Sportstech & Member News

Now in its fourth year, the QUT Sport Tech Challenge is back on 7 September, blending traditional sports with cutting edge technology and esports. This event taps into global trends in esports and virtual sports, offering students the chance to compete in the latest innovations. It provides the opportunity to bring together esports enthusiasts and sporty students, combining technology with physical activity in a unique competition. Students can compete in Rocket League, Virtual Cycling, Virtual Rowing, Motorsport Hot Lap and     Just Dance. The school with the highest points at the end of the day will be crowned the 2024 Sport Tech Champion School!

The AFL will introduce its new ball-tracking technology to drive a 'score assist' review system for the 2024 NAB AFL Women's season. The smart-ball technology will provide score assist officials with alerts when the footy crossed the goal line, hits the post or is touched in flight. The smart-ball technology has been tested extensively over the past 18 months, including real-world trials in VFL and VFLW matches this season. A chip is embedded in the 'smart' Sherrins, which have been specially manufactured to mimic the original ball's size, weight, shape and balance in flight. Sensors stationed around the ground then track the ball's movement. The 'smart' Sherrin has been developed in partnership with Sportable and Intaneous.

TwinLabs.ai is excited to announce that is has been awarded a £100K grant from the Innovate UK Bridge AI programme to further develop it's digital twin platform for live music festivals and large events. TwinLabs.ai is partnering with ticketing and cashless payment specialist Howler to combine their entry point data, and other IoT, GPS and 3rd-party data to create live, 3D replicas of large festival environments. This will give event operators visibility they’ve never had before.. and ultimately create a safer, and better experience for festival-goers.

Campaignware has introduced Campaign Booster, a brand new feature of their platform which rewrites the rulebook on social media sharing and takes digital campaigns to new levels. Put simply, it gamifies the campaign experience, giving fans additional entries to a competition - and therefore a higher chance of winning - while offering brands extra tangible benefits, rather than just one call to action.

Tennis fans can now be a part of the professional tours—off court, that is, by investing in the future stars of the sport. Commonwealth is a sports investing platform that allows for anyone in their 17,000 sports fan community to buy shares of its players and fund their professional journey.

On 3 March 2023, the Prime Ministers of India and Australia celebrated new trade ties at a cricket test match in Ahmedabad. What made the day special was the stadium. The Narendra Modi Stadium is the world’s largest, with a capacity of 138,000. And it was designed by an Australian company. Australia’s Populous is a multi-award-winning design company that specialises in sports stadiums, arenas and entertainment venues. Its 3,000-plus projects include the iconic Wembley Stadium in London and Sydney’s International Convention and Exhibition Centre (ICC). Sustainability is an integral feature of Populous design. The company’s Climate Pledge Arena in Seattle in the US is the first arena in the world to receive a zero-carbon certification from the International Living Future Institute.

ESPN announced it has reached an agreement with Genius Sports on a new, long-term deal that will help transform ESPN’s live data-driven storytelling for NCAA sports and enhance broadcasts for the NBA and WNBA. ESPN will expand its college sports coverage with real-time team and player stats from Genius Sports, the exclusive distributor of official NCAA Data, with access to data across 65,000 NCAA games a year inclusive of basketball, football, ice hockey, volleyball and soccer. Additionally, ESPN is extending its deal with Genius Sports around NBA player-tracking data insights while adding the WNBA to its portfolio of sports properties leveraging its data.

Levels, a software startup co-founded in 2019 by longevity expert Dr. Casey Means, which uses artificial intelligence for meal monitoring and personalized insights based on biomarkers, has announced a $US 10 million Series A extension. The round included $3 million in crowdfunding from over 2,000 investors and follows a $US 38 million Series A in 2022. 

The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) and AquaBloom International Sports Technology Group Limited (ABSG) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the establishment of the “Sports Technology Talent and Industry Development Centre”. The Centre aspires to cultivate top industry talents and accelerate sports research and industry development in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area through education programmes, academic exchanges and joint research projects.

Google's Fitbit has partnered with Peloton Interactive to give its premium users access to the exercise equipment maker's fitness content, starting early September. As part of the deal, Fitbit premium members based in the U.S., UK, Canada and Australia would have access to Peloton's classes across categories, including pilates, running, boxing and cycling. Peloton members, on the other hand, would receive offers on Google Pixel watches and Fitbit Charge 6 devices.

