Snapchat and Sky Sports UK have renewed a content deal that will now include short-form video clips from the Premier League, the Women’s Super League and the UK’s soccer version of Monday Night Football.
Sky Sports UK’s made-for-mobile content will be disseminated on Snapchat Discover, which had a global audience of 25 million in the second quarter of 2022. Specifically, Snapchat Discover will show highlights from each Premier League football match, as well as Women’s Super League game highlights, a WSL talk show, behind-the-scenes footage, selected goals, clips from the Sky Sports show Soccer AM, Britain’s Monday Night Football and football news updates.
The overall programming is Sky Sports’ largest collaboration with Snapchat, which — based on its large audience during the Men’s and Women’s Euros 2022 — believes its viewership will grow exponentially during the upcoming FIFA World Cup and the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Snapchat habitually has added augmented reality elements to its soccer coverage, recently joining with LaLiga on a content platform deal that includes AR lenses and in-app integrations such as Bitmojis, Cameos, filters and stickers. Since September, Snapchat Discover has also been streaming LaLiga’s weekly football highlights, archival footage as well as top goals and saves — similar to its new deal with the English Premier League.
Meanwhile, the EPL recently implemented its own skeletal tracking into broadcast coverage through an update to Second Spectrum technology and an expanded partnership with analytics provider Football DataCo.
Golf Guru has raised $290,000 in pre-seed funding to continue developing its mental coaching app for golfers. The startup’s mobile app already streams more than 20 hours of mindfulness and meditation audio content focused on helping golfers prepare for shots, visualize success, and feel calm on the course.
Golf Guru reports that since its app launched for iOS and Android in Aug. 2021, its 7,000+ users have dropped their handicap by 20% in their first month of using the app, and 30% within three to six months. The company’s new funding will help integrate machine learning into Golf Guru’s app to suggest mindfulness content based on a user’s biometric data, and test AI voice generation in the app.
UK-based investment group Capital Pilot Boost Fund contributed to Golf Guru’s pre-seed round. Golf Guru is aiming to raise a seed round in spring 2023 and secure partnerships with major athletes and golf organizations.
The US Soccer Federation is partnering with Spiideo, an automated camera and video analysis solution, to increase access to video footage and analysis software.
Spiideo cameras, which use artificial intelligence to record video of matches and training, have been installed at US Soccer’s National Development Center in Kansas City. US Soccer also will make the cloud-based Spiideo Perform analysis tool available throughout its programs, from the men’s and women’s national teams on down through youth teams and coaching education. The goal is to make the process more efficient and the format standardized, so more time is spent on coaching instruction, player development and talent identification.
Spiideo Perform’s new AutoData feature enhances that analysis by automatically tagging game events (such as goals, shots and saves) as well as workload data (total sprints and distance covered) and some tactical information (passing networks). The NWSL is among the enterprise customers who use Spiideo and its League Exchange tool for accessing and sharing video.
The Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic, an HBCU basketball tournament slated for February, is staging its second annual staging Startup Pitch Competition in conjunction with VC firms MaC Venture Capital and Concrete Rose Capital.
Black-founded seed stage companies with less than $3 million in capital raised to date can enter the contest, where they will be advised and mentored by leaders not only from MaC Venture Capital and Concrete Rose Capital, but also from Harlem Capital, Endeavor, Combs Enterprises and actor Michael B. Jordan.
From now until Dec. 9th, applicants are able to submit business proposal decks on the Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic page via the Prudential Center website. The winners will receive their awards from the actor Michael B. Jordan at halftime of the Invesco QQQ Legacy Classic Basketball Showcase on Feb. 4th at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.
A year ago, construction industry management app TracFlo won the inaugural competition. Jordan, MaC Venture Capital and tennis star Serena Williams — through Serena Ventures — invested $1 million in TracFlo, whose app streamlines contractor documents and workflow operations for construction jobs.
Meta has announced the launch of XTADIUM, an app for watching sports in virtual reality, on its Quest Store. VR streaming startup YBVR developed the app, which is now streaming free on-demand footage from three NASCAR races, two UFC Fight Pass events, One Championship fights, EuroLeague basketball, and live and on-demand team tennis matches from the upcoming All American Cup, all shown in 180-degree VR though Quest headsets.
XTADIUM will stream more live sporting events in VR in the future and offer paid content via its partners. Currently, the app will stream live content from the beIN SPORTS XTRA channel and the World Surf League, but both will be shown in 2D and not Meta’s virtual reality broadcast quality. XTADIUM users can join watch parties with their avatar friends, watch from eight camera angles, and add real-time stat overlays during broadcasts.
“We believe the metaverse will unlock a new economy for the sports industry – and XTADIUM is another step towards that exciting future. By enabling both authenticated and pay-per-view content, the app will create revenue streams for our partners that are entirely incremental to the ones they have today,” Rob Shaw, Meta’s North America Director of Sports Media and League Partnerships, said in a statement.
Meta, which announced Wednesday that it was laying off 13% of its staff (more than 11,000 people), partnered with NASCAR in September to stream on-demand race recaps and condensed 45-minute races in VR through its Horizon Worlds platform. Condensed 45-minutes NASCAR races will now also be streamed on XTADIUM, including last week’s Championship at Pheonix Raceway.
