If you are like most people, your eyes will turn to the television or computer screen in the coming weeks to watch March Madness in all its splendor.
Hit the mute button. It will give you an idea what VITAC Captioning does. Founded in 1986, VITAC, the largest provider of real-time and offline captioning products and services in the United States, helps sports content providers and facilities in two ways — by mitigating legal risks and increasing revenue streams.
On the first front, VITAC and others in the field, like LNS Captioning, help clients comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Over the last decade, a number of legal challenges have emerged from the hearing-impaired, and those who represent them, who want the same rights as the hearing-enabled when it comes to watching sporting events.
While the value when it comes to risk management has been around for a while, the business growth piece is more recent, according to John H. Capobianco, the Chief Marketing Officer of VITAC. “There are 50 million deaf or hard of hearing,” he said. “Many of them would attend sporting contests if they could enjoy the contests as much as everyone else. Our clients have decided to embrace that market.”
But the real growth Capobianco sees will come from the 83 million millennials. He says many of them watch videos with the sound off and would prefer the option of captioning while attending a sporting event.
A recent story in the Dallas Morning News, “Why falling student attendance at college football games is a real concern … is TV to blame?”, may have made an even more compelling connection.
Journalist Tim Cowlishaw notes that college football has “suffered its biggest attendance drop in 34 years last season.” He added that “falling student attendance” is the likely culprit.
Why? He writes that “it’s just easier to watch on your big screens at home.”
He continues that “it’s incumbent upon teams in every sport to try to recreate the home viewing experience for those actually in the arena. It’s remarkable how much effort (and how many millions of dollars) get spent in new buildings on things unrelated to actually seeing the game from your seat.”
While captioning may not be the last piece of the puzzle when it comes to maintaining and growing revenues, it certainly seems to be a piece. So, it’s no surprise that Capobianco is seeing “tremendous growth in in-stadium captioning. We’re being approached on multiple fronts with teams and facilities leading the way. The tipping point is here where they are buying captioning services because they want to, not because they have to.”
