The NFLPA’s Professional Athlete Foundation will work with behavioral health firm Kindbridge to establish confidential virtual group counseling for player-only dialogue. The program aims to dispel the myths and alleviate the stigma surrounding mental health.
The PAF is dedicated to supporting retired players. The Kindbridge forum will facilitate conversation on an array of mental health issues, including depression, anxiety, marriage, substance abuse and problematic gambling.
“The building of robust internal infrastructure to support psychological and mental health is a clear demonstration of the commitment of the Professional Athletes Foundation to take these issues seriously,” Kindbridge founder and CEO Daniel Umfleet said in a statement. “With a huge national and global audience, it is highly encouraging to see the PAF lead by example while playing a major role in destigmatizing mental health issues in sport, in the US and beyond.”
Mercury, the digital fan engagement platform focused on collegiate athletics, has launched clemsontigers.io, a custom site that will provide inside access to Clemson sports teams along with digital collectibles.
As part of the three-year partnership, clemsontigers.io will post team updates, stage chat forums and host virtual fan interactions with athletes—many of whom are expected to eventually obtain NIL deals with the company. Users can become VIPs by signing up for a 2022-2023 Tigers Membership pass, which unlocks full on-line access to contests and a chance to accumulate redeemable Tiger Points. The first 100 fans to register gain their membership pass free.
“This is something real that the university is endorsing —this is a real Clemson platform,’’ Mercury’s CEO and co-founder Porter Grieve told SportTechie on Friday. “Because at the end of the day, fans want to get closer to the athletes.’’
Clemson and Mercury are also collaborating on NFTs that pertain to school’s athletic culture. In a matter of weeks, clemsontigers.io will drop “Tombstone’’ digital collectibles reflective of the school’s custom of holding grave ceremonies for the ranked teams they have defeated on the road over the years, including the 2014 Orange Bowl win over Ohio State.
“At Clemson when the football team beats I believe top 25 opponent away from home, they essentially take that team and put them in the ground,’’ Grieve said. “And they have a graveyard on campus with all these tombstones against Alabama and South Carolina [and 22 others]. It’s this incredibly fascinating unique thing that only Clemson does.
“So we’re doing a drop where we’ve digitized and reimagined the tombstones as digital collectibles, NFTs. And we’re doing a super limited drop, only 32 of them and the lucky fans who are there early and get one will get rewarded with amazing experiences year after year. So this year, they’re doing this awesome one where they get to go to campus and run down the hill and kick a field goal and get a tour of the facilities, and we’ll also reward them with memorabilia.’’
Mercury, which debuted in 2021, has similar brand partnerships with Kansas (rockchalk.io), Kentucky (ukbluechips.io) and Central Florida (chargeon.xyz). In the coming weeks, they will launch similar platforms for Oklahoma and Villanova, all with an eye on customization.
“At Kansas, we took the James Naismith Court at Phog Allen Fieldhouse, and we chopped it into 100 pieces digitally and sold it in drops of five,’’ Grieve says. “And each one sold out in under three minutes. People can say, ‘I’m one of 80-to 100 holders of this piece of court.’ And we’re excited to redo that for the football field and at other school’s courts to have them compete to see has the most valuable court. Such as at [Kentucky’s] Rupp Arena.’’
As many as 85 student-athletes from the four affiliated schools have already signed NIL with Mercury. Former Penn State All-American football player Adam Breneman is Mercury’s VP of NIL and Media and will be hosting long-form interviews with many of the schools’ players, such as Kentucky quarterback Will Levis, Kansas quarterback Jalon Daniels and UCF quarterback John Rhys Plumlee.
Grieve said the company’s goal is to not solely emphasize NFTs, but to customize virtual fan engagement for each campus community.
“Clemson is different from Kansas, which is different from Kentucky and UCF,’’ Grieve said. “So each requires sort of a tailored approach.’’
Former U.S. soccer star Carli Lloyd has joined automated sports camera startup Veo as a global ambassador. Veo’s computer visions cameras follow ball movement to automatically record, stream, and clip highlights from live sports.
