During the Stanley Cup Playoffs, a triple-overtime game might be enough to hold fans' interest. 

But for other moments, MSG Networks and other media companies are turning to tech companies like LiveLike to boost engagement during games with interactive features designed to keep viewers tuned in and paying attention.

LiveLike has been working with MSG Networks all season, adding elements to Knicks and Rangers games.

Now with the Rangers in the playoffs, they’re boosting their efforts.

The enhancements come at a time when sports rights are rising, cord-cutting is cutting into traditional TV viewership and the need to hook younger viewers is intensifying.

"We essentially provide our partners–broadcasters, teams, media companies with audience engagement tools. We basically are telling them with LiveLike you can engage your community, make games a more interactive, engaging and fun experience," Miheer Walavalkar, co-founder and CEO of LiveLike, told Broadcasting+Cable.

Importantly, with LiveLike, the fan interaction is taking place on media properties owned by the team or network, as opposed to on social media platforms.

Some interactions take place on the big screen, others take place on those phones that fans, especially young ones, are using at all times, including when they’re watching games on TV.

In addition to MSG, LiveLike has worked with WarnerMedia during March Madness and the NBA season, the Golden State Warriors, NASCAR and with a number of European broadcasters.

“Our partners are seeking reductions in churn, they’re seeing higher engagement times, they’re seeing more repeat usage and repeat behavior,” Walavalkar said. “Every single client that we are working with is renewing for more and for longer.”

Some of what LiveLike engineers are polls or trivia contests for fans. During the playoffs on MSG Network, LiveLike has constructed a leaderboard so that participating fans can see how well they’re doing relative to other viewers.

Fans can also use emojis to let other fans know how they’re feeling without tapping a full message into applications like Twitter or What’s App.

Walavalkar says rewarding loyalty is becoming an increasingly important part for engaging and retaining fans and viewers. “We’re saying you should reward the most loyal fans,” he said. “We give our partners tools to track their engagement and to incentivize that engagement, to give people points and badges and rewards.”

During the regular season for the Knicks and Rangers, LiveLike saw an engagement rate of 96.5% of fans exposed to the features choosing to use them. During the first two months the features were available, engagement grew 30%, with 21% of fans coming back for more.

In addition to keeping viewers tuned in, the features generate revenue because they can be sponsored by brands. “That’s the holy grail. Engagement for the sale of monetization,” Walavalkar said.

The other hot area in sports TV is gambling. While LiveLike does not have its own sports book, it can help teams and networks steer fans towards apps where they can make wagers.

LiveLike works with Sportradar, which provides official data for several sports leagues and now has a betting product incorporating LIfeLike tech.

"While these features appear popular, one must be careful not to let on-screen gimmicks overwhelm and irritate fans," Walavalkar said. While at this point, there are few cut-and-dried solutions, LiveLike offers clients certain best practices from an editorial standpoint.

“We have found a lot of engagement pregame where people come in and make their predictions. During the game they find out whether they were right or wrong. The same thing happens at half time. So you’re not ‘bothering’ during the game,” he said. “Having said that, you will find most of the chatter within a community comes during those peak moments. “I can’t believe we missed that shot’ or ‘I can’t believe we’re going into overtime.’ If you’re making it fun and engaging, you can make it through the game. If you’re making it more factual and testing knowledge, it’s better to do it pregame and at halftime and leave people alone during the game.”

LiveLike is backed by venture capital money, with money coming from CAA, Greycroft Partners and others. The late David Stern, the former NBA commissioner, was an early investor.

The company generates revenue mostly through licensing its tools, but also through an advisory business that helps clients set up and use their tools.

Increasingly, LiveLike technology is being built into digital providers Deltatre and Sportradar, making it easier for networks to add interactivity to their programming workflows. 

“The actual implementation takes a few weeks at most. That’s the beauty of what we built. It's not meant to be difficult once you decide you want to do this,” Walavalkar said. ■

LiveLike, a startup that has developed a VR platform for live TV sporting events, has raised a $9.6 million B round that includes new investors Greycroft Partners and Lepe Partners.

