This week we had the honor to interview Dennis Crowley the CEO of Street FC, building the biggest football club on the planet by making it easier to play in cities.

Street FC operates a football club to make soccer accessible to as many people as possible. It develops a technology that specializes in connecting a community of players online and offline by organizing fast-paced street soccer games on hard surfaces. The company was founded in 2018 and is headquartered in New York.

Dennis Crowley is a technology entrepreneur working at the intersection of the real world & digital world to create things that make everyday life feel a little more fun and playful.He's also a Co-Founder at LivingCities ("reflecting the real world into the mirror world"), and is the Co-Founder/Co-Chair at Foursquare, one of the world's leading location technology platforms (and early pioneers of using game mechanics to drive real-world behaviors). Previously, he founded Dodgeball, one of the first location-based mobile social services (acquired by Google in 2005) and PacManhattan, one of the earliest "big urban games" (2004). Dennis is also the founder and Chairman of Kingston Stockade FC, a semi-professional soccer team out of Hudson Valley, NY that competes in the 4th division of the US Soccer Pyramid.He has been named one of Fortune's "40 Under 40" (2010, 2011), a member of Vanity Fair's "New Establishment" (2011, 2012), won the "Fast Money" bonus round on the TV game show Family Feud (2009), and was worth $400 on Jeopardy (2020). He was previously an Adjunct Professor at NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP).

Here is a picture of the Street FC app:

Here is a video about Street FC: 

Video: Street FC

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his company and product. Then we discussed his plans for the next 12 months.

Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Dennis:

* On his background:

* “ I've been doing tech and startups for about 20 years. I really started my career building things for mobile phones, and building software that would connect people, using real world and digital tools”.

* “I had a company way back in the day. It was called Dodgeball, which was one of the very first mobile social networks out there. We sold it to Google many years ago and I worked at Google for a couple years. Then I started another company called Foursquare right after that, which started as a game that you would play on top of the real world that uses mobile phones and location and social networks. This startup has been going on for 13, 14 years and now it's turned into this big location technology platform”.

* “But my interest has always been in building software that connects the real world to the digital world and helping people have fun”.

* On how he got the idea of starting Street FC:

* “Recently I got connected with Kyle Martino, who's a legendary soccer player in the MLS and for the US Men's national soccer team. He was running to become the President of the US Soccer Federation several years ago”.

* “Meanwhile, as a side hustle, I run a semi-professional soccer team. This is a men's semi pro team up in the Hudson Valley of New York. And Kyle and I started talking and he pitched me on this idea that he had where he wanted to build the equivalent of SoulCycle, and its fitness classes on bikes, but we wanted to do it for pickup soccer”.

* “So I had built a soccer team. I also built tech startups and I knew how phones and apps and social networks worked. So Kyle and I just started hacking away, trying to build this thing. So that's one of the things that we're working on now which is: How can you build the biggest football club on the planet?”.

* On what Street FC is:

* “What I mean by that is. A million people that all play on the same team and they all play under the same crest. They all feel like teammates all around the world. And we think that you can do that by making it super easy for people to play soccer specifically in cities where turf and grass are sometimes hard to find and the density of the city makes it difficult to play”.

* On how the Street FC app works:

* “ It's all driven by an app, available on the iPhone and on Android. Right now we're up and running in five different cities. So we're in New York, Austin, Atlanta, Philadelphia and in Minneapolis. But the plan is to take it to many, many more cities”.

* “You need to download the app and sign. We ask you a couple of questions about your playing history. We give you a player rating. The whole thing revolves around having this player’s rating. You have a card that has your picture on it, and your rating, and how many games you played”.

* “At the end of every game that you play, people rate you and you either move up a rating, you move down a rating and it depends where you're rating. You can get into beginner games or advanced games or you unlock the ability to play at different locations. So we've built this fun gamey thing into it”.

* “And then there's a big community of people on the backend. We also have a Discord channel that has hundreds of people in it from all around the country that are talking about where they play. They talk about anything related to football culture and life in general”.

* “So we're trying to build this community of people online and then we bring them out so they can kick a ball together in real life. It gets them to hang out with each other in real life outside of soccer”.

* “We play on hardcore. For example we'll play on a basketball court, we'll play on a rooftop, we'll play in a parking garage, and the format is very quick. You're not playing for 90 minutes (..) we're playing these four minute games that move very quickly (..) And for us it's like this: you sign up in the app, you get to play a game for free. We're running 20 games a week”.

* On their partnerships with clubs like the NY Redbulls (MLS) and how they are trying to work with clubs:

* “We're still trying to figure that out in the spirit of it being a startup. So we've talked to some teams from the MLS and we've talked to some teams from other leagues. We've also talked to rec leagues in the city. We've talked to soccer brands like Nike and Adidas. We've talked to places that host indoor games. And we think that’s the best way to spread the product and spread the magic of Street FC”.

* “We don't have a rigid format yet. But what I should say for people that are listening is that we're actively working to figure this out. So if you have ideas on how to bring Street FC to your city, if you have ideas for how you can partner with an organization that's building a giant community of soccer fans and players, you should reach out to us. You can reach out to me at [email protected]”.

* On his plans for the next 12 months:

* “To be honest, I was literally just working on this before I jumped on the podcast with you, I was putting together a presentation to give to the team about what are we doing over the next year or so, on what are the goals, who's responsible for what goals, and how we define success”.

* “Right now we're in five cities in the US (..) By the end of next year we should have our strategy defined to expand to those cities (..) we should have a much larger online community that we have now. We should be getting better at bringing people from the online community into the offline world to play (…) It's really one of the things that I've just been very passionate about in my career: Building tools that allow people to move from the real world to the digital world and then back into the real world again. Street FC is the perfect example of how to do that”.

* “I don't feel like we need to add another 10 features to be successful. People love the product. People love to play. We need to host more games, we need to get more players, and we need to bring it to more cities”.

* “We've raised a little bit over $2M, which is a good amount of money for a company of our size and it will give us a lot of ability to grow and try new things and to expand. So we're very fortunate to have found a great group of investors to support us (..) If you want to learn more about us, you can go to www.streetfc.com, which is our website or we're also on Instagram and Twitter.

Thank you for reading The Upside Newsletter. This post is public so feel free to share it.

You may also like:🔥Upside Chat: James Murray, Chief of Staff, AC Milan (Serie A) and Non-Executive Director at the Scottish Women’s Premier League.

Upside chat: Fabien Allègre, Chief Brand Officer at PSG (Ligue 1).

Upside Chat: Eddie Jones, the head coach of England National Rugby team.

Upside Chat: Sebastien Audoux, head of Digital Sports Content at Canal +.

Upside Chat: Padraig Harrington, a world class European professional golfer and former world’s #3.

⭐Upside: Top 12 Emerging Sports Performance Startups to Watch in 2H22

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

⭐Sports Performance Roles & Best Practices (Head of Performance, Head Athletic Trainer..)

🔥Upside Chat with Top Sports Performance Execs (NBA, NHL, MLS) on Load Management, Mental Health, Technologies.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview interview Harrison Brown, CEO of HEADCHECK Health, a digital health company providing a concussion management platform to sports organizations.

HEADCHECK Health’s digital app platform simplifies the process of executing and monitoring adherence to your concussion protocol. HEADCHECK has been built by feedback from medical professionals over the past nine years of partnerships throughout all levels of sport. Currently more than 3000 sports organizations use HEADCHECK to advance player safety including Major League Soccer, the Canadian Football League, Trek-Segafredo, True Lacrosse, and USA Cycling.

Here is a picture of the HEADCHECK Health’s digital app and platform:

Here is a video interview of Harrison Brown talking about HEADCHECK Health: 

Video: HEADCHECK Health

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his company, product, the benefits for the teams, and his business model. Then we discussed his plans for the next 12 months.

Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Harrison:

* On his background:

* “ I was an academic researcher. I was doing some concussion research studies as part of my master's in PhD studies at the university of British Columbia. That was really where HEADCHECK Health started. Before that I did have an affinity to sports as I played all different sports growing up. Rugby was probably my main sport”.

* On how he got to the idea of starting HEADCHECK Health:

* “So the idea behind HEADCHECK Health in the beginning was: How about we carve off a really small but important piece of the concussion problem? And we try to solve it. So the idea behind it was: Can we make a platform that makes it easier for organizations to actually execute and monitor those concussion protocols?”.

