ASTN Member News

EngageRM, a global leader in CRM automation and data analytics for the sport and entertainment industry, is excited to announce a three-year partnership with Southside Racing, a new entity born from the amalgamation of Cranbourne Turf Club and Pakenham Racing Club in Victoria, Australia. Starting in May 2025, this partnership will see Southside Racing utilising EngageRM’s comprehensive suite of cutting-edge products, including CRM automation, premium ticketing and corporate sales tools, portals, and audience engagement technologies. This collaboration aims to enhance Southside Racing’s operational efficiency, deepen fan engagement, and elevate the customer experience across its venues.

PMY Group (PMY) has announced a new partnership with Digital Mortar, a US-based crowd intelligence company. Over an eight-year journey, the team has developed a best-in-class software platform that leverages LiDAR and camera data to visualize, analyze, and report on people movement and flow. Their technology has been deployed at major venues, including Vancouver Airport, Pittsburgh International Airport, SoFi Stadium, Meta, USPS, and New Jersey Transit. The technology will be integrated into PMY’s intelligence platform – Optic. Optic provides clients with powerful venue and crowd intelligence.

Athletes have been handed a golden start to their preparations for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, with the Australian Sports Commission (ASC) unveiling record investment allocations for sports. The announcement has resulted in 95% of Olympic and Paralympic summer sports receiving increased funding with an average investment increase of 64% per year, compared to the period leading up to the Paris Games. Some $AUD 385m has been invested in 70 sports over the next 18 months, ensuring Australians have world class pathways and support at all levels of sport, from participation to high performance.

One of the busiest and most iconic sports venues in the world, Dodgers Stadium, has selected MyVenue as a key stadium service provider. Following a successful bid process and pilot, MyVenue has signed a 5-year agreement to install 719 fixed & portable point-of-sale terminals and its native back office with real-time reports, dashboards, and inventory management.

The AFLW season concluded last week which marked the successful debut and integration of the Sportable x Sherrin Smart Ball. The Smart Ball played a pivotal role in enhancing the game through the Score Assist officiating review system. The Smart Ball was used in a total of 108 games, across  29 stadiums and impacted 30 score reviews. The Smart Ball traveled an impressive 813,806 meters, recorded over 28,000 kicks and 21,000 handballs across all 108 games.

 ECAL has announced its expansion into Saudi Arabia and the Middle East with the signing of a partnership MoU with exciting local digital agency Xplere, at the World Football Summit Asia in Riyadh. Xplere will provide on-the-ground services and support for ECAL clients across the booming sports and events ecosystem in Saudi Arabia to help realise their Vision 2030 mission. 

SportWest and revolutioniseSPORT have agreed to a three-year extension of their partnership to remain as SportWest’s Official Technology Partner and retain naming rights to the Community Club of the Year Award. Staff from revolutioniseSPORT are also set to ramp up their commitment to WA sport, with their team to collaborate with SportWest staff and the membership to deliver a range of workshops, seminars and events that aim to deliver to the SportWest strategic goal of enhancing the capability of the industry.

Clubs and parents across NSW will have a lot less work to do this week at the State Swimming Championships. Swimming NSW has hired Olly Timing to provide backup times for the championship. This eliminates over 6 person months of volunteer effort via an estimated 700 timekeeping shifts. Touchpads at Sydney Olympic Park Aquatic Centre will be the primary timing, and Olly Timing’s world first artificial intelligence technology will provide the backup, instead of volunteer timekeepers.

Advance Queensland, in partnership with the NRL and the ASTN (Australian Sports Technologies Network) is launching a 10-week NRL Magic Round Tech Sprint. The program will support up to eight Queensland-based innovative businesses as they collaborate with NRL subject matter experts to refine and adapt their tech to meet the needs of the NRL and its clubs. Each successful business will receive $AUD 25,000 in funding to participate. The program kicks off from February to May 2025, with the showcase event held during the 2025 NRL Magic Round week.

Teamworks, a leading enterprise SaaS company serving 99% of Division 1 NCAA institutions, has announced the acquisition of Basepath, a leading NIL Operations Software that automates tasks, contracts, communication and finances for NIL stakeholders and student-athletes. Teamworks provides a consolidated tech stack to power every function within the Athletic Department. Specifically for NIL, 240+ D1 Universities and 100,000+ student-athletes have adopted Teamworks 'Influencer' to manage content, deals, and transactions. Basepath is used by more than 75 campuses and delivering over $100M payments to student-athletes.

Rookie Me has announced a new partnership with the Melbourne Central Basketball Association (MCBA), serving as the naming rights sponsor of the Melbourne Tigers representative program. As the Official High Performance Partner, Rookie Me will support the Tigers’ commitment to investing in athlete development through innovative technology and expert guidance in high performance, and strength and conditioning. 

