SIDEARM Sports born at Syracuse University

12-40.

Rod: it's easier than ever these days to follow almost every aspect of your favorite college sports teams. carrie: all the schools, big and small, have their apps and websites, and newschannel nine's jeff kulikowsky tells us.... that hundreds of them across the u-s are actually made in central new york.

Jeff: it's the year 2000....nasdaq crashing as the dot com bubble burst around it...many tech companies collapsing...inclu ding the creator of the website for syracuse university athletics....with a powerful sports program s-u knew it needed to continue with a presence on the emerging world wide web....it brought then a-d jake crouthamel to take a meeting with a young su professor running a small internet business on the side.

Jeff rubin, ceo & president, sidearm sports, " i need an athletic website, i brought up discovery channel and he's like have you built an athletic website and i said no, he said what are you doing here and i said i'm a professor and i'm local and we can build this for you, we've got the talent and we're not going anywhere.

Long story short jake took a big chance on us."

Jeff: rubin remembers the ..100-percent growth....in year one....adding....one more school....but then four years in the jump....sidearm was adding a hundred schools a year...mostly division two and three... jeff rubin, " then in about 2013 an important piece, we signed texas and kansas, two big12 schools, bcs.

They were great gets for us but we still had only 3 bcs schools out of 700 schools we worked with."

Jeff: so what is sidearm you're probably asking...rubin calls it a digital innovator...that just happens to work with college sports....it provides the platform for schools....with hundreds of modules they can use to manage every aspect of their digital presence....with an edge...key support in the form of all former sports information directors.

Jeff rubin, " they know what its like to be on the front lines on a friday night, on a saturday when you're juggling a lot of tasks and oh by the way we gotta get this video stream out."

Jeff: by now it wasn't just the big schools...the so- called b-c- s....joining with sidearm....other companies wanted to partner with the company too...and in 2014 sidearm was acquired.

Jeff rubin, " when people ask how many kids i have i say three.

Benjamin who is 9, nathan who is 10 and sidearm who's 16.

Sidearm is my baby and what i wanted to do is see my baby grow and i felt by being acquired by learfield would give us the resources and reach into division one market."

Jeff: 28 months later....sidearm has nearly half of all the b-c-s schools...more than any of its competitors... jeff kulikowsky talks with jeff rubin about their analytics board in the office, " jeff rubin says...usually bc isn't in there right now, probably somethings going on that's generating the traffic.

Jeff kulikowsky asks....florida gators usually big.....jeff rubin repsonds....florida gators is almost always #1, florida gators and typically texas sports are right up there....jeff kulikowsky...sure."

Jeff: the company that started with 3 people now has about 40 full time and 40 to 50 part time employees.

Like their roster he says the amount of data and content that college sports produces will continue to grow.

Jeff rubin, " the big challenge in what we're trying to do is how do we deliver information to fans that they can't get anywhere else, even if that means it the stadium."

Jeff: despite the tremendous growth rubin says one thing about sidearm will never change.

Jeff rubin, " all our clients know, look we've got 930 schools and we treat them all the same professionally, personally i'm orange and they know that."

Jeff: and carrie -- jeff rubin is not from here....he came as a student in the early 90's and never left... carrie: so jeff -- sidearm operates on campus....is there a business relationship between s-u and the company?

Jeff: not directly....it's an interesting synergy....head to local syr dot com for exclusive content about this relationship....it's worth your time... rod: still ahead