New York-based LiveLike has raised about $15 million so far thanks to backing from other investors such as David Stern, commissioner emeritus of the NBA; Evolution Media; Courtside Ventures; Elysian Park; Dentsu Ventures; and the GC VR Gaming Tracker Fund.

The startup, which is also focusing on augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) applications, plans to use the fresh funds to help it expand its partnerships, and further build out its product and platform in a way that aims to simplify the experience and to make it more frictionless.

RELATED: Putting VR in a Sporting Mood (subscription required)

It will also work on making its system compatible with more platforms and develop new “in-product experiences” such as fantasy sports integrations and other social-facing elements.

The app, also accessible in 360-degree format on mobile devices, will present a “virtual suite” developed in partnership with LiveLike that will feature multiple camera angles of the match, as well as stats and pre-game VOD features.

RELATED: Fox Sports, LiveLike to Offer Virtual Suite for Super Bowl LI

The new investment also follows LiveLike’s early work with partners such as Fox Sports that center on the creation of interactive, 3D “virtual suites” that complement the 2D live TV feed while also providing multiple camera angles, stats and some VOD elements.

LiveLike and Fox Sports have teamed on such VR experiences around several sporting events, including last June’s UEFA Champions League final between Real Madrid and Juventus, Super Bowl LI, the 2016 and 2017 Big East Mean’s Basketball Tournaments, the 2016 U.S. Open Championship, the 2016 MLS Cup, the 2016 Bundesliga season opener, and the 2016 Big Ten Football Championship.

RELATED: Fox Sports to Offer UEFA Champions League Final in VR

LiveLike said it plans to announce more media and event partners as well as product enhancements in the coming months. 

“LiveLike has been successful because we have built a platform that connects with younger generations seeking a more non-traditional experience,” Andre Lorenceau, founder and CEO of LiveLike, said in a statement. “Thanks to our investors, we are now in a position to hire for key positions and continue delivering a premier next-generation sports OTT platform.”

Michael Davies, SVP field & technical operations at Fox Sports, added: “It has always been in Fox Sports’s DNA to explore different and imaginative ways to serve our fans. To that end, in our nearly two years of working with LiveLike, creating our Fox Sports VR app and working on sports like hockey, football, basketball and soccer, we have found them to be innovative, nimble, and attentive to this exciting and rapidly changing platform. We are looking forward to continuing to imagine the future with them.”

Fox Sports is placing another sizable bet on virtual reality this weekend as it again teams up with LiveLike to assemble a “virtual suite” that will provide the main broadcast of the Notre Dame at Michigan State college football matchup alongside other several other bells and whistles.

RELATED: Notre Dame-Michigan State Game to Run Social VR Play

In addition to allowing for a social experience (a visitor to the virtual suite can watch it with three other fans or friends, as Fox Sports did during the summer for the CONCACAF Gold Cup), users will also get access to a 360-degree, floating Skycam (that's a photo of the camera above) feed that, in addition to the Fox Sports VR app, will also be featured on Twitter (@CFBonFox), Fox College Football (CFBonFOX) on Facebook, and the Fox Sports YouTube channel (Fox Sports will also make the c360 footage available for use in the primary Fox game broadcast).

RELATED: VR Evolution Continues at Fox Sports (subscription required)

“It’s almost like getting a player’s perspective,” Jeb Terry, VP of partner and program management at Fox Sports (and a former NFL player), said. “It will give the fan the ability to kind of choose their own adventure and explore this angle like never before… and get a next-level type view of the action.”

Fox Sports is also evolving the social component of the VR experience on Saturday to make it more accessible. Users will also have the ability to choose from school-themed avatars.

“We think this is going to be a great representation of where this thing can go,” Terry said. “Our hope is that a Notre Dame fan in California can get in a suite with his buddy, who's a Spartan in New York, and they can watch the game together.”

Users will be able to access the digital suite on the authenticated Fox Sports VR app for iOS and Android mobile devices and experience it using the “flat” 3D (non-headset) view, or use it in tandem with an Oculus-powered Samsung Gear VR mobile headset.