Australia's leading 200m runner, Gout Gout, is rewriting with record-breaking sprints that have shaken up the athletics world. This 16-year-old prodigy has not only set new standards but has a secret weapon that's amplifying his performance - VueMotion. Vuemotion, an AI-powered video assessment tool, is used by Gout's coach Dianne Sheppard and allows her to identify and address specific areas for improvement in real-time. VueMotion enables coaches and athletes to refine technique, correct imbalances and better understand movement.

Hockey Australia has extended its partnership with SportsLink Travel, continuing its commitment as the non-exclusive Travel and Tour partner of Hockey Australia. SportsLink Travel’s all-inclusive, world-class travel package experiences saw hockey fans enjoy a stellar, action-packed 2024, with the opportunity to witness the Hockeyroos and Kookaburras at the peak of their game at international tournaments, including the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. 

Traits Insights is barely two years old, but already the analytics startup is helping world-class sporting clubs gain a competitive edge and has attracted the attention of elite athletes globally. The company’s software platform helps professional sports teams translate complex performance data so they can identify players’ strengths, develop talent and make informed strategic decisions. Traits’ momentum has earned it backing from well-known investors, including venture capital fund Artesian and APEX Capital, a group comprised of professional athletes who invest in sports ventures. The APEX fund is backed by a group of 100 elite athletes from across the UK and Europe.

The Al Ain Chess and Mind Games Club, powered by Checkmate Live, has launched the E-chess Championship a global, multi-stage chess tournament with a $US 60,000 prize pool and a Grand Final in Al Ain, UAE, on December 22, 2024. Players can register for free, and compete across four regions of the world. Online Qualifiers start November 23-24 & November 30 - December 1.

The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) today announces its collaboration with the City of Perth to shine the spotlight on local sportstech leaders and highlight global trends in the industry during West Tech Fest 2024. With the support of a City of Perth , ASTN will host several industry events on 3rd December in Perth, focused on advancing the sportstech ecosystem. Activities will include an industry roundtable to explore growth strategies for Perth's sportstech sector, an investment pitching masterclass connecting startups with investors, and a networking event showcasing local sportstech companies while offering insights into global trends.

The Victorian Government is currently hosting its first in-person Sports Economy Trade Mission to the Gulf - Saudi Arabia and UAE. Comprising 22 Victorian organisations, the delegation includes state sport bodies and leading providers in; sports technology, stadium & venue design, event & facilities management, broadcast, high performance, data analytics & research, and esports & mobile gaming. Victorian organisations on the Mission include CloudMix / 5stream, Australian Sports Technologies Network, Basketball Victoria, Belgravia Leisure, Catapult, Cox Architecture, Deakin University, ECAL, Fortress, Hospitality Solution Group, Incognitus, The Kinetica Group, Kronos, MX3 Diagnostics, Netball Victoria, PMY Group, Rosterfy, Savy Soda, smartform architecture SportNXT Sport and Recreation Victoria.

Australians are choosing to exercise alone or with friends or family instead of through an organisation according to new data from the Australian Sports Commission (ASC). The results, from the ASC’s national AusPlay survey, also show that volunteers contribute more than 145 million hours to sport each year. The latest results show 84 per cent of Australian adults are active and two thirds choose to do some of their activity alone. Walking, fitness/gym and running/jogging remain the most popular activities. Introduced in October 2015, the national AusPlay survey now collects data on over 600 different participation sports and activities and is the largest and most comprehensive survey of its kind in Australia.

Sydney tech firm VueMotion has been voted the People’s Choice winner at the InnovationAus 2024 Awards for Excellence for its platform that brings the tech used by elite athletes to a smartphone. The People’s Choice award was sponsored by the Australian Computer Society. VueMotion has created an artificial intelligence-driven movement analysis tool that can aid coaches, athletes and staff to optimise movement and improve injury outcomes from anywhere, not just from a specialist lab.

Alignment Growth Management (Alignment Growth), an investment firm focused on growth-stage, privately-held media and entertainment companies, announced an investment in PMY Group (PMY), a premier international venue, events, and infrastructure technology solutions firm. PMY is a full-service technology solutions company that supports venues and major events to enhance their infrastructure, experience, and intelligence. Founded in 2009 with a focus on stadiums, the company has diversified to service more than 1,000 clients across 15 countries. The investment in PMY marks Alignment Growth’s eighth investment out of its inaugural fund. 

etrainu has announced a new partnership with Sir Graham Lowe, marking the launch of "Kick for the Seagulls - Community Coaching", a comprehensive library of 12 online courses aimed at inspiring and developing the next generation of community coaches. The course series focuses on fostering essential skills, promoting teamwork and empowering volunteer community coaches to create a positive impact. The Kick for the Seagulls program is set to roll out later this year through Auckland Rugby League, providing accessible training resources for coaches.