Known for partnering with top sports, media, and entertainment IPs to launch next-gen, brand-building web3 games, GameOn has teamed up with LALIGA, PFL, and Karate Combat to bring the best web2 sports to web3. As a first milestone to commemorate this partnership with Sequence, GameOn is launching a cutting-edge fantasy game based on real-world LALIGA players and matches. Fans will be fully immersed in a soccer/football experience like never before — collecting playable Avatars (NFTs), customizing gear, and playing in weekly matches against other competitors.

Sport:80 has announced that it will be providing Coles Little Athletics Australia (LAA) with a solution for the seamless management of the Little Athletics community. Sport:80 will provide LAA and several of its Member Associations with a new sports management platform that will revolutionise the organisation’s operations and elevate member experience for their community. The collaboration marks a significant moment as LAA become our first Australian client.

Performance tech company Catapult has released a comprehensive report that provides crucial insights into the physical demands faced by teams and players at the highest level of competition. The report titled 'Performance Reference Values in Elite Women's Football' provides insights from the FIFA Women's World Cup 2023 and highlights player loads such as average distance covered by teams and positions, high-speed running and sprint efforts, positional breakdowns and maximal intensity intervals. 

New Zealand sportstech startup CoachMate has been shortlisted for the 2024 Leaders in Sport Awards in the Tech Breakthrough category. CoachMate is revolutionising grassroots sports by offering a player-centric platform that seamlessly integrates world-class coaching content with the utility of powerful team management features. Winners will be announced at the Leaders in Sport Awards on 15th October in London during Leaders Week.

Evolt, the advanced bio-electrical impedance technology that provides accurate body composition assessments and recommendations in fitness and preventive health settings, has been named as a finalist in two categories of the AUSactive National Awards. Operating in 43 countries, Evolt has conducted over 6 million body scans. It is a finalist in the Innovator of the Year and Best Equipment Supplier categories.

Leading sports data and technology company Genius Sports has been appointed as the English Premier League’s Semi-Automated Officiating supplier. The semi-automated offside technology (SAOT) is powered by GeniusIQ, Genius Sports’ next-generation AI and data platform. This first-of-a-kind system has been built on the key principles of speed and precision to minimise breaks in the game and deliver accuracy. This proprietary Genius Sports computer vision system will be installed in every Premier League stadium. 

Exos has announced its official involvement as a venture partner of LEAD ONE, the new pre-seed sports tech investment fund. Areas of particular interest include neuromodulation, female physiology, recovery monitoring and optimization, speed/power assessment and development, injury rehabilitation, and load tracking. This strategic partnership between Exos and LEAD ONE is designed to accelerate innovation in sports and health technology by pairing LEAD’s industry investment expertise with Exos’ leadership in pioneering the field of human performance.

FloSports and the Lone Star Conference (LSC), one of the largest NCAA Division II conferences in the USA, have entered into an exclusive five-year, media rights agreement beginning this fall. FloSports will represent the LSC and its 17 member institutions, providing a global platform to live stream events and support the teams, universities, and student-athletes. The LSC’s addition to FloSports represents the 12th conference to join the launch of the new FloCollege platform debuting this October. In total, the conferences represent more than 1,000 teams across men’s and women’s athletics from nearly 100 schools, delivering close to 12,000 live games.

WeGuide and Garmin Health, a leading provider of digital health solutions leveraging the data and insights of the Garmin product ecosystem, are launching a grant open to medical and wellbeing researchers and digital health startups focused on innovation. The focus of the grant is to enable researchers needing patient engagement and data collection to conduct their research trial and collect wearable data relating to their specific area of research.

KangaTech and Charlotte FC have announced the integration of KangaTech's cutting-edge KT360 system into Charlotte FC’s training facility. This state-of-the-art technology will complement Charlotte FC’s approach to player health, performance and injury prevention. Charlotte FC’s Head of Performance Science, Mathew Pell, said, “KangaTech provides us with a fully integrated prescription and monitoring platform. It is intuitive by design and flexible for all our dynamic environments within Major League Soccer, enabling our practitioners to make informed decisions."