* On how the HEADCHECK Health platform works:

* “HEADCHECK Health is an all in one software platform to execute those protocols. What that means is that it covers a hundred percent of the protocol. 10, 15 years ago, protocols were just tests. It was about running only one test”.

* “These protocols are very broad and there's much more than just testing. There's education. There's training, there's documentation. And sometimes five or six different individuals, all with different medical backgrounds contributing to a protocol”.

* “So the idea behind HEADCHECK Health all along was let's make it really easy for organizations to complete their policies and protocols. And then the other side to it is the analytics. If we have 100% of the protocol on our platform and we have 100% of the data being collected, we can do analytics to help the organizations”.

* On the types of customers using their software today:

* “When we first started the company, we were really focused on an app and the platform to execute the protocols. And so our customers at the time were people that were executing those protocols. Those are folks that are on the sideline, like athletic trainers, athletic therapists, or team physicians”.

* “But now we're actually working with entire sports organizations like governing bodies or even at the country level”.

* “We've had about 40,000 concussions that have been managed through our platform, from the incidents all the way through return to play and recovery”.

* On the importance of collecting customer feedback to build new features:

* “I'd say that right now probably about 80% of the functionalities on the platform came from customer feedbacks. So it's a product that we say is built by people executing these protocols for people that are executing these protocols”.

* On their business model:

* “Before we came into this market, tests were running the market. That means that you would charge per test anytime somebody used your product, so you would charge them a certain amount of dollars”.

* “The model that we use is essentially an unlimited model. It's a software as a service company. We charge our clients and our partners an annual fee. That annual fee is a product of the complexity of their protocol, the number of teams that are in the organization, and the number of players that are being managed”.

* “And usually where we end up with is a number that ends up being cheaper than if they were just to buy a single test. So if they were to buy a test and that was their protocol, buying a test and using the test, they actually can buy HEADCHECK Health for a cheaper cost. There's no additional fees. It's the same fee every year, depending on the number of players or teams, if they go up and down, so does the contract. That allows the organizations to budget properly. And they're not worrying about: “Hey, is the concussion cost going to be significantly higher this year than it was last year?”.

* On their plans for the next 12 months:

* “We raised money most recently in May 2022 so the company is well resourced. We're investing a lot of that money into R&D. We really want to make sure that we maintain the product advantage that I believe we have over anybody else. Yeah. So on the product side, we've got some pretty exciting things that we're gonna be rolling out over the next 12 months”.

* “But of course we know that down the road, there may be another transaction that needs to occur. So we're also always talking and listening to investors to see if there is a fit with our growth strategy and whether it's a fund or a strategic partner or something like that”.

* “And then on the growth side, we're really doubling down at this point on trying to capture markets. So we believe at this point that we have the best tool in the industry. And we believe that we have enough big logos to prove that we work with relevant organizations like the Major League Soccer, USA cycling, the CFL. these large organizations carry brand value that we don't necessarily need to chase after logos”.

* “I think what we want to focus on now is how can we have the biggest impact, and a lot of that is going to have to happen in the youth market”.

You can learn more at https://www.headcheckhealth.com

You may also like:

⭐ 🛰️ Outdoor GPS Market: Key Vendors, Trends, Recommendations to Pro Teams

⭐ ⌚ Upside: HRV Ecosystems Analysis: Latest Research, Trends, Key Vendors & Where We are Heading

⚡ 📈 Upside: Injury Risk Assessment Solutions Ecosystem (Key Trends, Vendors, Recommendations to Teams) Analysis

🔥Upside: AMS Ecosystem Analysis: Key Trends, Vendors and Recommendations to Teams

⭐Upside: Top 12 Emerging Sports Performance Startups to Watch in 2H22

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

⭐Sports Performance Roles & Best Practices (Head of Performance, Head Athletic Trainer..)

🔥Upside Chat with Top Sports Performance Execs (NBA, NHL, MLS) on Load Management, Mental Health, Technologies.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview a group of sports performance experts.

* Pierre Barrieu, Head Fitness coach & Performance analyst at Leeds United FC (Premier League)

* Karam Al-Hamdani, Head Athletic Therapist at CF Montreal (MLS).

* Alexi Pianosi, Strength and conditioning coach for the Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL).

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on the growing popularity of cryo chambers, and the pros and cons there. Then we discussed the pros and cons of cooling/heating therapy solutions (GameReady..). We also touched on the growing appetite for research papers and studies among pro teams. Lastly we talked about Serena’s retirement at the US Open this year.

🚀Best Quotes: Here are some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Pierre, Karam and Alexi.

* On the growing popularity of cryo chambers, and the pros and cons of using such technology:

* Alexi Pianosi:

* “ I'm a big proponent of cryo chambers. I think they can be very effective if your goal is to reduce inflammation, and restore some balance to the autonomic nervous system”.

* “We have a cryo unit in Pittsburgh. Players do enjoy using it post practice once their day is complete. And anecdotally guys will respond with “I had a great nap in the following afternoon”, and it's almost like a big lull and a big exhalation after they get home and sit down on the couch and they have a hard time getting up. (…) I think cryo chambers, like any other good modalities, have their place at the right time for the right person and can be really effective”.

* Pierre Barrieu:

* “I've tried cryo chambers 10, 15 years ago. It was when they came out (…) I thought that there were some very positive effects. I think it's very useful for goalkeepers especially if the players have been battered and bruised. This will help them recover. It is also a compliment to all the recovery techniques”.

* “So in summary, I always say that the cold bath would cool you to the core and then the cryo chamber would help you recover on the periphery (..) But the one thing with cryo chambers is that it's expensive to acquire and it's expensive to maintain”.

* Karam Al-Hamdani:

* “Cryotherapy is part of a system. And so if you have optimal recovery strategies and it fits within that system, then all the better, but if you don't believe in it, then it won't serve its purpose”.

* On the pros and cons of using cooling and heating therapy:

* Karam Al-Hamdani:

* “We are very big on GameReady, and we are also very big on using cold tubs. I have nine GameReady units within our facility. A lot of times we'll have players who had a heavy session. So what they like to do is that they like the quad attachments and they will have two hoses attached to the GameReady unit. And then they'll do both quads and hamstrings after a heavy session outside. And whether it has a positive effect or not on them, just the cooling effect after a hot day is always good for them”.

* Alexi Pianosi:

* “We used GamReady as well .I think it depends on where you are in the adaptation process. For us if we're playing games on a back-to-back night with some travel in between, and we know guys aren't gonna be recovered in 16 hours when they have to play again. So reducing inflammation with cold or with compression can be a really good thing”.

* “But if we're in the preseason or if we know we have a certain amount of time for that inflammation to run its course in a proper and appropriate way to create adaptation, then I think GameReady or something like that could actually be counterproductive”.

* On the growing appetite for research papers and studies among pro teams:

* Alexi Pianosi:

* “Running scientific trials is difficult in general, let alone on each and every specific thing that you want to learn a little bit about. So sometimes the research is lacking, not because the idea is poor or there's a good historical precedent for such a concept, but just because by the nature of funding or availability or logistics, they're unable to study it. So I don't always necessarily need a randomized gold standard trial to say “I will sign off on this nutritional intervention or this training program”, but I think it is also incumbent that the idea or concept can be grounded in good science”.

* “If I saw that this technology works with this subgroup, I therefore think that it could theoretically work for my subgroup or that this nutritional intervention was shown in this small study to be very beneficial”.

* “So it's always great to have scientific evidence, but I think it's also incumbent to recognize that just because the scientific evidence isn't there doesn't mean that the idea or the concept or the intervention is not”.

* Pierre Barrieu:

* “I don’t know if doing research and studies is a requirement in Europe. This is not what I've been experiencing here. I know that the context is such here that the club at the high level will definitely have more PhD students just because of the culture in England. I would also say that when it comes to sport science, having larger staff and more students that have the ambition of working with professional clubs and especially in football, is more common here”.

* “I don't go by research maybe as much as I should because also I'm 50 now and I've seen a few things come and go”.

* “Most of the time, when it comes to technologies, we just get them and we do a random trial and then we talk to colleagues, and consult with other professionals and then we make up our mind”.

