I spent the morning hanging around the Wells Fargo Championship at Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina. But I wasn't there to watch the PGA pros play. I was talking about the virtual version of the course that Golf+ created for the Meta Quest VR game.
I'll share my experience testing the course in next week's newsletter. I'm sure I'll write with some embarrassment that my digital game is no better than the real thing.
The path to potential innovation between Web3 software company Credenza and POS provider Retailcloud started with a pleasant surprise. RetailCloud headquarters and Credenza CEO Sandy Khaund's headquarters were only a few miles, or about 10 minutes, apart in Bay Area traffic.
Subsequent in-person talks led to a collaboration between the two companies announced in late March. Credenza has integrated with other companies before, but RetailCloud, his Inc. 5000 company with about 40 teams across North America's major men's and women's leagues, is a key connection. Listening to Cound, who previously worked at Microsoft and Intel before embarking on his entrepreneurial journey, he wonders how partnerships like this will help create the personalized fandom that the entire sports industry is striving for. It's easy to imagine that retail cloud troops might also be able to see it.
“One of the problems Sandy is trying to solve is the fan experience, and we are working with him,” added Rupak Ant, CTO of Retail Cloud. “How can we get to know our fans holistically and completely from all perspectives?”
Through its partnership with the Blues, Credenza has successfully created the Bluenatics Passport, a universal ID for fans. This passport is stored in the Blues app mobile wallet and connects fan activity. This activation began last year and marks the first connection between Credenza and RetailCloud. The two are excited to continue working on new projects for clients as well as collaborating with Bruce.
How Credenza and RetailCloud combo works
POS systems like retailcloud, which we previously covered in this newsletter about the success of RFID at the United Center and UBS Arena, combine to instantly recognize fans with the quick lookup functionality enabled by Credenza's Universal ID. You can build an ecosystem that Correspond to them during transactions (securely via a decentralized network).
This connection goes beyond commerce and creates a fully rounded perspective on the individual. Kaund shared that the fan experience can be static at these touchpoints. Fans go to the venue's team store to buy hats, are asked (and then verified) if they are season ticket holders to receive a discount, pay and leave.
This connection between Credenza and the retail cloud provides more dynamic interaction opportunities, allowing teams to understand exactly who they are serving. This means you'll be able to understand not only whether you're a season ticket holder, but also exactly how many games you've attended, how many games you've attended, and more. They're watching from home and monitoring their engagement levels with the team via social/website/team apps. Cound said the fractured industry could benefit from this while protecting customer privacy.
“What happens is, [the sports team is] It’s something that we as sports fans care about,” Cound said. “The problem is, there's always a vendor that gets in the way. There's a reverse Amazon problem, right?”
Cound points out that Amazon is the king in this space when it comes to great customer experience. It remains a problem in the fragmented professional sports ecosystem. “Because the Giants won't sell me tickets. Tickets.com can. The Giants won't sell me hats. Fanatics will. The Giants won't sell me beer. Aramark. …The question is, can retailcloud do something special at the point of that interaction before sending the data back?
Cound added that this can be accomplished through simple gestures like offering flash sales or coupons to fans, as the system recognizes that customers are loyal fans even while the team is struggling. . This boost makes it easier for teams to deliver experiences that surprise and delight. He said that in his 15 or so years in the sport, Kound has realized his two main focuses.
Exploring Innovation and Sponsorship How to Articulate Program and Activation Effectiveness
Bluenatics' experience to date presents an initial blueprint for a comprehensive fan catering effort that benefits everyone involved.
“That data associated with you [the St. Louis fan], is it limited to the world of blues? It’s heaven,” Cound said. “It's heaven for the Blues, it's heaven for the sponsors, because they want that data. And it just basically improves the overall experience for the fans, and that's why it's still for us. It's the best job.”
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, allowing SBJ Tech to review coverage of companies and platforms that are positively impacting the mental health of athletes.