Most users of the Fox Sports VR app have entered the non-headset experience so far – not surprising given that consumer adoption of those headsets is still in the early phases.

“But you can still explore the space and have a new unique angle that you might not have had before,” Terry said. “We think it's a value-add for both scenarios [headset and non-headset] and we'll continue to optimize for both use cases." 

A Wendy’s sponsorship is helping to pay the freight for the VR experience and the Skycam views that are tied to Saturday’s game.

“Sponsors, in in general are looking for more ways to associate with the game...and tap into the fandom that all college sports have,” Terry said. “It’s our goal to make sure we have that robust offering across every screen, and every tech that we believe in for brands and fans to have the option to engage with.”

Though the consumer virtual reality sector hasn’t taken off as rapidly as some had hoped, content providers continue to experiment with and refine their VR experiences for when this emerging medium becomes a mass-market phenomenon.

Fox Sports has been a key member of this group as it continues to work with companies such as NextVR and LiveLike on VR experiences that can be access on smartphone-powered headsets such as the Samsung Gear VR and its authenticated apps for iOS and Android mobile devices.

“If you believe in something, you want to get good do at it before it really takes off so, when it does, you’re not learning about it for the first time,” Michael Davies, senior vice president of field and technical operations at Fox Sports, said.

Fox Sports’ latest major VR endeavor will center around the CONCACAF Gold Cup, as the programmer and LiveLike will create a “virtual suite” for three fixtures, starting with the just-completed July 8 U.S.-Panama match. They’ll follow with similar efforts for matches set for July 22 or 23, and for the Gold Cup championship, set for Monday, July 26.

As had been done in previous VR partnerships with LiveLike for events such as UEFA Champions League matches, the Big Ten Football Championship Game and the Big East Men’s Basketball Tournament, the virtual suite experience will include a 2D live feed of the Gold Cup games along with the ability to manually access other camera angles, lean on a director’s cut that auto-selects those angles, watch replays of the action, and view some pre-produced content delivered in the 360-degree format.

New this time around is a social component allowing the viewer and three others to be present in the virtual suite to watch the game (represented by individual avatars), to use the suite’s interactive components and to interact with each other. Enabling that experience is a new “Social” tab and a “Join Friends” button, which connects the user to Facebook upon authorization. Users can also have the system select a viewing partner at random, and can toggle the social component on or off.

Davies said the social component delivers a “hybrid” experience with elements of how consumers watch live sports — alone on TV; with others on the TV at home; at a restaurant or bar; or live at the venue itself.

“Hopefully this is something that takes the medium to the next level,” Davies said, noting that sports viewing tends to drive a “tribal” form of activity. “We’re hoping to recreate that. We’re excited to see how it works out.”

So are advertisers. Buffalo Wild Wings is on board as the sponsor for the Gold Cup VR experience, and follows sponsorships for past efforts from Jeep, Audi, Lexus and Toyota.

Davies said most viewers who watch these VR experiences are doing it without a headset, opting to access it on the app for smartphones and tablets, but that there’s a “fair amount” of activity from viewers who tune in using the Gear VR. Fox Sports has also been keeping close tabs on not just how many consumers join the experience, but how many are coming back to it, he added.

Support for higher-end platforms, such as the Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and the PlayStation VR, as well as the smartphone-based Google Daydream, are on the product roadmap, Davies said.

Davies also hopes coming standalone VR headsets in the works from Google and Facebook-owned Oculus will reduce consumer friction into those higher-end experiences.

“That, I think, is going to propel this thing beyond those people who are the true believers,” he said.

Fox Sports and LiveLike will add a dash of VR to Sunday’s Super Bowl matchup between the New England Patriots and the Atlanta Falcons.

They’re teaming up to offer a virtual, digitally-rendered suite during the game that will present highlights from the game in near real-time via the Fox Sports VR app for iOS and Android devices and tight integration with the Samsung Gear VR platform.

They said the VR experience, offered during Super Bowl LI, will enable users to pick from six different cameras placed throughout NRG Stadium in Houston. They expect to provide 20 of the most exciting plays from the game, as well as prepared content for pre- and post-game.