Basketball Australia’s coaching pathways continue to grow in tandem with the performance of Australia’s national teams and the quality of coaching talent continues to shine from the community to the big leagues. A new suite of resources has been launched by Basketball Australia in partnership with etrainu. The resources in the Learning Management System (LMS) has been designed for those looking to take the call to coach with their community club or those interested in developing an analytical mind for the game.  

Hudl, one of the world’s leading provider of cloud-based technology connecting video and data for the sports industry, has completed the acquisition of StatsBomb. Having started as an analytics blog, StatsBomb initially progressed to consulting on data-driven recruitment and player evaluation for professional soccer teams. In 2022, StatsBomb expanded into American Football, leveraging its expertise in football to develop a new industry standard for NFL and College data. Hudl empowers more than 230,000 teams globally providing a suite of video and data products for coaches and teams at every level of sport.

News Corp has told shareholders that there is “third-party interest in a potential transaction involving the Foxtel Group” in its quarterly financial statement. News Corp owns 65% of the company, with the remainder held by Telstra. Foxtel Group encompasses the traditional pay TV arm, plus sports streaming service Kayo Sports, streaming service Binge, and the recently-launched Hubbl. Total streaming subscribers, including Kayo Sports, BINGE and Foxtel Now, are up 5%, hitting 3.305 million, and representing around 69% of all subs. Broken down further, Kayo Sports is up 14%, with 1.606 million subscribers (1.550 million paid).

Purdue Athletics announced a significant investment for hundreds of its student-athletes, implementing a home recovery system beginning with the 2024-25 season. Boilermaker student-athletes can now utilize recovery technology from Hyperice, a global high-performance wellness brand, and are able to take home products such as Normatec dynamic air compression boots, Hypervolt percussion massage guns, and Hypersphere vibrating massage tools, from athletic facilities for personal use. More than 1,000 devices have been acquired for the program.

Hapana, a Sydney-founded fitness studio software platform that manages member accounts at more than 900 clubs globally, has raised $AUD 17 million in a funding round led by OIF Ventures and Bailador that will go towards increasing its international footprint and launching its next-generation offering. The SaaS company includes the likes of BFT, KX Pilates, STRONG Pilates, Gold's Gym, Club Pilates, F45, FS8, Vaura and Air Locker Training among its customers, and processed more than $500 million in payments in the last financial year. Founded in 2014, Hapana's story began in Australia but now the technology is used in 17 countries with the company employing more than 80 staff.

Sony has become an official partner of the National Football League (NFL) with the pair set to work together to improve in-game technologies and help engage the next generation of NFL fans. Sony and the NFL will be working collaboratively with coaches, players, teams, and leadership across the organization to transform the future of football, the electronics giant said. This includes an expansion of Sony’s sports technology through Hawk-Eye Innovations to support officiating and the development of on-field and sideline technologies including a new coach’s sideline headset that will debut in the 2025 season.

Sports Marketing Australia has partnered with OptimoGov to help local government & destination partners with venue management & event operations. The OptimoGov platform enables Councils to automate and streamline the booking process for seasonal & one off facility bookings & to book council services across a number of departments, allowing greater asset utilisation and a significant cost saving. 

Wellhub, the corporate wellness platform that gives employees all-in-one subscriptions to the best partners for fitness, mindfulness, therapy, nutrition, and sleep, today announced it has reached a major growth milestone: 500 million check-ins and three million employee subscribers since its founding in 2012. More than 8,000 new wellness partners, including gyms, studios and apps joined the Wellhub Network in 2024.

After four years of development DANU has announced that their flagship product, DANU, is now live. DANU is the breakthrough system designed for real-world analysis that provides users with seamless data collection across gait, balance, and plyometrics. Its application is in sports, clinical practice, and research. DANU is engineered to bridge the gap between lab precision and real-world analysis. Already DANU has captured 8+ billion data points and 40,000 measurement activities from athletes including Olympians.

Komo Technologies will be powering digital activations at next week's Fanatics Fan Fest in New York City. The event will be quite possibly one of the biggest sports fandom events of all time with the line up of talent including Tom Brady, Kevin Durant, Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. Komo will create new ways for Fanatics and their league, team, and brand partners to connect and engage with the fans and amplify the fandom even more

BreakAway Data are launching an athlete Electronic Medical Record (EMR) app in basketball next month, with something similar in football shortly. It's the first time that players can access their entire medical records history (notes, treatments, x-rays, etc) on their phone, choosing to share specific files with private consultants, personal trainers and agents.