Unsurprisingly, much of it focuses on Peak AI's innovations. The company is one of SBJ's 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies of 2023 and has carved out success in the sports field by analyzing audio clips to capture changes in emotional well-being. . In the UK, they are associated with Brentford and Southampton in the Premier League and Championship. It also has contracts with F1 teams, Ligue 1 clubs Paris Saint-Germain and the Devils (its first North American customer).
“Psychology guides physiology,” CEO and longtime performance coach Gary McCoy told SBJ's Joe Lemire late last year. “It starts there, but there was nothing to measure it against.”
Another player that continues to emerge in the mental health space is The Zone, an app that allows athletes to track their moods and emotions and receive AI-powered feedback. The company signed a multi-year deal with the Big East Conference in early 2023 and has since added the Atlantic 10, Patriot League and Mountain West.
“What I understood is that children don't know how they feel,” CEO Ivan Chachovo told SBJ at the time of the company's launch in 2021. “Emotional intelligence is lacking, but there are a lot of products like Headspace and Talkspace that provide resources. They're the ultimate resource, but what if you have kids who don't know they're there?” mosquito?”
Technology options for mental health
Here's how options to support the mental side of athletic training have grown (and will continue to grow), from self-tracking platforms to scoring systems that provide insight into the ebb and flow of daily stressors. Let's look at.
Mental health management platform OnBalance announced UMiami as its first client in April. Former college quarterback and founder Walt Nolley founded OnBalance in 2022, with the first pilot program launching at the University of Alabama the following year. The platform is expected to be officially launched in 2025. Last month, Bolt Athletics acquired mental health app Zama Health, a step toward creating a more holistic approach for the company to athletic development. Zama offers self-guided modules, anonymous peer community boards, support resources, and automatic self-care reminders. Digital health platform Caring Wing has created a sports-specific product called Holistic Athlete Health Solutions, a mobile platform that connects athletes with telehealth providers. HAHS also offers self-paced courses and live/on-demand webinars on sports health and wellness for athletes, coaches, and parents. InspireTek, a wellness management system for youth athletes, has created a daily check-in called Infinite Score based on sleep, mood, stress, energy, diet, and muscle soreness. This time last year, MLB created MLB Together. The platform centralizes the League's social and community efforts – partnerships and programs focused on empowerment, outreach and support for various community groups. This effort includes free mental health support through the Crisis Text Line (text “MLB” to “741741”) and his EverFi, which targets his 8th through 10th grade students in all regions with MLB teams. Also includes online education courses.
Finally, we'll share the thoughts of Rebecca Smith, former New Zealand soccer captain and CEO of women's sports consultancy Crux Sports. In her 2023 article for the Athlete's Voice series, she shared with SBJ that athlete health and wellness needs to remain at the forefront.
“There are so many people working in and around the sports world, running sports, running marketing, running broadcasting, and they're so important. They make a lot of money. But at the end of the day, it's not sustainable if athletes are continually experiencing burnout or injury and are not receiving proper care. You have to take care of the health and mental health and safety of the athletes because they're human beings, and secondly, because this is a business and you have to keep it that way, and you have to take care of the people who are in the business. not.”
The Mavericks, Thunder, and Stars are using CrowdSync's LED and RFID event technology during home playoff games, SBJ colleague Rob Schaefer reports, along with rail lights hung in their respective arenas. The NFL has signed a five-year deal with Accenture, naming it its official business and technology consulting partner, writes SBJ's Joe Lemire. Delaware North has rolled out an augmented reality cocktail menu at TD Garden's 1928 Club for the remainder of the NBA and NHL postseasons, notes SBJ's Brett McCormick. Guests scan his QR code to link to an AR cocktail menu that launches their phone's camera app and displays a realistic, lifelike depiction of each cocktail (of his 17 varieties on the menu) . Schaefer also reports on how Athlete Squared could be an advantage for prep school and college athletes thanks to his model of on-demand and subscription training for his videos. Lemire writes that fan engagement technology company LiveLike is the newest member of the Infinite Athlete partner network, and the data distribution company will give him access to FusionFeed.
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