TwinLabs.ai a leader in sports digital twin applications has launched a digital twin for the gym and fitness centre management industry. TwinLabs.ai has been working with the Tour De France to assist them manage the event through TwinLabs event management solution. TwinLabs has now expanded its market application to include gyms and fitness centres. The Gym Twin provides gym owners and managers with 'spacial intelligence'. Gym Twin uses all the tech that gyms already have including CCVT cameras and membership systems, and turn it into a 3D digital version of the gym complete with real-time data. Pilots are already running and have helped identify when the gym is busiest, spotted patterns in member usage, equipment configuration and help fine-tune everything from marketing and staff rosters to the playlist.

The winners of the 2024 Australia & New Zealand Sports Technology Awards were announced during the Australian Sports Tech Week in Melbourne on 23rd November. The awards were presented in partnership with the Australian Sports Technologies Network and the Sports Tech World Series, organisers of the STWS Conference. Winners included Olly Timing, Nobody's Princess, Areto Labs, VADR, Rookie Me, Bar TV, Gravity Fit and SportsBlock. Founder of Sponserve (now part of KORE Software), Mark Thompson and Co-Founder of Australian Sports Technologies Network, James Demetriou were awarded Lifetime Achievement Awards.

As part of Sportstech Week in Melbourne, the Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) facilitated a Women-Led Sportstech Design Masterclass. Leading female founders shared their journey and passion in building their sport-related startups. Founders included Kirsty Richardson - GravityFit, Saara Jamieson - Cool Beans Underwear, Michelle Walshe - CoachMate, Victoria Zorin - Nola, Maria Baker - Nobody’s Princess, Suzie Betts – Boob Armour, Marie Penny – Project Flock and Natalie Moore – Own Your Health Collective / MenoVest.

East Asia Super League (EASL), East Asia’s premier basketball league and entertainment experience has announced that global leader in fan tech Tradable Bits will be the league’s official fan engagement partner. As part of the long-term and exclusive agreement, Tradable Bits will expand the league’s growing base of new fans while deepening engagement with existing fans.

The Australian Sports Commission has welcomed the release of the Australian Government's National Sport Strategy, Sport Horizon. 
Bringing together the work of the sport sector, Sport Horizon provides a framework to focus our efforts and resources to drive improvement and better outcomes for sport over the next decade. The priorities will align with Australia’s National Sport Participation Strategy – Play Well, and Australia’s 2032+ High Performance Sport Strategy – Win Well. Sport Horizon sets a shared vision for the 'green and gold decade' highlighting six priority areas: Inclusion, Participation, Safety, High Performance, International Engagement, and Economy and Environment.

Golf Australia has announced that they are partnering with CoachMate to help deliver the ‘MyGolf’, ‘Get Into Golf’ and ‘MyGolf Schools’ programs digitally to ensure that new golfers have the best experience possible. CoachMate is an app designed to save time and help deliver great coaching sessions on or off the course. This is done through easy-to-follow game based video content, group management and micro learning tips and tricks. Golf in Australia has enjoyed huge growth in participation numbers over the last few years highlighted by the 2022/2023 Golf Participation Report showing 3.5 million Australians played golf, representing 17.6% of adult Australians. In the same period, ‘MyGolf’ participation rose 22% year-on-year and ‘Get Into Golf’ increased 39% year-on-year.

Own Your Health Collective have launched their innovative MenoVest on mainstream television in Australia this week. Launched on Nine's Today Show in partnership with Over The Bloody Moon the MenoVest simulates symptoms of menopause. The product complements Own Your Health Collective's menopause workplace training that offers men in particular a glimpse into the often-unseen realities of menopause.

Launched in 2020, MyVenue provides a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) solution to venue food and beverage operators in the sport, entertainment, and hospitality industries. The business services more than 140 venues across North America, the UK, and Asia Pacific. MyVenue uses Google Cloud and BigQuery to process and analyze data from thousands of POS terminals across North America, the UK, and Asia Pacific and additionally improved its scalability and flexibility. MyVenue processes up to 5,000 records per hour during peaks and supports 20,000 dashboard requests over a 12 hour period.

Outdoor swimming competition meets without timekeepers or touchpads can now be delivered with Olly Timing. Swimming Australia 2024 Club of the Year, Lane Cove Swim Club, based on Sydney’s north shore ran their entire Spring Carnival using Olly Timing on Saturday 13th October. Despite 30-40km hour winds and highly variable light conditions, Olly Timing’s world first computer vision powered swimming competition timing successfully recorded 991 times in over 5 hours of racing.

