#70 Challenges in Sports Innovation ft. Teamworks

March 15, 2024

News, features & insights from the world of Sports Tech. Every Week

Lots of ‘Sports Innovation’ related updates this week: A little preview of our upcoming report with Teamworks, GSIC’s International Sports Groundbreakers Challenge will close applications soon and the upcoming SportsInnovation event in Düsseldorf.

Plus the news and there are quite a few big stories. CR7’s fitness app launch, Liberty Media will get into Moto GP and the Saudi’s long rumoured takeover of Tennis might finally be here. Fun times indeed.

Feature Story

Challenges in Sports Innovation ft. Teamworks 

Together with Teamworks, we are working on a report on the Key Challenges faced by Innovation Leaders at various Sports Organisations. The report will consist of a survey of these leaders, going across sports, geographies and cultural backgrounds, alongside presenting key trends, insights from data analysed and case studies around Sports Innovation.

Here’s a preview of the report, including some interesting stats that the survey has already uncovered. 

  • 40% of respondents rated the level of maturity at their organisation around innovation as 3 / 5 or below.

  • 60% of respondents rated “Managing communication effectively within the organisation” as one of the top 3 challenges they face.

  • 80% of respondents rated “Potential for Cost Saving” as one of the top 3 factors when making innovation related decisions.

We will also be doing live survey’s and interviews at SportsInnovation 2024. Get in touch If you’re part of a sports team and would like to know more.

LAST CALL! Apply for the International Sports Groundbreakers Challenge to snag up to SGD 22,000 in prize money

The 2024 International Sports Groundbreakers Challenge invites global companies to propose innovative solutions for specific problems provided by giants in the sports industry. Open to all, the challenge rewards finalists with implementation opportunities, up to $22,000, promotional benefits, and a chance to showcase their solutions at GSIC Experience Centres.

Don’t miss your chance to revolutionise the sports industry.

Sports Innovation 2024: One Week To Go!

Returning to the MERKUR SPIEL-ARENA in Düsseldorf on Mar 20 & 21, SportsInnovation 2024 will showcase the cutting-edge advancements that are revolutionizing the world of sports.

Top News from the World of Sports Tech

Cristiano Ronaldo announced the launch of his all-in-one wellness app, Erakulis, that’ll provide personalized nutrition and training plans. It’ll be available from 3rd April, 2024. We believe Erakulis is another name for Hercules. Go figure. 

 Liberty Media, owner of Formula 1, is one of the bidders exploring a $4.3 billion acquisition of MotoGP’s commercial rights holder Bridgepoint 

Saudi Arabia’s National Development Fund (NDF) unveiled a $120 million Gaming and Esports Funds, at the LEAP 2024 technology conference, in collaboration with the country’s Social Development Bank (SDB).

Lance Armstrong is targeting $100 million for Next Ventures’ second fund that will focus on “whole-person health, ranging from preventative care to diagnostics and healthcare infrastructure”.

Up next on Netflix: Boxing. Jake Paul vs. Mike Tyson (27 yr old former YouTuber vs 57 yr old former Heavyweight Champ) will be streamed live exclusively on Netflix on July 20, 2024.

The French Tennis Federation announced the 2024 Roland-Garros eSeries, a virtual tennis tournament on mobile game Tennis Clash.

Bayer 04 Leverkusen received specific permission from the DFL to use parallel ads technology on the LED printer screens at the BayArena, provided by TGI Sport, allowing the current Bundesliga league leaders to show different advertising partners on TV in different markets.

San Antonio Spurs announced 2 initiatives to enhance fan experience during Spurs Week: Generative AI personalized videos for ticket holders and Augmented Reality interactive experience.

WNBA announced a multi-year partnership with Genius Sports’ Second Spectrum, to become the optical tracking provider to the league making it the first women’s professional sports league in the U.S. with cutting edge 3D tracking data.

JioCinema will partner with Indian social media platform, ShareChat and its short-form video app Moj, to showcase sports content, including the WPL, IPL, ISL and even the Olympics this year.

Paris based NFT fantasy sports player Sorare has laid off 13% of staff as web3 gaming continues to struggle.

Manchester City Football Club & Asahi launched NFT Collection OpenSea, ‘Brewed for Treble Success by Asahi Super Dry x Man City’.

Not Sports Tech but you should know:

 Audi confirmed a full takeover of the Sauber F1 team from current owner Islero Investments AG, appointing Andreas Seidl as CEO.

Newcastle’s Saudi owners are looking at building a “multi-club” model similar to that created by Manchester City.

The NBA is considering a new, stand-alone Europe based league, which could exclude the EuroLeague, to expand the NBA’s presence in Europe.

 Saudi Arabia’s PIF has made an offer worth $2 billion to merge tennis’ ATP (men’s) and WTA (women’s) tours, which would see the kingdom host a Masters 1000 event in the first week of each tennis season. The deal reportedly has a 90-day expiration date. Tick-Tock.

Reddit is aiming for a valuation of up to $6.4 billion in its U.S. IPO, targeting a sale of about 22 million shares, priced between $31 and $34 each, to raise up to $748 million.

Money Talks:

US based Multi-Brand Fitness Company with Fully Integrated Platform, FitLab, received $65 Million Strategic Financing Facility by Atlas Credit Partners.

Asia’s first Web3 Health management platform, Live4Well, raised $20 million from a billion- dollar family office led by Miranda Wong.

A new media and commerce company focused on golf, Pro Shop, has received $20 million in Series A funding round led by Powerhouse Capital with investments from the PGA TOUR, EP Golf Ventures and others.

Confidence-training platform for kids, Legends has raised $6 million in seed funding from tech and education VCs.

 VRTL, a platform that brings branded virtual entertainment to fans, closed a $1 million seed round led by APEX Capital and HearstLab.

UK based online crypto casino, BetRoyale, raised $500k in early pre-sale to help with the launch of their native token, $BCRN (Crowns), and the development of its comprehensive Web3 ecosystem.

Saudi Sportstech platform Grintafy announced an undisclosed investment from Chiliz to accelerate their web3 transition and international growth of football in partnerships with their company SportFi (known for Chiliz chain and Socios.com).

 Diamond Kinetics (DK), that provides portable mobile technology for youth baseball and softball development, acquired sidelineHD, a youth sports media platform, for an undisclosed amount.

 9Round Kickboxing Fitness acquired iLoveKickboxing franchise for an undisclosed amount with plans to scale the brand across US and Canada.

Latest from our channels

 #195 Swiss Unihockey– Sports association representing floorball in Switzerland

On this week’s episode, we have Sven Körner, Digitalization and Innovation Lead at Swiss Unihockey. He talks about this growing sport Floorball (Unihockey), his career as a professional Floorball athlete transitioning into an administrative role. We also talk about different areas of innovation for the sport, fans and athletes, other exciting tech developments like human interaction technology, ‘Project Iceman’, various challenges faced in innovation and then what’s coming up for Swiss Unihockey. 

Watch the full video here

 STX Weekly: Last week’s newsletter and monthly dealflow round up, in case you missed it.

 Sports Tech AllStars Recap: VC’s in SportsTech 

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