Roku has upgraded the home screen menu on its smart TV and streaming devices with a new centralized location for browsing sports channels. Roku’s new Sports option lets users click to browse by specific sport, app, and view live and upcoming games.
Streaming apps for Apple TV, DIRECTV, FOX Sports, FuboTV, Paramount+, Peacock, Prime Video, Sling, The Roku Channel, TNT, TBS, and truTV, are currently included in Roku’s new sports section, with more options to be added in the coming months. The College Football Sports Zone on Roku will be sponsored by supplements brand GNC throughout November.
A recent poll shared by Roku found 61% of sports fans wanted a centralized location where they can watch sports, which would be an experience that resembles the archaic cable bundle more than today’s fragmented streaming landscape. Users will also be able to search for specific teams to watch though Roku’s new sports section.
The LPGA Tour has expanded its existing relationship with automated video company WSC Sports, creating highlights to populate Google search results.
WSC Sports uses artificial intelligence to identify, tag and cut video clips. In this partnership, it will produce what it calls WSC Stories, which are vertical videos from LPGA tournament action and publish them in Google’s OneBox. WSC Sports will include links and other calls to action, directing fans to LPGA digital properties or live viewing opportunities.
The two sides began working together in 2020. WSC Sports, which won SportTechie’s Outstanding Technology award in 2018, works in tandem with more than 250 leagues and broadcast partners — including the NBA, Bundesliga, LaLiga, Serie A, MLS, NASCAR, ESPN and Sportradar, which creates live video notifications for sportsbooks — and its WSC Stories product has been used by more than 40 global rightsholders in six sports since 2021. More than 10,000 stories have been produced in the past year, with WSC Sports reporting more than 150 million views with an average click-through rate of 15%.
Sports stock market Mojo has selected data solutions provider SportsDataIO to help them determine its ever-fluctuating player value pricing platform.
Mojo lets customers place real-money bets on an athlete’s future career outcome with real-time price changes and immediate liquidity, allowing bettors to enter or exit their investment at any time as they would a stock.
With Mojo, a player’s market value can fluctuate from their IPO price based on the player’s on-field performance or market whims. SportsDataIO is charged with pricing those players using its analytical engines and real-time API data feeds.
Founded by former MLB star Alex Rodriguez and entrepreneurs Vinit Bharara, Marc Lore and Bart Stein, Mojo is a startup that launched this fall in New Jersey to coincide with the NFL season.
In a recent interview with SportTechie, Bharara explained, “If you own a stock in Patrick Mahomes, you will be given a formula which tells you that at the end of his career, you’ll get paid a certain amount based on his statistics. We come up with a formula of the most important statistics for that player. That’s important because it gives the stock underlying intrinsic value.”
FIFA has signed a multi-year partnership with metaverse gaming platform Upland to let fans collect NFTs of video highlights from upcoming World Cup matches. FIFA’s virtual open world on Upland will include a virtual replica of Lusail Stadium in Qatar and other FIFA-branded apparel, shops, and virtual property in the game.
All 32 World Cup teams will have digital country crests, boots, shirts, logos, posters, and team mascots featured in Upland, which spans more than 3 million registers users across its app for iOS, Android and the web. Fans can also buy virtual buildings in Upland to be decorated with flags of their favorite World Cup team.
Upland will announce a new capital city in its virtual world on Dec. 18, and the capital will be decided based on the nation that wins the real World Cup in Qatar. In January, Upland struck a deal with the NFLPA to make NFTs representing more than 2,000 active NFL players.
Major Arena Soccer has enlisted Alt Sports Data, Inc. to distribute its analytics to sportsbooks and its emerging audience of potential bettors.
The indoor soccer league, which opens its season Thanksgiving weekend, will rely on Alt Sports Data to provide trading solutions and data provisioning to sports betting organizations, who would then set pre-event markets and handle in-game odds.
San Diego-based Alt Sports Data focuses mainly on alternative events such as adventure, endurance, indoor soccer and motor sports — formulating pre-match advanced odds and pricing data for sportsbooks and bettors using its proprietary software platform.
Major Arena Soccer, meanwhile, is a burgeoning league that recently announced that Brazilian football icon Ronaldo de Assis Moreira — otherwise known as Ronaldinho — will be co-owning an expansion team. The league has franchises in both Mexico and the U.S., such as the Baltimore Blast, San Diego Sockers, Kansas City Comets and Tacoma Stars.
McLaren Racing has named semiconductor manufacturer Onsemi an official racing partner for the No. 6 Chevrolet driven by Felix Rosenqvist for the 2023 NTT IndyCar Series.
Onsemi makes an expansive product line of sensors and other intelligent technologies, including an automotive division with a focus on vehicle electrification and safety. McLaren uses its parts in critical areas such as the steering wheel, for what’s touted as a more efficient design that maintains power and safety. Onsemi will be a partner in developing the new hybrid powertrain for the car.
The NASDAQ-listed, Phoenix-based Onsemi also designs products for sustainable energy grids, industrial automation and 5G and cloud infrastructure. Onsemi will serve as title partner for Rosenqvist’s car in at least four races next year, and all three McLaren cars in the series will carry its branding.