MyVenue is the first sports & entertainment point-of-sale solution certified by FreedomPay on Castles Technology's Portable Android Series POS devices. The all-in-one handheld POS device with MyVenue’s cloud-based solution is now live at multiple North American major league and college venues. The compact devices are the first fully integrated handheld POS with EMV (Europay, Mastercard, Vis) reader, printer, 4G, and Wi-Fi connectivity certified on FreedomPay’s P2PE-compliant (point-to-point encryption) payment gateway. FreedomPay is one of the world's leading independent payment gateways.

Australian Oztag is excited to announce a partnership with etrainu, an innovator in online learning solutions, to launch The Hub, a new digital platform designed to streamline referee accreditation and training. This partnership will standardise accreditation for referees within Oztag. With over 5,000 referees set to use the platform, Oztag will seamlessly combine on-field assessments with online learning to streamline the referee accreditation process. This will support their growing membership base of 150,000+ players. 

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Katy Perry’s AFL Grand Final performance is another signal that the use of mixed reality in Australian sports presentation is on the rise. A consortium including Champion Data, Mushroom Events, Silent Partners Studio, Vizrt, NEP Group, Inc., and Seven Network, joined forces with Katy Perry to help deliver a groundbreaking transformation to the Telstra pre-match entertainment at the 2024 AFL Grand Final in front of more than 100,000 fans. Daylight often presents significant limitations to the in-stadium entertainment spectacle, but by using cutting-edge “Virtual Camera” and Augmented Reality technology to deliver dynamic, automated graphic scenes, Katy Perry’s electrifying performance was elevated to new heights. 

Broadcasting tech company Layercake has been shortlisted for the SportsPro 2024 OTT Awards in the Best Startup Category. The OTT Awards is a celebration of the trailblazers in the world of sports broadcasting and streaming, spotlighting the platforms, content creators and innovations that are redefining the way sports is consumed worldwide. Layercake provides two broadcasting and content asset solutions which include Streamcake and Mediacake.

VueMotion has been nominated as a finalist in the 2024 InnovationAus Awards for Excellence. Since their inception in 2021, these awards continue to spotlight pioneering companies that are driving innovation - including within this all-important Health-tech category.VueMotion powers better quality movement in sport and health with world-leading Computer Vision & AI. Other finalists in this category include Navbit, Artrya Ltd and nuroflux.The winner will be announced on 30th October 2024.

Sportstech companies Vue Motion and 1080 Motion have collaborated to improve athletic movement analysis. This combines both kinematic and kinetic outputs to test a range of athletic-based movements. 1010 Motion are leaders in robotic technologies for neuromuscular testing and training in sports and rehabilitation. Vue Motion specialises in development of video and data analytics for athletic movement using computer visioning, AI machine learning and augmented reality. The technologies are crucial for decision making when it comes to interventions for improving performance, injury prevention and rehabilitation. 

A total of $AUD 8.5 million in grants have been awarded to 12 quantum technology projects led by 5 Queensland-based universities as part of the Department of Environment, Science, and Innovation's Queensland Quantum and Advanced Technologies Strategy. The Quantum 2032 Challenge aims to accelerate the development of quantum and advanced technologies products and applications, attract investment and foster collaboration, build a skilled quantum workforce, accelerate decarbonisation efforts, and promote quantum-based innovations to support the Brisbane 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Projects focused on athlete performance theme including concussion diagnosis, wearables technologies, hydration and anti-doping as well as large-scale event-based themes including transport, communications and security.

After doubling customer deployments in the past 12 months, MyVenue has been named the 2024 Telstra Best of Business Awards (SA) winner for Outstanding Growth. MyVenue supports more than 140 venues across Australia, the US, Canada, and the UK using our next-gen POS solution. Their growth has been underpinned by proactive product development, ongoing investment in cybersecurity, and building support capacity.

ActiveKIT (Knowledge | Innovation | Technology) is a call to action to ‘shift the dial’ on investment in the Active Industry to drive physical activity participation in Queensland. The initiative aims to encourage better utilisation of knowledge, harnessing innovation and leveraging technology to enable more Queenslanders to be physically active more often,. A total of 47 innovation solutions totaling $AUD 4.3 million in grants were awards in the Super Round of funding. There were a number of sports-tech related projects awarded grants which included GravityFit, Champion Life, Chicks Who Ride Bikes and Cinema on the Fly

Global sports broadcast platform, DAZN, has recently announced a partnership with Tradable Bits, a leading provider of fan engagement, data, and marketing solutions, to enhance sports telecasts in Taiwan. The companies will pilot a series of activations designed to increase viewers’ engagement with content before, during, and after sports events. Fans who interact with DAZN’s content by scanning QR codes that appear in telecasts will have a chance to be rewarded with prizes, merchandise, game tickets, and more.