Welcome to Issue #5 of Innovation in Sport, your regular round-up of the latest innovations and trends in sports & esports media, fan experience, impact & community engagement.

Writing this on the return train from Köln after experiencing England v Slovenia in the Euros, I’ve lots to report this week, from innovative uses of Generative AI, to new esports tournament formats, and golfing with llamas.

In short, there’s more innovation and entertainment in this newsletter than you’ll find watching England in the Euros right now.

So let’s dive in… 

🏟️ FAN EXPERIENCE 🏟️

Cricket’s T20 World Cup is targeting US audiences with a new Apple Vision Pro app, and younger audiences with bespoke Roblox experiences.

⚽ Euro 2024 fans have been enjoying the ‘Home of adidas Football’ experience in Berlin ⚽🏠

Described as every football fan's dream, it features live public viewings, an exclusive EUROs exhibition, a creative ‘Adistudio’, where visitors can customise jerseys and have fun with make-up and hairstyling, and the EA Gamebox, for gamers to join the fun.

🎾 Premier Padel has announced the launch of its new Premier Padel Fan App, the ultimate app designed to elevate the fan experience of the Premier Padel Tour.

⚽ OneFootball is introducing the OneFootball Club (“OFC”) to reward real football fandom and user loyalty. ⚽ 

📹 MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS 📹

🎾 Wimbledon and IBM will be expanding their use of Generative AI to create personalised ‘catchup’ summaries when the tennis tournament begins next week. The ‘Catch Me Up’ feature will generate pre and post-match player cards containing key stats and match highlights, as well as longer-form daily summaries of the day’s action.

📹 X is in discussions with sports leagues about behind-the-scenes docuseries. The social media platform has identified sport and exclusive video content as pillars of its future strategy.

🥇 The IOC plans to deploy an AI tool that will flag and delete abusive posts across more than 35 languages to protect 15,000 athletes and organisers from harassment.

🌍 IMPACT 🌍 

🥇 In 2016 the IOC initiated a Refugee Olympic Team formed of athletes displaced from their home countries, to help drive awareness of the global refugee crisis and send a message of hope to all refugees in the world.

The excellent new campaign #Forthe100Million drives awareness of the estimated 100 million refugees worldwide, and encourages sports fans to support the Refugee Olympic Team alongside their own country in Paris 2024 this summer.

🥇 And as I highlighted in past issues, if you’d love to attend some Olympic events in Paris this summer, there are lots of resale tickets being released every week from the official ticket resale website here.

🇫🇷 Despite monumental clean-up efforts, Paris’ River Seine remains too polluted to host swimming events at this summer’s Olympics.

Trend Update: Brands are increasingly launching campaigns to support neurodivergent athletes in sports. These campaigns include community activations, fundraising for charities, and sporting programs.

🤾‍♀️ WOMEN’S SPORT ⛹️‍♀️

⚽ 89% of women in soccer have experienced discrimination at work a new survey has found. The Women in Football report reveals gender-based discrimination is seldom reported and no action is taken in the majority of cases.

⚽ The aggregate revenue of Women’s Super League (WSL) clubs rose by 50 per cent to UK£40 million (US$50.8 million) in the 2022/23 season, according to analysis from Deloitte.

🏀 May was the WNBA’s highest-attended opening month in 26 years and its most-watched start of season across all the networks ever.

🎮 ESPORTS 🎮 

🏎️ ⚽ adidas has partnered with car-racing-meets-football video game Rocket League for a three-week Festival of Football!

The Festival lasts until July 10, with new challenges released every week. comes with a new set of challenges.

🏎️ Staying with Rocket League, the first post-EA FIFAe World Cup will be powered by the car game, FIFA have announced.

🎮 Trend Report: As esports becomes a viable career option for experienced gamers, more competitive opportunities are emerging for disabled and neurodivergent gamers.

💡 INNOVATION x SPORTS 🦾

🎾 Vive Tennis is the world’s lightest, smallest & fastest AI-powered ball retriever. Instead of wasting time and effort collecting loose balls, Vive Tennis’ robot does the work for you. Get me one of these now!

🏂 Shaun White has announced the launch of The Snow League. The first-ever professional league for global snowboarding and freeskiing halfpipe competition will launch in Winter 2025.

🦾 Nike and Hyperice have teamed up to create wearable technology. The Nike x Hyperice boot and vest is designed to help athletes perform at their best throughout training and competition.

🚴 What makes the Tour de France the world’s largest ‘connected stadium’? In this deep dive report, SportsPro unpacks how the world’s most famous cycle race is bringing fans around the world as close to the peloton as possible.

⏱️ EXTRA TIME ⏱️

🦙 Golfing with llama caddies — who carry your clubs uncomplainingly — is the hottest ticket in North Carolina. But watch out for the ‘llama-razzi’!

⚽ A Premier League spending cap is to be trialled in the coming season despite opposition from Manchester clubs and Aston Villa.

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See you next time,

Adam Reed
Innovation in Sport

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