* On Serena Williams’ retirement and her legacy:

* Karam Al-Hamdani:

* “She had to overcome a race and color barrier. Then she had to overcome a male versus female barrier. And then on top of those two huge barriers, she had to overcome being in the shadow of her sister, Venus, the older one and then she won multiple championships after her sister and then she got recognized as one of the best athletes of her generation in the world”.

* “But there's one of her quote that really resonates with me.

She said, “when you're a champion, you're always a champion. So behave like one”.

* Pierre Barrieu:

* “You have to admire and respect her longevity. I don't think we have seen anything like this before. In the world of tennis, on the men's side, we have a big three. But Serena, on the other end, has been around for a while and she's been more dominant”.

* “So that's obviously something that we've been able to witness. And the fact that she came with her sister, this is not something we see very often as well. And I have to say, she had an easier way to act as a champion when she was really on top. And when she faced some adversity at times, she had a behavior that honestly, for me, I was disappointed sometimes (..) But I'm glad to have seen her play all these years, And I think she's going at the right time, which is not easy”.

* “So one day I bumped into her and she was very reserved. I wouldn't say shy or introverted, but this is where you see through of people. Now oftentimes you see them outside of the environment. And to me, this was great to see that she was very genuine, normal, and respectful outside of the code because sometimes, and I have been on the ATP for a few years, sometime it's not the case for some of these champions. She's definitely a fighter and competitor. And even if, like I said, she had some bad reactions in the past, I thought she's a very respectable person”.

* Alexi Pianosi:

* “I think she was an unbelievable athlete to watch for so long. And I remember a conversation when Andy Murray was getting interviewed, and I think it was after a Wimbledon match, and they talked about, “do you think she's the greatest female tennis player?” And he's just stopped the journalist and said tennis player. Andy Murray has always been very forthcoming and honest on things like that, but I think she's one of the greatest tennis players of all time”.

* “She never played against the men. The men never played against the women. That's just the nature of tennis, but I think her impact on the sport, empowering young women all across the world, really with her game, where she was doing it with a little bit of a different style too, where she was a little bit more aggressive, a little bit more physical as well, I think that was a little bit trail blazing for her”.

* “Anytime you get a chance to watch an elite athlete like that, one of the greatest of all time, if not the greatest, I think that something we always take them for granted until it's gone”.

You may also like:

⭐ 🛰️ Outdoor GPS Market: Key Vendors, Trends, Recommendations to Pro Teams

⭐ ⌚ Upside: HRV Ecosystems Analysis: Latest Research, Trends, Key Vendors & Where We are Heading

⚡ 📈 Upside: Injury Risk Assessment Solutions Ecosystem (Key Trends, Vendors, Recommendations to Teams) Analysis

🔥Upside: AMS Ecosystem Analysis: Key Trends, Vendors and Recommendations to Teams

⭐Upside: Top 12 Emerging Sports Performance Startups to Watch in 2H22

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

⭐Sports Performance Roles & Best Practices (Head of Performance, Head Athletic Trainer..)

🔥Upside Chat with Top Sports Performance Execs (NBA, NHL, MLS) on Load Management, Mental Health, Technologies.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview James Murray, Chief of Staff at AC Milan, a top Italian soccer team. James is also the Non-Executive Director at the Scottish Women’s Premier League.

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his role at AC Milan and what it was like to win the Serie A last year. Then I touched on the club’s recent partnerships in the web 3.0/NFT space with companies like Sorare, OneFootball, and Socios. Then we discussed Milan Lab and the importance of technologies for the club. We also touched on his new non-exec position in Scottish Women's Football and how it is important to him. Lastly we discussed the growing popularity of women soccer at the latest European soccer championships.

Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with James:

* On his role as Chief of Staff at AC Milan:

* “I think the role of Chief of Staff makes people think of the White House or the West Wing or something like that, but I was the first hire by the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ivan Gazidis when he moved from Arsenal to AC Milan under the new ownership of Elliot Management a few years ago”.

* “I came in without a job description, but with a mandate to help the CEO and the ownership define what the club needed to do better, where we needed to invest, what our priorities should be, and then I really had to get my hands dirty on the execution of those priority projects”.

* “I've had the opportunity to work across almost all areas of the club in the last three and a half years or so that I’ve spent with AC Milan from commercial deals to a lot of the planning behind our new stadium project to more branding-led initiatives like our partnership and work with Roc Nation to budgeting and financial planning”.

* “So it's a great variety of projects and that's what I really enjoy about the role. In addition to that, I also help manage some of the club’s external institutional relationships with organizations like ECA, UEFA and Serie A, so I get that sort of broad perspective of the football industry”.

* “It's been a great ride for the now nearly 10 years I've been working in Club football. And it's fair to say that the industry has changed quite a lot. I've seen it from two different perspectives across two different leagues, and two different big clubs. And hopefully there is a lot more to come from the AC Milan project”.

* On what it is like to work for a top club like AC Milan:

* “ It's an incredibly special organization and what you just said is something that you repeatedly hear on a day to day basis, whoever you come across. There's this incredible history and heritage at AC Milan”.

* “It's an amazing organization to work for. It's something that really means much more than a business or even a football team. You really get the sense that it's a part of people's identity and that comes with a huge sense of responsibility”.

* On AC Milan’s solid reputation across the world:

* “There is this incredible goodwill towards AC Milan from football fans and non-football fans alike. This is an incredible global heritage brand with hundreds of millions of fans and followers. But it's fair to say that both AC Milan and Italian football, have had a difficult 10 years period from the mid 2000s up until around five years ago”.

* “And I think that obviously has created some challenges for the club and for its competitors in Italy, but it's also an enormous opportunity. We talked about when we first arrived at AC Milan, and I believe it's still to be true today, that AC Milan has the highest growth potential in the football league with the highest growth potential in the world”.

* On what it was like for AC Milan to win the title (Serie A) last year after 11 years:

* “It was honestly such a special thing to be a part of that. And like you said, the fan base had waited 11 years. And to my previous point, it was not just so much about what was achieved. Now the magnitude of the title was obviously huge, particularly in the context of the wait, but I think it was how the club - the ownership and the technical department - managed to do it by not just outspending the competitors, but by bringing AC Milan back into competitiveness and ultimately winning the title while also significantly reducing the wage bill”.

* “We won the title while in the process of reconstructing the off pitch side of the club and starting to generate the kind of commercial success that the club had in its more recent history. And the fact that we're just coming out of the global pandemic, we all hope, there was also this incredible release of emotion”

* On the fans’ celebration when they won the title last year:

* “You had hundreds of thousands of people lining the streets of Milan when the team were going through the city to parade the trophy. We also had a couple of thousand of people at midnight on the night when the team came back from their away game where they won the title outside our office singing and celebrating”.

* “Our fan base globally also celebrated the event. We had hundreds of parties and celebrations going on in every country of the world. And we started to see fans that had proactively taken it upon themselves to crowdfund money to purchase advertising space on our behalf to celebrate”.

* “You had skyscrapers in China lighting up in red and black with the AC Milan logo saying “Congratulations, AC Milan champions”. So if we were not aware before, that really gave us a sense of the scale of the following and the passion of the fan base that we have. It was a really incredible experience and hopefully one that we're going to be able to use as the platform for more success”.

* On the crypto and web 3.0 space and the club’s recent partnerships in the web 3.0/NFT space with companies like Sorare, OneFootball, and Socios:

* “I think it's super exciting. We've been very fortunate to be able to do a lot of partnership deals, in many different areas, over the last few years. We have our first ever sleeve sponsorship with BitMEX, which is another company very active in the crypto trading space”.

* “We've started to see a huge amount of activity across the sports industry and not only in sports around web 3.0 (..) And I think that progression towards web 3.0 certainly appears to be one that is going to be here to stay and it is going to accelerate. The reality is that we are just scratching the surface of the potential of that technology and the opportunities that these platforms open up in terms of how you can engage with your fans”.

* “Partnering with organizations like Sorare, OneFootball and Socios, brings so much credibility, technology and expertise within those areas. I think there's a huge mutual learning experience. There's an amazing scalability to working with companies like that. And hopefully we can leverage those partnerships to really be able to create some exciting new experiences for our fans and to make sure that we are relating to them in the platform and in the ways in which they they're going to be consuming their content”.