The Copenhagen-based company has made particularly strong inroads in soccer, with team clients across MLS, the Premier League, La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1. Lloyd, the retired USWNT captain and two-time World Cup winner, has implemented Veo at her CL10 soccer clinics.
Manchester City star Kevin De Bruyne is also an ambassador for Veo, which raised an $80 million Series C in June. Lloyd is also an investor in the NWSL club Gotham FC.
AMP, an injury prevention and recovery platform for industrial workers, has partnered with Asensei to integrate its computer vision motion capture analysis.
Asensei uses artificial intelligence to track and coach users using real-time 3D motion data, gleaned either from smart apparel or smartphone. It launched with a rowing product and now supports other sports and exercise disciplines such as TRX, Pilates and yoga in a field it’s helping pioneer called “connected coaching.” SeventySix Capital and KB Partners are among its venture backers.
AMP, which calls the workers it serves “industrial athletes,” has built a care management system designed by sport scientists and sports medicine practitioners. It previously relied on in-person assessments of physical fitness but now will incorporate Asensei into its mobile app.
Major League Baseball has renewed and expanded its strategic partnership with Google Cloud with a goal of delivering more real-time and personalized media products and experience for global fans.
Google Cloud displaced AWS as MLB’s cloud provider in March 2020, powering the league’s tracking system, Statcast, as well as its business operations and fan-facing Film Room. MLB will now employ additional tools and products that enhance and secure live and on-demand video production and distribution. The league’s streaming service, MLB.TV, will pilot Google Cloud’s Media CDN (content delivery network) to offer more immersive experiences using the same underlying infrastructure as YouTube.
Personalization is a stated tenet of MLB’s fan engagement strategy, and it will increasingly use Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence and machine learning to tag and store the sport’s large video archive and make more pertinent recommendations to viewers. Google will also work with MLB to modernize the streaming supply chain for faster speeds and reduced latency.
Premier Brazilian soccer club Flamengo has signed a new deal with Miami-based crypto payments company MoonPay that includes plans to integrate NFTs into the club’s offerings around ticketing, loyalty programs, merchandise, and social and digital media. The multi-year deal is the first sports team partnership for MoonPay, which raised $555 million in Nov. 2021.
MoonPay values itself at $3.4 billion and previously secured investments from NBA star Paul George, former tennis star Maria Sharapova, and musicians Drake and Justin Bieber. In addition to sponsoring Flamengo’s soccer team, MoonPay is also now the new jersey sponsor for Flamengo Basketball.
Esports organization FaZe Clan signed a deal with MoonPay last year. The company’s software lets users lets users buy and sell cryptocurrencies using through credit cards, bank transfers, or mobile wallets such as Apple Pay and Google Pay.
Sports streaming platform FuboTV will increase its presence in the Rocky Mountain broadcast market with the addition of the Altitude Sports network to its digital lineup.
Altitude Sports is the Denver area’s leading regional network, offering coverage of the Stanley Cup Champion Colorado Avalanche for 69 regular season games and the NBA’s Denver Nuggets for 74 regular season games. As part of the deal, Altitude Sports will be accessible to FuboTV subscribers in 10 Rocky Mountain states.
FuboTV uses its proprietary data and technology platform to livestream every Nielson-rated sports channel in the U.S., including close to 15 regional sports networks similar to Altitude. FuboTV also operates a Fubo Sportsbook app in Iowa, Arizona and most recently New Jersey, but likely will not do the same in Colorado after recently adjusting its betting strategy due to the economic environment.
Due to it Q2 earnings report released in August, the company said it would no longer pursue operating its own independent online sportsbook. Still, with the addition of Altitude Sports, FuboTV’s breadth of coverage in Colorado now has NHL and NBA broadcasts to go with ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, FS1, CBS Sports Network, the Pac-12 Networks and also Telemundo and Univision affiliates in Denver and Colorado Springs-Pueblo.
Dapper Labs announced that LaLiga Golazos will be the name of its new NFT marketplace for Spain’s top soccer league. Users will be able to buy and sell digital video collectibles of top plays from the league starting with the platform’s debut in closed beta on Oct. 27.
