Bullpen Presents - In Conversation With...

In episode 17 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Andy Marston from Sports Pundit.

Andy is one of the top thinkers in sports business and his weekly newsletter, Sports Pundit, has fast become essential reading for those who want the most concise breakdown of what is shaping the sports industry.

He poses fascinating questions each week in his newsletter so I invited him onto the podcast to discuss some of those questions and a few sportsbiz trends.

In episode 16 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Tiago Costa from Full Venue.

Hailing from Portugal, Full Venue is described as “an AI Platform that predicts the exact likelihood of a fan to make a purchase, such as buying a ticket or a piece of merchandise.” They do that through analysing past data sources, stuff like purchases and ticketing history, to train their algorithms to make predictions.

They’re already doing pilots with renowned clubs and organisations like the NBA champions Milwaukee Bucks, Club Nacional, Stade Francais and the Royal Belgian Football Federation.

I spoke to Tiago just as his company was completing Startupbootcamp’s Sports & Event Tech Accelerator out of Melbourne, Australia.

In episode 15 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Tomer Yehudayan from Colosseum Sport.

Tomer is the General Manager of Colosseum’s Sport Tech Academy so he was an ideal guest for me as gave some insights into the culture of open innovation in his home country of Israel, and how that type of openness impacts sports technology and the greater startup ecosystem.

Also in this conversation we delved into a bit of Tomer’s background, his athletic and refereeing background to becoming a champion of sportstech innovation.

In episode 14 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Jack Atkinson from Odds AI.

Odds AI is an emerging Australian technology company that has developed predictive analytics for pre-match fixed odds which underpins two new betting lines in football.

To become Odds AI they evolved from their first generation company URef. We cover that evolution in this conversation and we also learn what is Odds AI, what are they developing, and their plans and roadmap for the next 12 months.

I discover a betting technology company aiming to make their way in the fast evolving global wagering space with their product that takes in fan engagement, sophisticated technology and event-based sports betting.

In episode 13 of In Conversation With... I spoke to the co-founder of Slate, Eric Stark.

Slate is a mobile-focussed platform designed for social media teams to create on-brand content in real time.

While they’ve got an enviable client list of major sports clubs, franchises and rights holders, I find that their use case is over and above that as their platform can go across a lot of other verticals. We talk about that in this interview.

We also talk about:

- The early growth stages of Slate.

- Their swift expansion.

- Nailing product development for their enterprise clients.

- And who does really cool social media content.

In episode 12 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Wayne Kimmel, managing partner of SeventySix Capital.

SeventySix Capital is a sportstech venture capital firm that is founder and entrepreneur focussed. In this podcast, we talk about that focus, and why.

As well as venture capital, they also take in a sports advisory and athlete venture group.

Their investment portfolio takes in companies across analytics, augmented reality, fitness, gaming, esports and betting.

In this conversation we talk about portfolio positioning, their thesis and why they’re bullish on sports betting. It’s something that particularly fascinates me about them.

Notably, they’ve had two high profile acquisitions of their portfolio companies related to betting and gaming to fubo and DraftKings, respectively. They've also made an investment into Quintar.

I hope you learn a lot from this conversation. There’s a fair bit in it for the startup and emerging founder and entrepreneur.

In episode 11 of In Conversation With... I spoke to Thomas Gentle from Shotcall.

Shotcall is a platform and marketplace that connects video game streamers with fans. It enables content creators and influencers to host tournaments, coaching sessions, Q&As, charity events, 1-on-1 competitions, and more. Hosts can customise the events and charge fees.

It’s this combination of participation and fan engagement that piqued my interest. Most of all Shotcall has big potential and scalability.

In the conversation we talked about this and more:

- Their capital raise - they raised over US$2m in 2021.

- Breaking down the barriers between content creator and fan.

- Viewing and gaming experiences and the power of active participation.

- The company thesis and centralising fans in the value chain.

I return after a short break for a new run of episodes and in episode 10 of In Conversation With... I speak to the CEO of EDGE, Adam Whyte.

EDGE is a data-driven platform that centralises and automates key metrics and the collection of insights for content creators, influencers, athletes, streamers, gamers and more.

In the conversation we talked about:

• Career transitions – moving from a legal career into a software CEO

• Transparency in the influencer and content creator space

• The evolution of EDGE’s platform, and a sneak peel ahead to what is planned by the internal crew

In episode nine of In Conversation With… I spoke to Jackson Dickfos, CEO of Sponsa.

Things have changed at the sponsorship marketplace startup.

Starting out as SportsCube, they were a two-sided marketplace servicing the sports industry and now they've evolved from there. It's in the name, and their sponsorship marketplace aims to serve more than just sport.

In this conversation we talked about:

- The pivot; moving outside of the sports vertical.

- Why the move was necessary.

- How Sponsa's marketplace and platform has changed.

- His lessons from his time as an athlete and if it informed his startup build.

- What resilience means to him.

In episode eight of In Conversation With… I spoke to Matthew Lim, co-founder of Snackr.

Snackr is an app that lets fans and spectators order food and drink to their seat. It's contactless and offers benefits on both the customer and vendor side.

In this conversation we spoke about:

• The early stages, the genesis of Snackr, and building out an in-seat ordering app.

• The friction of queueing for food, beverages and more.

• What they achieved in 2020, especially their live, extensive pilot with Big Bash League franchise Hobart Hurricanes.

• Some of the early barriers that Snackr has faced and how they broke through.