* “It feels like an incredibly important trend and an area that we need to have expertise on. We need to be working with the right people. And on the basis of what we've seen from the start of those partnerships that you mentioned, I think that there's some really exciting things to come”.

* On the importance of technologies and AC Milan’s Milan Lab, the mind room and the fact that AC Milan has been a pioneer and an early adopter of new technologies:

* “Milan Lab is another big part of the club's more recent history and heritage (..) It is also the term for the more technology and data driven areas of our performance side, which is incredible”.

* “At AC Milan, we're absolutely a pioneer there and going as far back as the late eighties, early nineties in terms of modern technology around enhancing sports performance. And so it's important for us as the stewards of the club to continue that reputation. We're heavily data driven in the way that we recruit players and in the way that we analyze performance”.

* “We're always looking to make sure that we continue to be leaders in the way in which we use technology, both on and off the pitch. And hopefully there's a bright future for Milan Lab as an umbrella, which can live up to the incredible heritage that we have. And there are the stories, even as far back as the Berlusconi era and how the club used to push the boundaries”.

* “Our players and our legends will still regularly talk about Milan Lab, and credit it with many of them playing into their late thirties and forties. So it's an amazing part of our brand story, which gives us a lot of potential to exploit”.

* On his non-Executive Director at the Scottish Women’s Premier League:

* “This is something which I became involved in relatively recently, only in the last few months. I have been appointed to the board of a new entity. And the clubs and state and other stakeholder groups in Scotland have formed the Scottish women's premier league”.

* “ I just think that it's exciting that the clubs in particular, but in general the game in Scotland, has gotten behind the women's game. They have seen it as the right time to develop this new entity, and establish this new league, and really invest in the professionalism and the growth of the women's game”.

* “Despite my accent, I do have Scottish heritage and it's something which I am incredibly proud to be a part of. And I think it's only the start of what I think is going to be a really exciting journey. And I believe that if people weren't already really waking up to the potential of women's sports and women's football in particular, so hopefully they will now. The timing of this project really couldn't have been any better”.

* On the growing popularity of women's soccer at the latest European Soccer Championship:

* “As someone who's been involved in elite football for the last 10 years, I've seen this growing groundswell of support and momentum around women's football. So I can't say that it came as a complete surprise. I always thought it was a case of when and not if the potential and attractiveness of women's football was going to be discovered. But perhaps the scale of the viewership and the passion, and they were talking about 365 million cumulative viewers at the most recent Women's Championships and some of the scenes that we saw from the stadium and obviously the celebrations around England winning the tournament, was phenomenal. And we launched the rebranded Scottish women's league only days after that final, which was really a perfect timing”.

* “But I think that anyone who's attended Women's matches can understand the potential and the appeal around it. The women who are and have been involved in professional football or in women's football, even before it started the journey towards professionalizing as it is at the moment, are incredible role models and ambassadors. They understand the responsibility that they have, and the values that they have and the potential to represent around inclusiveness and progressiveness and tackling adversity. There is a closeness between the fans and the players, which I think there, has sadly, in many cases, been lost in the men's game, at least at the physical events”.

* “And I believe that women's football has such a unique opportunity to capture the imagination of people and ultimately to reap the commercial rewards of that. There's every hope and aspiration that women's football should become commercially sustainable and incredibly successful in the short term”.

* “That's effectively the opportunity that I've seen in the Scottish game, which certainly has a lot to learn from some of the more developed women's football programs around the world. But it's certainly not something which is a surprise to me. And I think, again, it's something that I keep on saying, but I believe that we we're really only scratching the surface of the potential that women's football has”.

⭐Upside: Top 12 Emerging Sports Performance Startups to Watch in 2H22

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

⭐Sports Performance Roles & Best Practices (Head of Performance, Head Athletic Trainer..)

🔥Upside Chat with Top Sports Performance Execs (NBA, NHL, MLS) on Load Management, Mental Health, Technologies.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview again Dr. Ron Dick, associate professor of sports marketing at Duquesne University in the school of business. Ron also worked for 20 years in sports, including 15 years in the NBA with the Sixers and the Nets, and then five years in the NCAA.

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on Serena's retirement, Kevin Durant's situation with the Nets. We also touched on the US College playoffs' expansion to 12 teams in 2026, Cameron Smith joining the LIV league, and the Minor leaguers likely to soon join the MLBPA union. Lastly we discussed Aaron Judge and whether or not he will extend his contract with the Yankees next season. Lastly we talked about Tom Brady’s marriage situation.

🚀Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Ron:

* On Serena Williams’ retirement:

* “ I think she is the GOAT as far as women's tennis is concerned. She also broke barriers that were not broken before (..) And Serena has been extremely outspoken about Venus saying “I wouldn’t be Serena if there wasn’t Venus”. Venus really pushed her”.

* “And Venus, in her own right, is top 20-25 of all time if not better when it comes to women's tennis players. A lot of people are talking about Margaret Court. And I do remember Margaret court. I was very young at the time, but Margaret court dominated pro tennis in the sixties and the seventies”.

* “Margaret actually won 24 grant slams as a single player and Serena won 23 slams, but Serena has won many more tournaments overall and of course has won a lot of grand slam doubles with her sister Venus as well. So unfortunately Margaret seems to be saying now that she doesn't feel the love or the support or the reciprocity from Serena for some reasons”.

* On how Serena changed the world of women tennis:

* “Serena took it to a whole new level and being strong and muscular is a positive thing. And regarding all of her clothing line and endorsement deals, prior to that, most of the endorsements were going to Anna Kournikova the tennis player from Russia. And with Serena that created some resentment right around the year 2000. And then Serena just really blew that out of the water. She started getting the deals and doing commercials. You could argue that she changed women's apparel, especially in the area of athletic”.

* On College playoffs' expansion to 12 teams in 2026:

* So if you're saying we're going to jump from four to 12 teams, wow. That's a really big jump. So some people get a buy, obviously. I mean, again, it's just more money more money, right? Now imagine the NFL type playoff format you could have for College Football, this will not kick in until 2026”.

* “The money would be astronomical and how does that help the name, image likeness (NIL)? we're only going to keep paying these players more and more. First of, 2021 was the first day that we could do that. So that will only get bigger and bigger. It's not going backwards”.

* On the situation with Kevin Durant who will be staying with the Brooklyn Nets (NBA) this season:

* “Well, there was a couple of things he wanted. Also, allegedly one of the assistant coaches that he really liked working with got fired and that really sent him off into a little bit of a tizzy, and he wanted some things being done with the head coach or this coach or that coach and make a demand to be traded”.

* “We have to put better players around Kevin Durant. I think there are worse places to play than New York city. That's the media capital of United States with Los Angeles. And I think we just have to get him better players, and him and the coach have to get along and make this thing work”.

* “And sometimes these teams have gotten to the point now where they say, okay, go ahead out there and go get the best deal. And if it's someplace that they identified teams that you'll go to. And then that universe is very narrow. It's not like he's gonna go to some particular teams that he'll just eliminate from his list because they're too far away from winning a championship. So that universe is probably 3, 4, 5 teams”.

* And if those teams say, no, we're not gonna give you asking prices, then we don't have a deal. Yep. That's it. And he has three years left on his contract, so I think that's big, big money”.

* On the Liv Golf league:

* “I think there are a couple apologies that have to go out there. I think the PGA and for the most part, the media here in the United States, they owe Phil Mickelson and I know he is not perfect, but they owe Phil an apology. I mean they land-based him and they really vilified him as a bad guy and anti-American and all this other stuff”.

* “The golfers are professional athletes, and they only have a window of so many years that they can play. So yeah, they're trying, we call that a max contract in the NBA, right? They're maxing out what they can make for now. And in a capitalistic society, I don’t know if there's anything wrong with that, but that's kind of how we're built. So I think Phil deserves an apology and I think that PGA is a little hypocritical that they're going out and doing the same thing that the Liv Golf league did”.

