In an old Toronto office building with crooked floors and plenty of exposed brick, dozens of journalists are clumped together cranking out news updates for millions of sports fans around the world.
The 35-journalist newsroom at theScore Inc. is unique in the country – it exists solely to provide content to cellphones and tablets. Deadline is marked in 30 second increments – there is no traditional daily product to produce. It has been built to complement the company’s wildly popular app, which has been a leading source of game-related data for millions but struggles to keep users around once the final whistle blows.
The newsroom goes live Thursday after a months-long hiring spree in an industry that has been shedding jobs rapidly, as the free app’s 4.5 million users are offered an upgrade that will integrate news to the relentless stream of facts and numbers they’ve grown accustomed to receiving. A year after splitting the company’s digital operations into a new company after selling its television station to Rogers Communications Inc., theScore CEO John Levy is back in the news game.
“We’re developing something that is like nothing else around at any other media organization,” he says. “We’re giving people news the way they want to consume news – nobody seems to be beating us to that golden space.”
The company is operating in an odd niche. It doesn’t own any broadcast rights, but is dependent on live events to drive traffic to its app. It’s a media company, but doesn’t have any legacy business to protect as it targets the mobile market.
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