Sport will continue to be the main show, but it won't be the "whole show" in a 10-year future for AFL stadiums that will see venues and clubs target more entertainment options for fans when they head to the footy. Clubs know they need to innovate in the next decade and use stadiums in new ways to continue packing out games and competing with TV audiences and other forms of entertainment. Author and sports business academic Dr Sam Duncan is forecasting a period of innovation that will be focused on technology and in-stadium entertainment options, rather than large scale redevelopments.

Platinum Asset Management and GAIN LINE Analytics have announced Penrith Panthers NRL team as the winner of Australasia’s (Australia and New Zealand) Best Sporting Team (ABST) 2023. The Panthers have won 3 NRL premierships in a row  and is widely credited with having one of the outstanding talent development and retention programs in the country, which is reflected in their outcomes. ABST evolved from Platinum and GAIN LINE working together and brings an analytical approach to understanding how relationships within teams (‘cohesion’) impact outcomes. The analysis covers 21 competitions, including 10 women’s leagues, and unisex esports, including over 8,400 individual matches.

CORE, maker of the only non-invasive core body temperature monitor used by over 65% of the UCI WorldTour has launched its most significant app feature yet. Core’s new Heat Adaptation Score shows athletes how their bodies are adapting to thermal stress in real-time, with a rating that compiles the results of the Heat Strain Index and Heat Zones. This new feature from CORE will enable all athletes to capitalize on the performance gains of heat training and adaptation.

Genius Sports, the official data, technology, and commercial partner that powers the global ecosystem connecting sports, betting, and media, announces today the extension of its exclusive official data partnership with Football DataCo through 2029. Since 2019, Genius Sports has been DataCo’s exclusive supplier of official low latency data from in-stadia to the sports betting industry, capturing, and distributing live data for over 4,000 games per season to hundreds of licensed sportsbooks across the globe in under a second. With the extension, Genius Sports will continue to deliver fast, accurate, and reliable data feed to power in-play betting products and innovations from some of the most valuable betting content in the world.

Cosm, a leading immersive technology, media, and entertainment company recently announced the successful raise of over $US 250 million in funding to drive long-term growth of its “Shared Reality” venues and its technology and media business units. With the recent opening of its first venue in Los Angeles at Hollywood Park, Cosm will use the new capital to scale operational excellence, grow its robust technology and media business units, and accelerate the development of additional venues globally. At Cosm, fans feel like they are sitting courtside, inside the octagon, standing on the sidelines, or cheering from the front row at the most sought-after events from around the globe.

AUSactive have announced the National Fitness Industry Awards finalist across 3 categories (Industry Innovation, Most Innovative Supplier and Best Technology Integration).Supplier category finalists include Australian fitness technology industry leaders including Evolt360, Coach Welly and Hapana. The Awards winners will be announced on 11th October.

From custom-built technology to performance support and training camps, the AIS has played an important role in helping athletes maintain a competitive edge during their events. This includes the incredible Jess Fox whose gold medal performances in both the K1 and C1 events make her the first Australian athlete in Olympics history to win six medals in individual events. In the lead-up to Paris, the AIS Engineering team worked with Paddle Australia to develop custom pieces for Fox’s boats, including a 3D-printed knee cup for her canoe with a novel installation system and lightweight aluminium alloy footpegs for her kayak.

Australian golfer Karrie Webb, Olympic basketballer Matthew Dellavedova, Australian cricket star Mitchell Starc and Athletic Ventures have invested in electric golf buggy maker MGI, co-investing alongside mid-market private equity firm Anacacia Capital.

There has been an exciting new chapter in sports broadcast storytelling unfold last weekend at LIV Golf UK. Champion Data’s Smart GGi, in partnership with Kaze Aerial Production, introduced a fresh era of drone graphics. LIV Golf debuted the elevation graphic, powered by Pixotope and Vizrt, showcasing innovation and taking fan immersion and engagement to the next level.