* On Aaron Judge (Yankees star) situation where the Yankees offered judges seven year extension worth $213 million, which was reject rejected right by Aaron judge:

* “I think that the Yankees lowballed Aaron Judge earlier in the year. I think he got great advice from his agent and anybody else was whispering his ear not to sign the deal. Now that's easy to say in hindsight because he's going out and putting up Roger Maris type numbers right now. And he is finally going to be a complete free agent”.

* “Hopefully the Yankees do well in the playoffs and in their case, they go on to win the world series. I mean, could he be the first $500M player? Possibly. Would the crosstown rival NY Mets have some money that they could spend on him? If they're willing to go over the luxury cap, but you also have the Boston RedSox, the Dodgers, etc. Maybe the Cubs are trying to get back into the game and get to the world series like in 2016. Wow. It's a great time to be Aaron Judge (..) we're going to find out how much Aaron really wants to be a Yankees”.

* On the Minor leaguers likely to soon join the MLBPA union:

* “I think we have to step back for a second and look at how COVID changed minor league baseball in particular. In hindsight, we probably had too many minor league teams and too many independent baseball teams where they weren't necessary. Now you could argue, well, look at Mike Piazza, in 1988 where he came out of the Northtown high school area. He was a 65th round pick just as a favor by Tommy Lasorda and look, he turned out to be a hall of fame catcher so he would've never even gotten a chance to play in the minor leagues and then he really progressed quickly up through”.

* “I think it would be great if the minor leagues could be unionized and, even if they have to pay a dues and things, but the problem with minor league baseball is that you always know who the big signing babies are as they call them”.

* “And they're the ones with the nice cars, because the minor players literally make peanuts. You're just keeping the dream alive. These guys get paid like less than $1,500 a month. This is why their signing bonus is so critical”.

* “I think MLB teams are looking at the NFL and the NCAA model and going, “Hey, why don't we let the SEC conference, the PAC 12, the Big 12, the Big East, why don't we let them cultivate and develop the players and then we'll take them as juniors? They come out in the draft as opposed to taking the minor route right out of high school”

* And that way we could save money on all these minor leagues, because so few guys may get all the way through to the majors. I mean, the fact is even if you play one game in the major leagues, it's stunning how few guys get to that level. So I think they see that, and as a result that really hurts”.

* On the Tom Brady’s marriage situation:

* “I mean, for any of us that are married, I'm very careful not to judge too hard on marriages. Even if you're married the right person, it's going to be a little bit of work. And they're trying to raise children. I'm not sure how many children they have. I think they have two or three. And then he has the older son from the previous relationship. So that's a lot of work to put on your wife. When you agree to that, because being a pro athlete, that's 24 7, 365 days during the season when he's not available”.

* “As a result, if you say you're gonna do something and then you don't do it, that's going to leave some bitterness between you and your spouse. So the communication is very important obviously in their marriage. And money's not an issue. There's plenty of that. It's about time, right? Yeah. Time and money. It seems like that's what everybody wants”.

* “So Tom is going to have to figure out what his priority is. That being said, the kids are now getting to the age where they understand it like “wow, my dad's the quarterback of the Buccaneers. And he's one of the greatest of all time”. So the kids start to enjoy it a little bit more I think. But yet they're becoming teenagers. So you have to be around more. And I'm careful not to judge on that one too hard, But if you make a decision and say that you're going to do something and then you back out of it, that's not going to sit well with a man or a woman. So that’s my take on it”.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview Sukemasa “Masa” Kabayama, CEO of Uplift Labs, an AI powered technology company that provides real time tracking and 3D analysis of movement performance and movement health.

Of note, Uplift was founded by 3 technology veterans. Masa served as President of Tesla Japan and held leadership roles at innovative global companies such as Apple and LEGO. CTO Jonathan Wills is a serial entrepreneur who sold his image recognition firm that he founded to GoPro in 2015. Uplift's Chief AI Officer, Rahul Rajan, earned his Ph.D. in considerate systems at Carnegie Mellon University.

In January, Uplift joined the NBA Launchpad, a new incubator program for tech that advance the league’s top basketball priorities. Uplift is also backed by NBA star Seth Curry and his wife Callie Rivers Curry, a former professional volleyball player, as well as retired basketball players such as former NBA All-Star Marc Gasol and Atlanta Dream co-owner Renee Montgomery. Other notable investors include former National Football League (NFL) player David DeCastro, RCVC, Softbank subsidiary DEEPCORE, Atma Capital, Stadia Ventures, Oregon Sports Angels, Black Lab Sports and Gaingels.

Here is a picture of Uplift Capture’s Cloud Visualizer:

Picture: Uplift Labs

While other motion capture systems rely on pricey wearables and require complex calibration, Uplift’s solution called Uplift Capture only requires a pair of iPhones and tripods. Footage of the athlete is recreated in accurate 3D. Uplift's AI then generates key biomechancial metrics of the movements.

“It’s two phones, no markers, no calibration, just walk in and go to work (..) That saves probably like 70% of the time”, explains Keke Lyles, Uplift’s Director of Performance, and Golden State Warriors’ former Performance Director.

Picture: Uplift Labs

Picture: GOLFTEC

Here is a video illustrating Uplift Capture in action: 

Video: Uplift Labs

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his company, product, the benefits for the teams, and his business model. Then we discussed his plans for the next 12 months.

Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Masa:

* On his background:

* “I've been very fortunate to be part of extremely innovative companies that were able to launch category-defining products in existing markets. For seven years, I was Country Manager for LEGO's education company in Japan, where I had the privilege of launching the (LEGO Mindstorms) robotics platform in the education sector. After that, I was the Director of Education at Apple in Japan with a focus on launching the iPad in the education sector as well”.

* “So I have had 12 years of Ed-tech experience. And then, for my last gig before moving back to the US, I was the first President of Tesla in Japan, where my remit was to launch the Model S, quickly scale the organization, and build out the infrastructure to help support sustainable transport”.

* “So you can say that my passion and my professional career have been very much about trying to find the coolest and latest emerging technology that has the propensity to scale and has a net positive effect on society”.

* On why he decided to build his own startup:

* “Within their own categories, especially with Apple and Tesla, all those business trips to the Bay area, meeting up with friends, and fellow folks I really thought, man, you know, I've always had the entrepreneurial bug, in fact earlier in my career, I've been with some early stage startups, but I never did it from zero to one”. 

* ‘So I thought if I am going to launch a startup, I want to do it in Silicon valley. And the key reason is that many of the companies that came out of here went global. And their products are those that people cannot live without”.

* On why he decided to focus on biomechanics:

* "I really believe biomechanics for everybody is going to be the biggest wave of a new unlock and not just myself but also my two co-founders, Jonathan and Rahul, that I was fortunate to meet at a prior company where we worked together. We were like hey, this is going to be the biggest wave of disruption and how do we truly democratize this with everyday devices like our smartphones to be able to accurately track and measure our performance to improve athletic abilities and even your health”.

* On how he and his co-founders got the idea to build Uplift Labs and what makes their smartphone camera based solution so unique:

* “So many of us get injured, including myself, whether through playing sports or doing fitness and it was actually the impetus of the company founding. I used to do CrossFit quite a bit and unfortunately, I also injured myself quite a bit. I had a rotary cuff-related injury or a lower or upper back issue”.

* “And I kept thinking: What's wrong with my form? So at Uplift we believe that we have the most accurate smartphone camera-based solution out there to track your movements. And this is why I believe we have been able to win the trust of professional athletes, elite athletes and professional teams and leagues”.

* On their partnership with GOLFTEC:

* “Movement really matters. And that extra degree or those few extra inches, have a huge impact on performance. So for example, we honed our tech through our partnership with GOLFTEC, the world's largest golf instruction company”.

* “If you go to any one of GOLFTEC’s over 230 locations worldwide, the motion capture technology they use is running Uplift's algorithms. And if we look to professional sports, over half a dozen MLB teams are now utilizing us for pitching and hitting data analytics. We also recently entered a partnership with the NBA through the Launchpad initiative that just concluded a month ago”.

* On the core technology behind Uplift:

* “Uplift's core technology is video based. And I think this is where it's really exciting because it's movement agnostic. We have built our own proprietary computer vision and machine learning algorithms to understand at high accuracy how people are moving”.

