Ethan Ryter, a candidate for a BA degree in sports journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, had identified an entrepreneurial opportunity even before arriving on campus as a freshman. As a life-long fan of soccer, he was surprised at the lack of soccer content available on cable television and other media platforms. From a young age, Ryter watched his parents launch and build a travel business that succeeded by providing a product to an underserved market.
Inspired by the exposure to the business of media he received in Phoenix, Ryter began to consider starting his own company to capitalize on the opportunity. The idea for TheSoccerChannel.tv (TSC) was born, which he envisioned would be an Over the Top (OTT) multimedia sports information and entertainment platform that includes the only 24/7 independent, live, linear streaming channel programming all soccer, all the time.
But it wasn’t until Ryter started taking entrepreneurship classes that he started to believe that he could handle the nuances of creating a startup. He started to realize he could turn TSC from an idea into a reality. In 2021 Ryter launched a beta website announcing the concept to interested customers (and gathering their emails in the process, as well as inviting content creators for the OTT platform.
Ryter interviewed over 20 potential customers during his time in ENT 360 Entrepreneur and Value Creation at the W.P. Carey School of Business. Many of these interviews validated his view. Soccer fan and ASU student Michael Bosque said he struggles to find soccer content to watch when watching television. He said if there was a channel that consistently showed soccer content he would watch it every day.
More rewardingly, Ryter discovered that talking over his idea with classmates made him not just validate that his idea had the possibility to be a reality, but that he was able to take critiques from classmates and professors to make the idea even better and more likely to succeed.
To see Ryter’s pitch for the 24/7 channel check here: https://youtu.be/0ashlrSHgEg
To see the TSC Website click here: https://thesoccerchannel.tv/