Moments will be available from matches throughout the current LaLiga season as well as each season since 2005. The highlights will be available in both English and Spanish, making LaLiga Golazos the first bilingual NFT platform made by Dapper Lapps. NBA Top Shot, NFL All Day, and UFC Strike are among the officially licensed NFT marketplaces made by Dapper. LaLiga first announced its deal with Dapper Labs in Sept. 2021.
Real Madrid’s Luka Modrić, FC Barcelona’s Ansu Fati and Marc-André ter Stegen, and Atlético de Madrid’s João Félix will help promote the launch of LaLiga Golazos. The collectibles will span top goals, dribbling skills, assists, saves, and defensive plays. Each NFT will include the broadcast replay, play-by-play narration, reactions or celebrations from players and fans, as well match and player stats.
LaLiga Golazos’ first pack drop will be Oct. 27 and the collectibles will be sold in four tiers or rarity: Common, Uncommon, Rare and Legendary. Fans can now sign up online for the beta version.
Wearable golf technology deWiz announced an oversubscribed Series B round of nearly $4 million. The funding included additional investment from prior backers as well as from retired pros Annika Sörenstam and Vijay Singh, both of whom are already deWiz ambassadors.
The deWiz device trackers the golfer’s hand positioning through the swing for 3D analysis and haptic feedback through its patented Learning Stimuli system for motor learning. Invented in Sweden by co-founders Markus Westerberg and Christian Bergh, deWiz has attracted numerous major champions to its roster of ambassadors: Sörenstam, Singh, Bryson DeChambeau, Henrik Stenson and Yuka Saso.
The Series B investment will fuel marketing, growth and additional product development, including adaptation of the core technology for other sports. deWiz has stated plans to pursue devices for basketball tennis, gaming and healthcare.
Candy Digital has minted an NFT of Aaron Judge’s American League single-season record-setting 62nd home run that is the first collectible as part of the company’s new Milestone Mark category. The NFTs began being sold today, one day after Judge slugged his historic homer at Globe Life Field in Texas.
Judge’s Milestone Mark token is being sold for $62 and only 99 are being produced, a nod to the outfielder’s jersey number. The NFTs include an extended highlight video from his record-breaking moment and audio from the YES Network’s call of the play.
Candy Digital is also selling a less-rare NFT of Judge’s home run as its Play of the Day token, which sell for $15 apiece. That NFT also includes video of his home run, but no broadcast audio. It will be sold until 11:59 p.m. ET tonight, with Candy producing as many as users request before time runs out.
Judge’s 62nd home run broke the single-season AL record set by former Yankees outfield Roger Maris in 1961. The fan who caught Judge’s home run ball on Tuesday has already been offered $2 million for the baseball by JP Cohen, president of Memory Lane Auctions.
Sky Candy Studios has disseminated footage of a drone touring both the exterior and the bowels of Wrigley Field, illustrating the type of infiltration that has concerned sports leagues about drones.
Prior to the current NFL season, the league’s chief security officer Cathy Lanier said she was worried about unauthorized drones penetrating stadium airspace and potentially causing “catastrophic outcomes.” The Atlanta Falcons are among the NFL teams using a drone detection system to monitor the activity of unauthorized drones flying near their stadium. Federal officials have had the ability to intercept suspicious drones, usually by hacking into their communication signals, but that legislation officially expired today.
A bill introduced by the Biden administration that would grant federal officials authority to counter unauthorized drowns, as well as empower local law enforcement to do the same, is currently in limbo. According to Bloomberg Government report four weeks ago, there were 1,400 instances of drones invading NFL stadium airspace last season.
According to federal law, drones are not allowed to fly within three miles of a Major League Baseball stadium from an hour before an event until an hour after. Sky Candy Studio’s drone tour, however, was authorized and did not violate those rules.
The Wrigley Field drone excursion, piloted by Michael Welsh, began in the neighborhoods surrounding the venue and navigated through the ballpark’s scoreboard, team clubhouse and back offices before trailing players onto the field. Sky Candy Studios credited the companies Go Pro and Rotor Riot for executing the tour. Rotor Riot constructs a myriad of drones such as FPV and cinewhoops, which are designed to maneuver through tight spaces.