* “And we certainly have patented our technology which is granted in the US and is patent pending in Europe and Asia. What the patent is for is what we call our movement intelligence platform (utilizing one, two or multiple cameras for video-based skeletal tracking). So today we have a dual camera system that is just using two iPhones or two iPads, where we can track an athlete's movement, and then we apply that specifically for sports training or strength and conditioning. We are also focusing on digital health such as physiotherapy”.

* On their focus on rotational based movements for sports like golf or baseball as well as their agnostic approach:

* “We first started out focusing on rotational based movements such as a golf swing or a baseball swing and then we moved onto pitching. That let us to develop and fine tune our models because these MLB players are pitching at a hundred miles per hour”.

* “So we've enhanced our technology to capture 240 frames per second. We're just talking using iPhones and iPads here. To capture a golf or a baseball swing for example, we do that at 120 frames per second. So again, our tech is agnostic in the sense that it can really capture any type of movement”.

* “But I think for the end user, whether it's a coach, trainer or an athlete, the type of metrics that are important to them differs probably from sport to sport and for different use cases. On the front end, so to speak, we provide different type of metrics for reporting. I do think it's immensely exciting because we're collecting data which is anonymized, but such datasets are collected from the highest level of players and performers in sports”.

* On their focus on collegial sports (NCAA) as well:

* “Yesterday was a big moment for Uplift’s history where the last two years has been focused at the professional level and now we just announced our first collegiate partnership (Missouri State University and their baseball program). This is part of our democratization roadmap which enables us to move downstream so to speak, as we cascade into colleges, private sports academies and high schools to reach the everyday athlete. The college level (NCAA) is a huge market”.

* “Strategically we are working at the highest level with those professional teams because we want validation from them. We want to ensure that our level of motion capture accuracy meets their needs. And we believe that it creates a brand halo opportunity and trust from the collegiate teams to the independent academies. So we're excited about building upon that trust”.

* On their focus on digital health in the next 12 months:

* “We will also be focusing on the digital health space in the next 12 months. That's part of our roadmap because you need to be accurate there. When you're diagnosing somebody's injuries you need to be accurate such as in a teletherapy situation observing someone's musculoskeletal movements for rehab. And we believe that having worked at the highest level with elite athletes gives us the opportunity to start talking to healthcare providers as well. It's a $166B market. That’s a huge opportunity”.

* On how to contact them and the best way to use their technology:

* “We are a B2B company and have a SaaS business model. The best thing is to contact our Director of Sales." 

* "During the early days of the pandemic, we had to innovate a bit since we used to do onboarding onsite at our clients' location which was no longer possible. But now we do everything virtually. And part of that is the innovation that the product team and engineering/AI teams put into it. We basically are able to do that because we've automated a lot of the capture technology such as the uploading of captured videos into the cloud for processing.

* "So the best way is really to just contact us. We'd love to have a conversation, and understand what our prospective clients' objectives are and if we could be of help, we would love to assist”.

* “And just to be clear, you currently cannot go to the AppStore and download an app so the best way is to reach out to us to get started”.

* On their recent found raise of $5.5M with the backing of NBA player Seth Curry and many other athletes:

* “Last week we just announced our Series Seed Round and we're very, very fortunate, especially in this macroeconomic climate to have had an oversubscribed round of $5.5M. We're really excited with a lot of the strategic investors that came on board, including professional athletes such as Seth and Callie Rivers Curry, Marc Gasol, Renee Montgomery, on the NFL side David DeCastro, and a number of Japanese Olympian gold medalists. They always share their stories that they wished they had this kind of tech for injury prevention or player development when they were young. That was so incredible to hear and these stories make our hearts sing because they want to give back to the younger generation”.

* “They love the fact that our technology provides that accessibility, which has really been to this day only available for elite athletes or sports scientists. We are not just about having a coach in your pocket. Instead you have an entire sports lab in your pocket”.

* On their plan for the next 12 months to focus on understanding how their users’ bodies move and some new announcements scheduled for Q4:

* “To date at Uplift, we've been working on the performance optimization and enhancement side. That's like, how do I hit better, pitch better, swing better or shoot better. And we're tracking and understanding how you move. But the other missing piece is really, 'how does my body naturally move?' For example, I have a really constricted range of motion at the top of my golf swing. So there's no way I can swing like Tiger Woods or much less anybody at the PGA pro level”.

* “But there are certain things that I can do sometimes well. So that ability to really understand your biomechanics and how you naturally move is key. So how do we intervene there so you're injury free, and you can actually translate that energy over to your performance to maximize your athletic outcome”.

* “I don't think there's a startup that's out there that's solving for both sides of the equation. And this is what I'm really passionate about what we are doing. And you're going to see some major announcements coming in Q4 that will relate to what I just mentioned”.

* On their transition into prescriptive analytics:

* “We're starting to move down the track of what we call prescriptive analytics. What are the general movement patterns that we're seeing? How does this athlete compare to how they're moving today versus three months ago? We are trying to see their longitudinal improvements. So these are things that we're also working on. You'll see some announcements coming in the next 12 to 18 months“.

* On when we had his haha moment:

* “I had this kind of aha moment where I had Matt Kilgariff, one of the nation’s top golf swing coaches, along with Keke Lyles, who is now our Director of Performance take a look at my swing. (Keke's claim to fame is when he was Performance Director for the Warriors, he helped Steph Curry cure his angle injuries back in 2013). So I had both of them on in a remote session looking at my golf swing”.

* “And it was amazing because I always used to suffer from lower back injuries while playing golf. Keke would look at the way I naturally move and correct my posture. And then I would have Matt look at my new posture, and he would say, okay, let's change up your swing this way. And man, this was a magical moment. From there we knew we had something and I really wanted to have our tech pushed out to the world where everybody can have this type of aha moment”.

You may also like:

⭐ 🛰️ Outdoor GPS Market: Key Vendors, Trends, Recommendations to Pro Teams

⭐ ⌚ Upside: HRV Ecosystems Analysis: Latest Research, Trends, Key Vendors & Where We are Heading

⚡ 📈 Upside: Injury Risk Assessment Solutions Ecosystem (Key Trends, Vendors, Recommendations to Teams) Analysis

🔥Upside: AMS Ecosystem Analysis: Key Trends, Vendors and Recommendations to Teams

⭐Upside: Top 12 Emerging Sports Performance Startups to Watch in 2H22

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

⭐Sports Performance Roles & Best Practices (Head of Performance, Head Athletic Trainer..)

🔥Upside Chat with Top Sports Performance Execs (NBA, NHL, MLS) on Load Management, Mental Health, Technologies.

🔥Upside Chat: Alexi Pianosi, Strengths and Conditioning Coach, Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL)

🔥Upside Chat: Pierre Barrieu, High Performance Director, Toronto FC (MLS)

🔥Upside Guest Writer Series: “Impact of Time of Day on Athletic Performance”, By Arthur Weltman, PhD, Professor of Kinesiology, Professor of Medicine, University of Virginia

🔎📈 July Recap: Oura Ring Adds SpO2. Atletico Madrid, Usain Bolt Enter the Metaverse. $178M Raised From Sports Tech Startups (61% came from NFT/metaverse startups).

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview George Sun, CEO of Nextiles, a material science company working on next generation flexible wearables.

Nextiles built a smart apparel platform that helps people exercise better, more safely, and more efficiently. The company pairs athletic apparel with an analytics system that identifies new insights about a persons movement.

The company weaves and threads electrically conductive fibers to develop new types of wearable circuitry, through a repurposed sewing technology. The company has an expertise in electrical engineering and circuit design, giving the unique ability to merge fabrics and hardware to engineer new wearable platforms. Nextiles was founded on 2019 and is headquartered in New York, New York.

Here are some pictures of Nextiles’ sensors embedded into the fabric:

Picture: Nextiles

Here are some pictures of Nextiles’ next generation flexible wearables:

Picture: Nextiles

Here is a video illustration Nextiles’ product and vision:

Video: Nextiles

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his company, product, his view on the smart clothing market, his business model. We also talked about how his product benefits the teams. Then we discussed his plans for the next 12 months.

🚀Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with George:

* On his background:

* “So my whole background has been focused on academics and research. What that meant is that I did my bachelor degree in electrical engineering and computer science, as well as bioengineering at UC Berkeley. That work was incredibly theoretical. You just study books and you had some hands on work, but it was until after my bachelor that I decided to do a PhD and for my PhD, I shifted more towards hands on science. And that was in material science. So I did that at MIT and while at MIT I had the privilege to connect with industries that were interested in my work”.

