XOS Technologies and Collegiate Images Partner

Collegiate Images has the vast sports video library and XOS Technologies has the power to make that library more accessible, so it made sense for the two companies to join forces. XOS is making what it calls a strategic investment in Collegiate Images that will make them partners in the business of distributing collegiate video content. CI owns the video and still photo rights to about 80 percent of the top 75 schools and 125 collegiate properties overall, including the BCS and conferences. With XOS's ability to move CI into the digital age, video that used to take about five days to move from campus to customer will soon be available in a matter of hours. Instead of calling up athletic departments for video highlights, networks and others now go through CI and pay a licensing fee, which generates a royalty for the schools. The problem is that CI has been working primarily in an analog world, which meant that schools had to overnight their video (usually beta) to CI, CI editors would spend a few days editing the video and then overnight it to the customers for their promotional use. In all, it was about a five-day process. By digitizing the process, that video can be sent from campus to customer electronically. XOS has been working with CI since the summer to digitize the collection of videos and still photos. Randy Eccker, CEO of XOS, said the library should be fully digitized by the end of the year.