The ACC and WSC Sports, the pioneer in AI-powered sports content technology, today announced the expansion of its league-wide innovative partnership. In the third year of an expanded agreement, and seventh year overall, all 18 ACC member institutions have access to WSC Sports’ cutting-edge technology, empowering each institution to deliver high-quality in-game content instantly across all digital platforms.
The ACC office has collaborated with WSC Sports, building off the long-standing relationship with the ACC Digital Network (ACCDN), to provide its member institutions and all sports offered at each the ability to utilize its editing suite, and real-time highlight-creation and video-automation where available.
The ACC’s commitment to technology and innovation both on and off the field is once again confirmed as the investment in the partnership continues to grow. New offerings for the 2024-25 year include access to the live feed of all specialty events – such as ACC Kickoff and Tipoff, ACC-hosted College GameDay stops, ACC Championships and NCAA Championship games – enabling the ACC and its member schools the ability to create and instantly distribute a variety of short-form content from the biggest in-game moments to all digital channels, inclusive of web, app and social.
As a leader in technology and digital offerings in college athletes, the ACC was the first college athletics conference including all member institutions to form a partnership with WSC Sports, making it a peer of the NBA, NHL, MLS, and other WSC Sports partners focused on leading-edge digital media practices.
“We are thrilled to expand on our partnership with the ACC now equipping every league institution with the technology to tell more stories to more fans across a variety of sports,” said Joe DaCosta, Head of College Sports at WSC Sports. “College sports fans are immensely passionate about their teams, and we are proud to be fueling the ACC and member schools to deliver the content their fans are looking for online.”
Highlighting our student-athletes as they compete at the highest level is a daily priority for the conference office and our 18 institutions.”
“Our partnership with WSC Sports–and being able to provide that as a league-wide initiative—has been incredibly beneficial in further showcasing the tremendous successes across our schools and sports,” he added.
With this enhanced agreement, the ACC is providing WSC Sports’ technology to aid all 18 members with the tools to further enhance their own brand visibility, which additionally benefits the entire Conference.
Since joining forces with WSC Sports, the data unequivocally demonstrates the profound impact of technology on reputable media platforms like YouTube and the ACC Digital Network FAST Channel.
ACC Digital Network (ACCDN) YouTube increases from the 2020-21 through 2023-24 seasons:
- Total views from 28M to 48M (71% increase)
- Subscribers from 241K to 340K (29% increase)
- Watch time (hours) from 8M to 15M (88% increase)
- Total videos posted from 2900 to 6600 (127% increase)
ACC Digital Network (ACCDN) FAST Channel increases:
- Total hours viewed from 2M to 6.6M (230% increase)
The partnership began in 2017 when ACCDN, owned and operated by Raycom Sports, partnered with WSC Sports to enhance the network’s digital content and FAST Channel programming. Since then, the ACC has partnered with both ACCDN and WSC Sports in continuing to advance in the technology and digital space within college athletics. ACCDN now has over 340,000 subscribers on YouTube, the largest following of any college conference YouTube Channel, and generates an average of one million views per week. There are now over 70 million U.S. viewers watching on FAST platforms, and the ACCDN is distributed across the largest platforms in the space.
ACC Team Testimonials
Here’s what some of the conference’s leading teams had to say about their partnership with WSC Sports:
“As one of the first movers with WSC Sports, Clemson has found tremendous value in our partnership with their team over the past several years. It makes both real-time coverage and building evergreen social packages incredibly easy as we develop our content calendars. They continue to push their tech to make it easier to democratize the content – it doesn’t require someone to have deep video editing knowledge. Their commitment to building out infrastructure highlights more sports, plugs into more platforms, and drives game-based content strategy.”
Jeff Kallin, Senior Associate Athletic Director of Communications, Clemson University
“The ACC’s partnership with WSC Sports has been hugely beneficial to our content workflows at UVA. The AI-generated clipping and highlight creation frees up personnel during and after games, which is invaluable given the multiple hats that external personnel need to wear. WSC Sports’ tech allows us to turn highlights around as quickly as possible and drive engagement around our games across our whole array of sports. WSC Sports’ innovative tech and willingness to work with us on our specific goals has been much appreciated over the course of our partnership.”
Michael Szlamowicz, Assistant Athletic Director of Sport and Broadcast Production, University of Virginia
“My team and I are so thankful that the conference decided to commit to a league-wide deal with WSC Sports. Having access to this software has greatly improved our process for providing live event coverage and postgame highlights to our fanbase. What used to be a stressful process is now simplified and smooth. We are just scratching the surface of possibilities with what we can create and accomplish with this partnership.”
Alyssa Sconzo, Director of Digital Strategy, University of Louisville
“WSC Sports has been an incredible asset for NC State Athletics and getting clips/highlights. Having a system that generates clips in games for basketball, football, volleyball, and soccer has minimized the amount of time it takes us to push clips out during events. Having a system that allows us to publish to different social media platforms without having to download a clip and then upload to the platform has cut the amount of time it takes to post real-time clips in half. Knowing that the system is used across the ACC allows for us to be able to access in-game clipping on the road without hassle. In addition, being able to have several people using the system at once has minimized the hassle of trying to decide which teams access clipping when there are several events occurring at the same time.
“We are able to expose more people to the NC State brand quicker and collaborate with different entities across several platforms to generate more exposure for our teams. For the teams that don’t have access to the AI generated clips, our broadcast team has been able to utilize the ‘College Athletics Clipping’ tab. Knowing that all of our sports can utilize the same system and create clips/highlights to publish in game has been a game changer in our game day content. Having access to the WSC Sports system has alleviated stress on game day as we know the system is ready to go for us. When an issue arises, the support team is incredibly responsive and tries to find a quick solution to the issue.”
Anne Hirschfeld, Assistant Athletics Director of Communications, NC State