* “That got me recognized by institutions like Puma. And so I worked with Puma and this is where I was working on their embedded systems making new shoes, new foams, new designs, and especially on the wearable side where I worked on how to integrate electronics into fabric”.

* On how he started his company Nextiles:

* “After that I was exposed to how quickly you can translate the scientific world into a product and this is when I realized that I had some of that capabilities on my own and wanted to do my own company”.

* “So I was living in Germany, and I got invited to work in New York, particularly in the garment district, the fashion district and an area which is right here called the Brooklyn Navy yard where we specialize in advanced manufacturing and one of our headquarters is in the new lab”.

* “We have 3D printers and sewing machines. And all that being said, this combination of academics and working in an environment in New York is really receptive to advanced manufacturing. That's where we built Nextiles which is focusing on soft goods, fabrics, and wearable sensors”.

* On their targeted markets and GTM strategy:

* “We are a B2B2C company, meaning that we build the materials, the sensors and we leverage that IP for other companies. So you can imagine that we can work with the Puma and Nike of the world, but we've also decided to work with institutions like the NBA, baseball players, and tennis players”.

* On the fact that half of its team is software focused:

* “The other side of that is that we are also a data company and with our materials, sensors, we also provide software. So half of our team is software focused, which is a unique hybrid to most hardware based companies”.

* “We not only provide the hardware and the soft goods, but in addition, we provide the software capabilities of machine learning, data allocation, data encryption, and so on”.

* “So we provide those insights and the analytics to the professional sports world, but you can imagine as we gain more traction, more intelligence on the machine learning side, on the server side, we can take that knowledge from the best of the best, and what makes the best players, and how they are excelling technique wise, and how they are preventing injuries, and then use that knowledge for the consumers, the amateur sports, and finally we can take that knowledge to go into the medicine space. Also maybe it is a little too early to explain now, but we also have some contracts with the Air Force”.

* On the work they are doing in terms of integrating sensors into the fabric:

* “We fully integrate sensors into the fabric. So what that means is that we can do the biomechanics and then biometrics. So concretely we're able to sew conductive threads, which have the ability to transfer electricity and electrons from one end to the next”.

* “That's useful because you can think of them as neurons. There are ways to transfer information from one part of a garment to the next part of the garment. We call that biomechanical because that transfer is dependent on any kind of mechanical distortion. So you can imagine as I'm moving around and my clothes are wrinkling, they're tightening, they're bending, they're stretching because that signal's traveling through”.

* “So these changes in the garment, and we could actually track those changes and say, Hey, when we received that signal, it changed by 20%, or by 30%, or it looked a little bit different. We can then map that back to what caused that change. Just because you bent the arm, you've twisted the fabric and you've pulled on the fabric because you bent backwards or you kicked a ball”.

On how its solution can precisely track body motion, join angles of an elbow, and much more:

* “So all that information is captured directly to the fabric. And so the reason why we call it bot mechanical is because we can measure extremely precisely the body motion, the joint angles of an elbow, the joint angle of the knee, the amount of force you're putting on your foot to the twisting or torqueing of the shoulder”.

* “And we do that by providing platforms that focus on those types of information on the body. So we made compression sleeves for the elbow and the shoulder (..) These are all white labelable products that we have. And we are a B2B2C company so that if you want to have it in a different color, a different fabric, we can do that for you”.

* On the types of biometric/biosensing capabilities that they can track:

* “On the biometric side of things we can provide things like the heart rate or muscle activity. And those you can also do with the fabric. I can't disclose too much publicly as of now, but there are ways to use fabrics, conductive fabrics as a way to measure things like skin voltage or temperature, or even possibly sweat”.

* On their focus on publishing scientific studies and building various algorithms tailored to different sports:

* “So for us, we are in the world of publishing and creating white papers. We do validation studies with universities. And we show them how we analyze our data. And it's because I don't necessarily come from a sports background. I come from a scientific background where things are peer reviewed. So I definitely have an urge and our company has kind of a thesis of sharing data and making sure these algorithms are correct. But to answer your point we do build algorithms per sports vertical”.

* “So even though you may be wearing a sleeve for golf, or you may be wearing a sleeve for tennis, the analysis is different for both of them. In the future, though, if there are enough people that wear this and we see a world where people will, you can use machine learning to tease that out”.

* “So you don't need to tell me that you're playing golf. The machine will recognize that signature because from our data sets as a human, I can actually decipher whether it was a golf swing or a tennis swing. That's how dramatic the forms are when it comes to our sensors. Obviously the machine takes some time to train and we don't have enough data yet, but visually if I can tell a machine can tell so this is the future that we envision”.

* On the key benefits provided by its product to the teams:

* “I can break that down to the two segments, the hardware and the software. The why we're different on the hardware is basically that we provide machine washable platforms. Now they're fitable because we create them in different sizes. It's all human oriented. When it comes to the wearables it's humans first. We're not trying to retrofit a pod into a watch. We're not trying to make a circuit board strap to your chest. And we build that through things that we're familiar with, which is clothing. So again, machine washing to the ability to buy different sizes for it, to be comfortable and fit, to have moisture wicking, all these properties you would find and an outlet store, we provide that in our hardware”.

* “We're not here to be a gimmicky device. We're not here to congratulate you because you did 10,000 steps. We're here to tell you that there are ways to perfect your form and also to prevent injuries. And to do that, we call those longitudinal studies. You know, we're not here to give you a quick endorphin like “congratulations, you stood up for 12 hours a day”.

* “We are going to tell you that historically after 12 months or 12 weeks to 12 days, are you improving or are you not improving? And can we suggest ways to be better? And that's why I love working with our partners. They are the experts in their fields, physical therapists, the sport scientists, the data scientists that we are learning from them to then teach our algorithms, our machines to be complimentary to them and to support their insights. And for the software, it's just about being extremely precise. ”

* On their business model:

* “So for the hardware, you buy it, and therefore you own it. And if you want to buy replacements, you can always buy replacements, but for the software because we are more of an engine we're more of the analytical power to the apps, websites, or to someone's AMS system, so to enable that we do provide a software development kit (SDK)”.

* “This is a package you can download. You could consider it as a Google maps where you could see maps on restaurants as a map on Yelp. They can take packages from Google maps and insert it. So our SDK is something that you can download’.

* “It's licensable so there is either a monthly or yearly fee associated to having the power of the Nextiles SDK and what the SDK does for you is do the computations and these computations aren't done on our servers. These are through APIs. So whether you want to analyze torque, create a report, find historical data of an athlete, those are done through APIs, which are available for a fee”.

* “There is also a per user per month fee. So for every user using our SDK that's on the platform. Let's say through the NBA or through the NFL, their users or through the business themselves, they do have to pay payment plans for working with us. It could be negotiable. We do have some flat structures, but overall that's kind of the two worlds we live in a normal hardware sale and a SaaS stream through our software platform”.

* On their plan for the next 12 months:

* “So the plans for the hardware scaling is that we are in a way perfecting the method of making conductive and flexible sensors in fabric. So when it comes to scaling up, we have a phenomenal manufacturing site in New Jersey. We have another one that's a little bit smaller in Brooklyn, New York. We can pump out a few thousand a week. We can definitely service the customers we have today, but obviously we want to scale to hundreds of thousands to millions. So scaling our resources, finding the right partners is why we want do the hardware side”.

* “And that will take 12 months to iron up the supply chain and the logistics. But in terms of the R&D we're very happy that our patents are solid. Our machines and equipment are great, and we have a phenomenal team that has a skillset to further optimize the hardware. On the software side we want to get more data and begin to create these algorithms. To do that we are working with third party institutions. They could be universities, or other agencies to prove to people that we are valid against gold standards. It could be an existing wearable. It can be camera vision. It can be just a medical professional approving that the data is working for their system”.

* “So in the next 12 months on the software side, I can say that it's more about developing those algorithms and validating them so that when those happen and we continuously to gain credibility in the market, we can then use the scaled hardware side to start delivering the hardware to people who now see value in the product”.

