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WMT Digital Creates Customized Digital Platforms for Their College Clients as Fan Demand for Exclusive Content Increases

WMT, a creative solutions agency that powers websites and apps for 12 Power Five athletic departments, specializes in search experience, web development and software engineering.Courtesy of WMT

Most college football bowl teams have innovative coaches, dynamic players, obsessed alumni and…WMT digital.

If you’re only as good as your website and app, then these teams are beyond good. WMT is the agnostic integrator of technology that powers the content, streams, subscriptions, ticketing, marketing and storytelling on college football’s digital platforms. And if there is ever a time their IT department cannot take even a minute off, it’s now — the college bowl season.

Little does anyone know, WMT is the backbone of LSU Gold, Hogs+, Clemson+ and roughly 40 other websites, apps and "plusses." When Clemson coach Dabo Swinney was asked last week on National Signing Day about NIL and answered, "We built this program in God’s Name, Image and Likeness," the Tiger fanbase knew it could go straight to the video courtesy of WMT. Their tentacles are everywhere.

The University of Kentucky and LSU are two of the several universities powered by WMT Digital.

The company, which was once a one-man gang in Miami, has built a gameday app for Ohio State, a single screen recruiting platform for Clemson, an all-in-one venue app for San Diego State’s Snapdragon Stadium and is willing to try anything and everything else.

"We’ll build something new depending on the circumstances, which has been very warmly received, especially in the collegiate sports industry over the past two, three years," says Chad Cleveland, WMT’s Chief Operating Officer. "It’s like their minds open, ‘Oh, wow, I have options, we can do different things and we can collaborate with WMT.’"

On a typical college athletics website, a company called Sport & Story will deliver content, a company called REVELxp will distribute turnkey tailgating data and a company called WePlayed will create AI-powered highlights. But they are all powered together onto various websites via WMT, which has created an unrivaled collegiate digital ecosystem.

The one who should be taking a bow most of all is Andres Focil, WMT’s founder and managing director who birthed the business on a whim. Back when the Miami Heat had their Big 3 of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, Focil was tasked with helping his alma mater, the University of Miami, get off the back pages. At the time, any Google search involving Miami sports came up Miami Heat or Miami Dolphins, so Focil went to work.

Through his expertise in coding, he was able to tweak the school’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO) practices to the point U of M boiled up to the top of the page ahead of LeBron. It turned Focil into a boy wonder, and he gained the rapid reputation as someone who could, for lack of a better term, "disrupt."

Fast forward a few years, and Focil received a cold call from the Arkansas athletic department, whose query was the rough equivalent of, 'Hey, what you did at Miami was kind of cool — could you help us do that? And while you’re at it, could you revamp our digital platform?'

Focil jumped right in at a time the digital space was littered with providers such as Sidearm Sports, CBS Interactive and PrestoSports. But he differentiated himself through his preoccupation with SEO, which he felt would bump a school’s recruiting, ticket sales and overall booster profile.

He wasn’t wrong. Around 2020, he connected with Cleveland, who was senior VP marketing and technology for Tailgate Guys — which, among other things, was trying to create an online store for reserved tailgating at events and venues. He eventually joined WMT, collaborating with Focil on a reservation platform for sports hospitality that would be integrated into Focil’s websites and app. Before you knew it, WMT had effectively become a native multi-tiered integrator of content, merch, recruiting, streaming, you name it.

"So it started out as, ‘Hey, let’s help Miami get better from an SEO perspective,’ and now we’re building large scale ecommerce platforms that are driving millions of dollars in revenue," Cleveland says. "And that’s really the story of what WMT is."

Focil’s integration with Clemson, around the pandemic in 2020, added to his mystique. With Swinney was unable to recruit in person due to Covid-19, Focil implemented the single screen platform for the coach so that during one virtual call, Swinney could review tape with a recruit, give the recruit a simulated campus tour — everything but slap the recruit on the back.

If it gave Clemson an unfair advantage, that was the point. That was Focil’s and WMT’s M.O. Before long, he had created a stadium app for Ohio State called Gameday mode. That meant anyone coming to the Horse Shoe in Columbus could the app to have access to concessions, parking, game info and everything specific to that venue.

"It’s more of like how can we drive revenue, how can we help you monetize your digital platform," Focil says. "How can we drive recruiting, how can it impact different aspects of your business as a whole. And help you better understand your fans so you can engage them better and give them better storytelling and ultimately being able to deliver a better product from a digital perspective."

In 2022, WMT went a step further with the Snapdragon Stadium app. Considering the new stadium in Mission Valley houses not only San Diego State, but pro teams such the San Diego Legion (rugby) and San Diego Wave FC, the app is more expansive — from tickets to parking to concessions to streams to game info to how to use the app during a halftime light show.

The company is always tinkering. In the past year, they have powered Collegiate Sports Connect, a sort of sports-niched LinkedIn that loops together college sports associates. CS Connect is reportedly up to 7,000-plus users and is creating jobs, revenue and more word of mouth about Focil.

The 2022 bowl games only add to WMT’s portfolio, considering app and website traffic will be exponentially higher during Clemson’s appearance in the Capital One Orange Bowl or Arkansas’ appearance in the AutoZone Liberty Bowl or LSU’s appearance in the Vrbo Citrus Bowl.

Focil may be standing by with the IT department on those gamedays…or plotting new SEO strategies…or drawing up the latest iterations of WMT for 2023.

"Because he is an engineer by trade," Cleveland says. "He’s still today coding and doing all the things. If you saw his office, it’s like he’s building a space ship or something."

You never know: maybe he’ll send Swinney up in one.

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