There is another intriguing dynamic at play as digital services such as RUWT?! and others provided by the leagues themselves come into play: the rise of legalized sports betting." SiliconANGLE August 26th, 2019
- "These legacy cable set-top boxes make me want to smash my remote on a daily basis." Sports Business Journal November 6th, 2017
- "Are You Watching This, the Austin-based technology company that measures the real-time excitement levels of pro and college sports, has struck a partnership with data giant Sportradar." Sports Business Journal July 10th, 2017
- "Don't you want to stop the practice of unneeded channel surfing and find the games that everyone should be watching at that very moment?" Austin Inno May 26th, 2017
- "One last "bot" I use almost every day is "Are You Watching This?!" RUWT only delivers you alerts when an epic sports event is happening (a no-hitter, crazy overtime situation, etc). I find it to be one of the best examples of how timely, relevant notifications can surprise and delight you on a regular basis." Chatbots Magazine May 18th, 2017
- "Amid the ever-increasing battle for audience eyeballs, Mark Phillip–founder and CEO of Are You Watching This?!–is doubling down on the gritty play of sports, courtesy of his service, serving up the motto We watch sports. Every game. Every channel. And alert you when to tune in in a move to sort through thousands of sporting events carried across the television spectrum, even as viewers cut the cord." Cynopsis Media May 15th, 2017
- "Fear of missing out is the underbelly of the technology company, which has quietly built over the past decade a growing business developing excitement ratings that rank in real time how compelling a live sporting event is and then licensing data around those rankings." Sports Business Journal February 27th, 2017
- "Add the name of Mark Phillip to the ever-growing list of college dropouts who turned out to be pretty darn successful. Mark's Twitter profile reads like this: Brooklyn-born, Austin-based, MIT dropout." A Tribe Called Yes January 27th, 2017
- "Phillip started Are You Watching This?! in 2006 after a career that took him from Microsoft to Trilogy to T3." Austin Inno July 19th, 2016
- "'What we have in SportsFan is the combination of three market-first products that together create an engaging multi-screen brand specifically tailored to Aussie sports fans,' said Buckman." Smarthouse April 19th, 2013
- "RUWT has made a business of social TV, making it more interactive and personalized based on your preferences and needs. Highlighting the example set by Microsoft Xbox, Phillip is an advocate of open ecosystems." SiliconANGLE February 6th, 2013
- "After a week of being inundated with the next-big-everythings, it's startling and refreshing to hear how Phillip plans to make RUWT a success: by not making a play for platform status." Digital Trends March 15th, 2012
- "Mark Phillip wants to save cable television...The secret to his possible success: data." GigaOM March 1st, 2012
- "You can also swipe side-to-side to flip between games, which should really come in handy come March Madness, when a dozen games are ending all at once on a dozen different channels you can't remember." The Verge December 22nd, 2011
- "The Are You Watching This?! app has a long history of making sure sports fans don't miss the big games with its bookmarklets and apps that popped up notifications or emailed reminders." engadget December 21st, 2011
- "RUWT, which playfully stands for Are You Watching This, is a service designed to let you know about sports events you don't want to miss." PCWorld October 23rd, 2011
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"The dead-simple site is a gift from the gods for sports fans who need help figuring out which channels to turn to
for their favorite games." ABC News March 17th, 2011 - "The service reminds us very much of the Music Genome Project, only for Sport Events." SiliconANGLE March 16th, 2011
- "As a fan and researcher, I can see where there's potential for this." MIT Technology Review January 27th, 2011
- "And if Phillip has his way, RUWT will soon come integrated on the devices already sitting in your living room and hooked up to your TV. I can't wait." ReadWriteWeb January 18th, 2011
- "Earlier this year, the service's technology...achieved the ability to factor rivalries into its algorithms, taking it up another notch." ESPN.com July 22nd, 2010
- "If you're a sports fan with diverse tastes, you've long since realized you can't possibly watch every broadcast game." Lifehacker July 21st, 2010
- Startups Focus on Artificial Intelligence at South by Southwest MIT Technology Review March 15th, 2010
- "He has come a long way in a very short period of time. He got it; it's a product that people will use." Austin Business Journal February 26th, 2010
- NPR, Weekend Edition Saturday with Scott Simon NPR December 22nd, 2007
- "He closes by arguing that his site's application programming interface 'would do a better job of getting Tivo's groove back than Taye Diggs could ever do.'" The Motley Fool September 12th, 2007
- "As games get closer or work their way into overtime, the scoreboard automatically adds points to reflect more entertaining matches." TechCrunch Februrary 5th, 2007