Though use of the app in tandem with Gear VR and Cardboard headsets will provide an immersive 360-degree experience, viewers will also be able to view it via the app without a headset.

Other partners include Avid, which will provide the experience’s augmented reality graphics platform, Twizted-Design (data-driven graphical integrations, EVS (UHD replays technology), and Ateme (multiscreen UHD and HD encoding).

The Super Bowl LI partnership is one of several recent ones between Fox Sports and LiveLike, which also teamed up for MLS Cup late last year, and last fall’s Big Ten championship football game.

RELATED: Fox Sports Lands Audi as Sponsor of MLS Cup VR Coverage

A key difference is that those previous offerings stitched in a live 2D feed of those games into the digital suite. For Super Bowl LI, the intention is to provide the near real-time highlights and to offer a taste of VR, given that many people will be watching the game in relatively large parties.

“I believe this will be the first of many Super Bowls broadcast in VR, making February 5th a historic day for both LiveLike and for the larger VR industry as a whole,” Miheer Walavalkar, co-founder and chief business officer of LiveLike, said in a statement.

“We are thrilled to bring what we believe is the most innovative sports viewing experience to the Super Bowl via the FOX Sports VR app” added Michael Davies, SVP of field & technical operations at Fox Sports. “The LiveLike platform helps us bring viewers inside the stadium for the best moments throughout the game and replay them from the six different camera angles in virtual reality.”

Audi has climbed aboard as the presenting sponsor for Fox Sports’s virtual reality coverage of Saturday’s MLS Cup.

For the game between Toronto FC and the Seattle Sounders (coverage gets underway at 7:30 p.m. ET on Fox), Fox Sports, in partnership with Major League Soccer, will use LiveLike’s VR platform to stitch in a live 2D feed of the match into a digital, 3D suite that also offers access to other interactive elements.

RELATED: Fox Sports Raises Its VR Game (subscription required)

Fox Sports will offer the experience on its authenticated VR app (viewers will need their MVPD credentials to log in) for iOS and Android (which can be used with cardboard viewers), as well as the Oculus-powered Samung Gear VR, though viewers can also tune in without a headset.

Fox Sports and LiveLike have teamed up in a similar fashion for the recent Big Ten championship game and Sept. 17 football game between Ohio State and Oklahoma.

RELATED: Fox Sports to Stream Ohio State-Oklahoma Football Matchup to Virtual Suite

In addition to offering five camera angles and access to rosters and live stats, the virtual suite, for the first time, will also let viewers rewind the game in 30-second increments, going back as far as 30 minutes.

As the presenting sponsor for the VR experience during the MLS Cup, Audi will provide in-suite branding, a digitally-rendered in-suite Audi car, and sponsorship of each player’s “Audi Player Index score,” based on a calculation of certain in-game metrics.

“While live VR is important, you need to give the viewer something else to do,”

We think that the audience will come for the live VR, but they will stay for some of the other things they can do with it,” Michael Davies, senior vice president of field and technical operations at Fox Sports, said in a recent interview.

Though VR is still gaining traction among consumers, advertisers and sponsors are showing interest in the platform. Fox Sports has secured sponsorships for past VR events, such as with Toyota for the Daytona 500 and Lexus for VR coverage of the U.S. Open golf tournament.

“We’ve had an awful lot of interest in VR” from advertisers, Davies said. “There’s a lot of education that’s going on with the ad agencies and the sponsors to see where they fit in. They want to make sure they are not getting in too early and they want to make sure they’re not getting in too late. But they want to make a splash.”

Fox Sports said it will be trotting out some new tech-powered features for its coverage of the Dec.3  Big Ten Football Championship game between Penn State and Wisconsin.

That platform will stitch a 2D live feed of the game inside the suite along with some new interactive elements and improved point-of-view indicators and camera positions. For the game and the VR option, it will use five cameras, including an Ultra HD camera on a cart that offered a sideline view of the line of scrimmage on every play, the general eye camera that views the entire field, as well as cameras affixed to each goal post.

Those enhancements come after Fox Sports and LiveLike teamed up for the Sept. 17 matchup between Ohio State and Oklahoma.

