What’s new at FanWord
February 9, 2026
This is Chris with FanWord, and I wanted to quickly personally welcome you to the first edition of The Highlight Reel! 🎉
Over the past few years, I’ve spoken with thousands of ADs, commissioners, and college sports communicators about FanWord, the AI storytelling platform for college sports.
If you’ve ever wanted to stay informed on product updates, enhancements, and what’s ahead — all in one place — you’re in the right spot.
Welcome to the The Highlight Reel.
These posts will feature:
- ✅ Product updates
- 🤝 New partnerships
- 🚀 New features
- ℹ️ Other noteworthy info
With that said… let’s jump into our first edition! 🎬
And as always, if you have any questions or want to chat further, reach out through the contact form at the bottom of the page — I’d love to connect.
What is FanWord Assist?
If you need a quick refresher, FanWord Assist is one of the leading AI-powered storytelling platforms in college sports. We help college sports communicators at ~200 schools across every level of the industry reclaim 5-10 hours every week by streamlining workflows and making high-quality content both faster and easier to produce. (i.e. game recaps, feature stories, player bios, transcriptions, news stories, online interviews, etc.)
🎾 New Sport: Tennis
We’re excited to announce that tennis is now fully supported inside FanWord Assist, using DakTennis and XML/XTG stat results to generate AI-powered game recaps.
For the first time, SIDs can conveniently transform official match data into clear, accurate, and customizable recaps without starting from a blank page or a manual template.
🏐 New Sport: Beach Volleyball
We’re also thrilled that you can now use FanWord Assist to create AI-powered game recaps for beach volleyball as well. Simply upload your XML/XTG file and let our system work its magic.
📈 New Feature: Trends for Game Recaps
Trends is our newest feature inside FanWord Assist, designed to help college sports communicators surface more accurate and engaging storylines—instantly.
For SIDs who need to produce game notes and recaps faster than ever, Trends eliminates the grind of manual research by automatically detecting storylines from past performances. (i.e. first occurrences, streaks, season-highs, career-bests, etc.)
📝 New Feature: Editorial Guidelines
Editorial Guidelines are now available across FanWord Assist and are ready for you to use at the organization or individual team level. Think of them as a living style sheet for Assist that lets you define custom naming or stylistic rules. (i.e. what you call your teams, how you abbreviate sports, how you talk about opponents, etc.)
💪 New Support Offering: Monthly Story Ideas
We’ve also introduced a new support offering that helps partners quickly uncover and create compelling feature stories about athletes, coaches, and alumni.
Here’s how it works:
- Each month centers on a specific theme, with ready-made question sets loaded directly into their FanWord platform.
- Using our Online Interview feature, partners can simply send the questions to their chosen recipients with the click of a button, who can then respond by audio, video, or text — on their own time.
- Responses are automatically transcribed and instantly transformed into first-person or third-person feature stories using our custom-trained storytelling AI.
➡️ Click here to see an example story from Stetson Athletics.
🏆 In The News
- The Northwest Athletic Conference (NWAC) conference office extended its partnership with FanWord for three years.
- George Mason Athletics Partners with FanWord to Power AI-Driven Storytelling
- FanWord announces its next public demo on Tuesday, February 24 at 2:00 PM ET. Click to register.
🔜 Coming Soon…
A sneak peek at what we’re actively building.
- Player Bios for Non-XML Sports: Creating season summaries for athlete roster pages on teams that use XML files is already live. Soon, you’ll be able to do the same for sports like golf, cross country, track and field, and tennis,
- Game Context: You will be able to adjust the tone of your game recaps based on selected context, including rivalry matchups, tough losses, and big wins, so the recap reads the way you’d write it.
- Draft Modifications: Quickly adjust your recap drafts by selecting pre-defined prompts or by adding your own feedback.
- Flag Football: Flag Football joins our growing list of supported sports; a breakthrough first for one of the fastest growing sports at the collegiate level.
That’s it! 🎉
Curious to learn more? Simply fill out the form below.
