With a passionate fan base, brand-building religious affiliation and nationally renowned football program that operates as an independent free of responsibilities to a particular conference, Brigham Young University has a lot to build on from a sports marketing perspective.

But just in time for football season, the school turned a new corner in leveraging its existing advantages with the launch of a new website that combines digital video with social media engagement and gamification activations.

BYU owns the digital video rights to its school sports (and actually has its own TV network), which has given it the ability since last summer to stream a range of live events for fans online via a precursor to the new site, BYUtvSports.com. But adding incentive for fans to engage with content and participate in a more social experience has allowed the school to offer a digital experience that it says is unmatched in college sports.

Mikel Minor, who oversees the school's broadcast efforts and is a former SportsCenter producer, says BYU's new digital presence even rivals that of major brands outside the college sports world.

"There are elements of what we're doing that are very innovative even compared to ESPN," he told Mashable. "Especially with this gamification and really integrating fans into the dual screen experience, which is what this is all about."

The site's "Film Room" section allows fans to search for clips by sport, season or opponent. Its "Game Day" section is a portal to stream live events. A Gigya partnership allows fans to automatically post comments and other actions they leave on the site to their external social networks including Facebook and Twitter.

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After registering with the site, users can then set up a profile replete with biographical information much like what's found in the football and basketball programs of the teams they follow. As they interact with fans and engage with the site, their profiles progress in status from one-star recruit, to student-athlete, to All-American, to having their jersey digitally retired in honor. As one example of how the site builds on BYU's global appeal in a slick digital package, an interactive globe visualization shows registered users from around world.

BYUtv's digital media director Ryan Holmes says "thousands and thousands" of fans have signed on for the new gamification layer since it launched last week. Fans are also able to share and upload their own videos shot from games or tailgate parties after signing up.

"The whole idea is to take our own highly produced content and integrate it with fan content," Holmes told Mashable.

While BYU may be ahead of the digital curve, it's one of many schools where social media integrations have taken off since last year. In November, Mississippi State was the first college sports team to paint a giant hashtag in its football endzone, and on-field hashtags have since become relatively common. The University of Oregon recently launched a social media command center, the first of its kind in college sports, while Northwestern University launched an online hub for social content, a first in college football.