The top popular YouTube channel Kanał Sportowy has decided to invest into its own direct-2-consumer OTT service. It will allow for censorship-free publishing and extended flexibility in creating marketing opportunities for sponsors. The community will be able to follow the sport related shows of Mateusz Borek, Michał Pol, Tomasz Smokowski, Krzysztof Stanowski and Maciej Sawicki within the multiscreen applications of the service, including a range of Connected TVs. Redge Media has been entrusted with development of the video service along with additional unique live features to foster community.

Kanał Sportowy (“The Sport Channel”) is an online sport oriented community channel, created at the end of 2019, starting full operation in March 2020. Combining sport journalism and satire, the channel had over 50 thousand subscriptions within the first few days, and has since grown to over 592 thousand on YouTube.

To continue swift but stable expansion and secure current operation, the channel has decided to expand their business model to hosting their content on their own platform, which in turn will help in the monetization, product deliverance and new format activation. Up to now, the channel was limited in terms of appropriate content . With the latest decision, Kanał Sportowy will have independence in selecting partners and means for presenting their views.

Redge Media, the comprehensive technology platform for building online TV, powers the AVOD operations of player.pl and TV3 Baltics. With its rich experience and expertise in OTT video and service delivery, Redge Media will now facilitate Kanał Sportowy to move its unique content to its own end-2-end solution. Moreover, the product strategy and implementation of the OTT service is supported by the Arskom Sport Brokers agency – specialized in sports marketing on the Polish market.

Kanał Sportowy plans to evolve and revolutionize their user interaction and experience. With its own OTT service the channel is free to offer sponsorship opportunities that previously were unavailable. Highlighting the freedom of expression, the channel will also provide more daily content, and plans to implement a social viewing experience with user chat, commentary, quiz and interactions, all in real time.

“When the YouTube channel grows, it is essential to be fully manageable in terms of content publication and appropriate advertisement selection. Kanał Sportowy, arguably the biggest sport channel now on internet TV, had experienced several limitations recently, to which Redge Media perfectly addresses. Thanks to our native technology, there will be no suppression or business halt, all that remains is the energy and creativity of the host team, which seems to be increasing every week” – states Przemysław Frasunek, member of the board at Redge Technologies.

“For us, this was the logical next step. We are thrilled to continue delivering worthwhile and engaging sport content, and with sports as a whole being unpredictable, who knows what is next for our channel. For now, we are excited to start working on content which will expand our YouTube’s activities, with additional features being added that could not have been possible on the previous infrastructure. Redge Media has stepped up and provided us with the necessary tools to continue playing the sport game on our terms”, states Maciej Sawicki, president of Kanał Sportowy.