Van Wagner Unveils RELAY, Advancing the Digital Experience in College Athletics

New digital platform combines content management, flexible website design and AI capabilities to help athletic departments and conferences strengthen their digital presence.

NEW YORK, Nov. 11, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Van Wagner, a global leader in sports advertising, multimedia rights, and live event production, today announced the launch of Van Wagner RELAY, a new digital platform for official athletics websites and mobile apps. Drawing on Van Wagner’s experience working alongside athletic departments and conferences, RELAY combines content management and AI tools to help staff work more efficiently, tell their stories, and deliver a digital experience that reflects each institution’s brand. 

The initiative is being led by Jeff Rubin, Van Wagner RELAY Chief Strategic Advisor, with decades of experience at the intersection of college athletics, technology and digital media. Rubin has helped shape how athletic departments adopt digital technology, advancing the way programs use it to manage content and engage fans.   

RELAY is built around advancements in artificial intelligence at its core, from how athletic staffs manage content to how fans engage with and consume it, combined with customizable website design in one platform.  RELAY also gives departments the full toolset to build, brand and maintain their websites and mobile apps, including nearly 100 configurable modules for stories, schedules, rosters, statistics, forms, payments and digital advertising, without requiring a developer. Built to keep evolving, the platform delivers ongoing enhancements across its network of schools and conferences, allowing every RELAY client to benefit from new features and improvements. 

“This is about efficiency, but it’s efficiency based on where college athletics is today and tomorrow,” said Jeff Rubin. “Athletic departments are modernizing how they engage fans everywhere else, and we need to bring that same modernization to the digital experience. That’s what RELAY is doing. It’s digital transformation for the fan and for the people inside the athletic department who manage these platforms every day.” 

RELAY’s AI capabilities are designed to streamline time-intensive work while keeping athletic communication staff at the center of the storytelling process. RELAY can use box score data to develop the foundation of postgame stories, provide assistance with student-athlete bios, and help fans more easily interact with statistics and information about their favorite teams and student-athletes. These tools work directly within the website system, with communications staffs reviewing and approving all AI-generated content before publication. 

“There is an incredible need for efficiency across college athletics, and technology has an important role to play in helping athletic departments and conferences meet that challenge,” said Michael Palisi, president of Van Wagner College. “With Jeff’s experience informing RELAY’s development, we’re building technology that can make life easier for athletic department staffers and create a better digital experience for fans. Ultimately, we have an opportunity to give our partners a platform designed around where college athletics is going.  We see this as a natural extension of the service and innovation we strive to deliver.”  

RELAY gives each school and conference the flexibility to highlight its own brand, with tools that let staff create and update pages without a full website redesign. Migration tools help transfer existing stories, rosters, schedules, bios, statistics and archives, preserving institutional history while reducing the workload on staff during the transition.  

With RELAY, Van Wagner is extending its commitment to college athletics into the digital experiences that connect programs with their fans every day—giving schools and conferences more control over their stories, more time for their people and a platform that keeps moving forward. 

To learn more about Van Wagner RELAY, click HERE. 

About Van Wagner 

Van Wagner is a global leader in sports advertising, multimedia rights, and live event production, connecting brands and audiences through the power of sports and live experiences. Working with the world's most prominent sports leagues, teams, collegiate programs and major events, Van Wagner brings together expertise in sponsorship and media sales, high-impact advertising, collegiate multimedia rights, and live event and broadcast production. Through innovative partnerships, creative solutions and world-class execution, Van Wagner helps organizations maximize opportunities, engage audiences, and create lasting impact. For more information, visit www.vanwagner.com. 

Media Contact: 
 Sterling A. Randle 
 Digital Sport by Hot Paper Lantern 
 srandle@hotpaperlantern.com