Manchester United has introduced the next level of digital collectibles for the 2024/25 season, with the combined launch of Player Trading Cards and Fantasy United. Supporters can now begin collecting the trading cards, which feature all first-team players from the men’s squad in Classic, Rare, and Ultra-Rare editions. In addition, those cards can be used to build a five-man squad to earn points in our brand-new Web3 fantasy football game, the first of its kind to be created for a Premier League club using the Tezos Blockchain.

Intuit Dome, the new home of the LA Clippers, will officially open August 15, 2024. The Clippers will kick off the 2024-2025 season in this new arena in Inglewood, California. This cutting-edge arena features 17,000 PixMob NOVA Armrests, a permanent LED installation integrated directly into each seat. The NOVA Armrest turns each seat into an interactive pixel of light, transforming the entire arena into a vibrant canvas of live effects. This technology synchronizes with music, game highlights, and on-court action, making fans active participants in the event.

NBCUniversal introduces “OLI,” an AI-powered logic system that helps viewers find when, where and how to watch their favorite live events and programming throughout NBCU’s coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Developed in partnership with Huge, a design and technology company, users navigating NBCU’s websites in the United States can ask questions to OLI to seamlessly find up-to-date information on Paris Olympics programming.

The San Diego Seals are leaving no stone unturned ahead of the 2024-25 National Lacrosse League (NLL) season. Performance Director, Tyler Voas, and his team will use Australian sports-technology platform Lumin Sports to track and consolidate athletic data, medical monitoring, and strength & conditioning programming. The Seals become the second NLL team to embed Lumin Sports in their program, but the first to use Lumin Strength as it’s ‘go-to’ strength and conditioning platform.

Saudi Arabia is set to make history with ambitious plans for new stadiums aimed at hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2034. These state-of-the-art venues promise to redefine sports and entertainment experiences across the kingdom. This will include five 45,000+ seat stadiums including King Salman Stadium, located in northern Riyadh. King Salman Stadium will serve as the headquarters for the Saudi national football team and host major events. Designed to meet FIFA standards and scheduled for completion in late 2029, it will feature a seating capacity of 92,000. The stadium will include a royal box, hospitality suites, VIP seating, and sustainable cooling systems.

Artificial intelligence sports technology, created by Australian firm VueMotion Labs, could prove the tool that helps the Kiwi sprinter Zoe Hobbs onto the podium. VueMotion’s app captures granular data on Hobbs’ running mechanics – step length, frequency, ground contact time, forces, horizontal movement, speed, split times and more. It generates a visual “kinogram” that her coach can view, instantly seeing areas to improve like foot strike or hip rotation.

Queensland's Department of Tourism and Sport has launched Sports Venues Connect, a dedicated platform showcasing the finest sporting venues in Queensland. This innovative and detailed resource will support the Sports Marketing Australia & Sports Marketing International team in attracting domestic and international high-performance camps and events to the Councils and Destinations in Queensland we partner with leading into Brisbane 2032.

From training to broadcasting, artificial intelligence will have an imprint on this year’s event for the first time. Some of the technologies will include the Athlete365 app for the 10,000 athletes which will incorporate an AthleteGPT chatbot. The chatbot is a large language model (LLM) built using an AI developed by Paris-based company Mistral AI and Intel’s Gaudi processors.  The International Olympics Committee (IOC) is embracing the technology. In April, it rolled out its AI agenda — an effort to streamline the explosive growth of AI research in sport and to strategize its use in the Olympics. 

Olympic riders, spectators and fans worldwide can view the equestrian cross-country course which runs through the beautiful park of Versailles. Eventing is a triathlon of dressage, cross country and show jumping. CrossCountry app is a GPS smartphone app and mapping system customised precisely to the needs of equestrians. It allows riders to record their competition course so they can memorise it and ride it to time. Course designers use the CrossCountry app Toolkit to design, document and publicise courses. CrossCountry app has been used at every Olympic Games since its launch in 2011.

Stan Sport launched a 19-day Olympics activation powered by Komo's Live Trivia card, where thousands of subscribers compete live daily, testing their sports knowledge for a chance to win epic prizes. Komo Technologies is a Perth-based company developing digital fan and marketing activation solutions across various industries including sports, entertainment and retail.