RELATED: Fox Sports to Stream Ohio State-Oklahoma Football Matchup to Virtual Suite

Though Fox Sports has been offering VR experiences of sports events through its partnership with NextVR, the LiveLike platform “gives you a different kind of VR experience,” Michael Davies, senior vice president of field and technical operations at Fox Sports, said.

“While live VR is important, you need to give the viewer something else to do,” he added, citing the elements that provide access to replays and stats. “We think that the audience will come for the live VR, but they will stay for some of the other things they can do with it.”

Fox Sports and LiveLike are planning to expand on the platform when they hook up for the Dec. 10 MLS Cup between Toronto FC and the Seattle Sounders. More about those features, and the revenue-making potential of the VR endeavor, will be featured in a story appearing in the Next TV section of the Dec. 5 editions of Multichannel News and Broadcasting & Cable.

Also for the game, with pregame coverage set for 7 p.m. ET,  Fox Sports has teamed up with GoPro to offer a new point-of-view perspective from small cameras that are woven into the hats of on-field referees.

Following a test on for the Wisconsin-Minnesota matchup on Big 10 Network, Davies said Fox Sports collaborated on this with GoPro’s services division, which can take apart and reassemble the cameras in ways that allow them to “fit into almost anything.” For the Big 10 Championship, those cameras will be “low-profile” as they will be sewn into the refs’s fitted caps.

“You’ll hardly be able to tell it’s there,” he said.

Fox will use the referee cams for TV replays and also offer a delayed signal of those audio-free feeds on Fox Sports Go, its TV Everywhere app.

“We feel that we're just scratching the surface with something like this,” Davies said.

Here’s a look at the ref-cam feed from the recent test:

Fox Sports said it will use LiveLike’s VR platform to deliver a live stream of the September 17 non-conference football matchup between Ohio State and Oklahoma to a digitally-rendered, 360-degree virtual suite.

Fox Sports said it will offer it on the Fox Sports VR app for iOS and Android device to 95 million authenticated homes (those that get a pay TV service from an MVPD with digital rights to Fox Sports programming).

RELATED: Putting VR in a Sporting Mood (subscription required) 

Notably, the VR experience will be available to authenticated users via an interactive, 360-degree viewing platform built specifically for mobile device, or on a mobile VR headset such as the Samsung Gear VR or Google Cardboard.

The experience centers on a “Virtual Suite” in the stadium, where users can watch the game or pick from several on-field perspectives that are closer to the on-field action. An in-stadium board will simulcast the broadcast, and users will have interactive access to additional elements such as team rosters and schedules and game stats on demand.

The Fox Sports VR app is powered by LiveLike, a startup that specializes in helping programming partners deliver sporting events in digital environments that replicate “VIP” rooms and luxury suites found at large stadiums and arenas.

Earlier this year, prior to commercial launch of LiveLike’s platform, company CEO Andre Lorenceau noted that the company was pushing ahead with several  deployments in 2016 with partners in Europe and the U.S.

He explained that the live stream delivered to LiveLike’s platform doesn’t require any special 360-degree camera equipment because it can take the traditional 2D feed (as long as it’s captured using a fisheye/wide-angle lens) and stitch it into the VR experience. Lorenceau also discussed the sponsorship and advertising opportunities the platform could support, noting that “noninvasive” ads could be overlayed into the VR environment.

UPDATE: This weekend's game offered on the VR app is not being sponsored, though future opportuniies for sponsorships are being pursued, Fox Sports confirmed,  

Fox Sports and LiveLike said they plan to team up for “multiple games” during the college football season.

“FOX Sports’ commitment to innovation makes them the perfect company for us to work with as we roll out a VR experience that allows today’s sports fan to lean-in and watch sports in an entirely new way,” Lorenceau said in a statement.

“LiveLike has a unique and compelling approach to the live-sports VR experience,” added Devin Poolman, Fox Sports SVP of digital platforms. “We are thrilled to work with them to bring this new technology to our viewers, and it is particularly meaningful that this experience requires only an iPhone or Android device, allowing us to bring VR to a larger audience than ever before.”