On the products that they are selling and shipping today:

* “Right now we're delivering our products. And we have enough insights. We have enough value in the software that we are beginning to sell our compression sleeve in particular to athletes. So you can be playing golf, baseball, basketball, as long as you're using your arms, we do a really good job of measuring the mechanics of the elbow and shoulder”.

* “And we also have another sister product for the knee. So for those who are doing squats or weight lifting that's what we are selling now, but obviously when it comes to scaling the bigger companies, those who work at the league level, those who work at training facilities, we want to scale for them and, and that'll take a few months, and then we believe by 2023, and I can't disclose this for now, but we do have other products of the pipeline, so things like socks. By 2023, we'll have a bigger portfolio of products to provide”.

You may also like:

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

🔥Upside Chat: Alexi Pianosi, Strengths and Conditioning Coach, Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL)

🔥Upside Chat: Pierre Barrieu, High Performance Director, Toronto FC (MLS)

⚡ 📈 Upside: Injury Risk Assessment Solutions Ecosystem (Key Trends, Vendors, Recommendations to Teams) Analysis

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

VC name: Emerging Media Ventures

Headquartered:  London

Founded: 2005

Founders: Manoj Badale & Charles Mindenhall

Website: https://emergingmediaventures.com

Sector: Sports & Media

VC type: Venture Builder

Typical seed investment range: Up to $5M

Emerging Media Ventures is the UK’s leading sports venture builder. As majority owner of the Rajasthan Royals, they are uniquely positioned to provide exposure to the global growth in cricket and the Indian economy. Within their role as a venture builder, they bring together their resources, infrastructure, network and experience to help support and grow business. Within this, they hold a range of specific capabilities including exposure to cricket, experience in India, sports expertise and venture build services.

They continue to build on their portfolio of assets that demonstrate strong synergies with both cricket and India. Assets currently within their portfolio include the Rajasthan Royals, Barbados Royals, Cricket Star and Emerging Rights Management. They are always looking to hear innovative ideas, build new relationships and meet talented people. 

They are the sports and media investment arm of Blenheim Chalcot, the UK’s leading digital venture builder. 

Total number of investments: 7

Total number of exits: N/A

Emerging Media Ventures’ latest startup investments: SAT20, Cricket South Africa’s T20 cricket league.

This week, we interviewed Steve Quinn, CEO of Emerging Media Ventures.

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on his background, his role at Emerging Media Ventures. We also discussed his investment thesis, his area of focus, and what he is typically looking for when investing in startups. We also touched on why top athletes such as Chris Paul, Larry Fitzgerald and Kelvin Beachum invested into the Rajasthan Royals, a top Indian pro cricket team that they own.

🚀Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Steve:

* On his background:

* “So, I was studying law at university in London, and I very quickly decided that the legal profession was going to be a hard grind and it probably wasn't for me. If I'm honest, I have always been interested in a career in finance. And then I was reading in the Sunday paper one time that a chartered accountancy was a useful backdoor into investment banking. You would get to skip some of the early years in banking, which were super tough on graduates”.

* “So that's the route I took. I joined EY in London after I graduated, and I very quickly moved into investment banking. Then, after the financial crisis, I moved into the investment side on the buy side. This is where I am today, running a sports investment firm”.

* On his firm Emerging Media Ventures:

* “So, we're not structured as a fund, we are a permanent capital vehicle. And our assets under management are a little over $1.2 billion”.

* “Emerging media Ventures is the major shareholder in the Rajasthan Royals one of the original IPL (Indian Premier League) franchises. The IPL was founded in 2008 as a bit of a punt at the time. No one knew it would have the success that it has. But in the recent media rights auction, which took place just last month, the value per match of an IPL game is now the second most valuable sports property in the world behind the NFL and actually ranking ahead of the English premier league soccer on a per match basis”.

* On the areas of investments that his company is focusing on:

* “We describe ourselves broadly as a sports and media platform, but really, we are providing exposure to the Indian consumer, and to cricket, globally. And that really just ties into our thesis of us being very rigid and very focused on where we can drive differentiated value add, and our position within the IPL footprint in India means that cricket and India are really the focus for us.”

* “Albeit we define that very broadly and there can be some tangential or adjacent businesses that are not specifically tied to cricket, but if they're giving you insights into fan engagement, or on field performance, then those are areas of great interest to us also. And so, anything related to data fan engagements that can be applied to Cricket or in South Asia, would fall within our areas of interest”.

* On what his firm is looking for when investing in startups:

* “Any investor will tell you that start-ups need to be able to define their business model in one sentence and their total addressable market, and all of those standard things, which we obviously consider. But the two things that we really focus on are the founders and the management team. There are lots of great ideas out there, but there are far fewer great operators who can deliver on their strategy”.

* “We invest for the long term, so we really need to believe in the founders, and we need to enjoy working with them and spending time with them (...) We also see a lot of great opportunities which we pass up on because we can't honestly say to ourselves that we will be able to personally drive outsized value in that business”.

* On why top athletes Chris Paul, Larry Fitzgerald and Kelvin Beachum invested into the Rajasthan Royals, a top Indian pro cricket team that they own:

* “That is in the public domain, but I will make it very clear that I do not speak for any of our investors. However, it’s true, we do have some very high-profile individuals who co-invested alongside us, including some athletes. These athletes are smart and they're well rounded and they put good teams around them”.

* “What I have been overwhelmingly impressed by is by how well considered, shrewd and diverse some of these athletes who we've met are when it comes to building their portfolio. They really understand tech. They have very clear investment theses, they know exactly what they're doing, and they're hands on. They also have some smart people around them, and they have an opinion”.

* “They're aware that India is a huge growth opportunity and they've very quickly come to realize that if they want to harness some of that India opportunity, but stay within the world of sports, then your only option is cricket. There's not the same sort of big five sports that they have in the US or even what we have here in Europe, amongst different sports. It’s cricket or nothing in India. (..) So I think the growth potential in India and wanting to stay in sports is why they have been interested in the IPL and the Royals”.

* “Indian people are fanatical about crickets. Typically, the IPL (Indian Premier League), over the course of a season, gets north of 800 million viewers. It’s massive. I think it's over three times the size of the number of people who watch the Super Bowl if I'm not mistaken”.

* On the type of advice he would give to any start-ups looking to raise money right now:

* “Do it quickly. We've seen an extended period of low interest rates and easy capital and that is already changing and it's likely to continue to move in the wrong direction if you are raising money. So do it quickly. And be clear of your equity story and, to my mind, be very targeted in who you seek to raise from. I always ask founders what their perfect investor looks like and the founders who can answer that question and describe exactly the profile are typically the more investible companies”.

* “And I'm often very surprised when some founders give a very generic answer. They haven't really thought about it. They've thought about how much money they want and how they're going to apply that to their business, but they have not thought about who they want to partner with. And these are long term relationships. So very targeted would be my top piece of advice”.

* On what advice he would give to anyone interested in starting a career in the sports investment world:

* “I would say, go for it. It's an exciting place to be. And I think we're really just at the start of sports being accepted and understood as an asset class. And that's only going to get bigger and more interesting. I should also add that they should read “A New Innings”. It's a great book on the business of sport. Although full disclosure, I should mention that it happens to be written by my boss Manoj Badale”.

You may also like:

🔥Upside Chat with Serial Entrepreneurs & Investors (Siri inventor, VC...) on Best Practices for Successful Exits.

⭐ 🔗 Upside Thought Leadership Series: Top VCs' Thoughts on The Sports NFT/Metaverse Market

⭐ Upside VC profile: SOSV (HAX, IndieBio, Chinaccelerator, MOX, dlab).

⭐ Upside VC Profile: Stadia Ventures

⭐ Upside VC Spotlight: Aser Ventures

⭐ Upside VC Spotlight: Causeway Media Partners

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview again Dr. Ron Dick, associate professor of sports marketing at Duquesne University in the school of business. Ron also worked for 20 years in sports, including 15 years in the NBA with the Sixers and the Nets, and then four years in the NCAA.

📝Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on Kevin Durant trade situation, the 76ers’ plan to build a new arena worth $1.3B. We also discussed the NBA's record $10B season, Brittney Griner, Charles Barkley, Draymond Green, the Rock & the XFL, the NFL, the NIL, and the trading value of European soccer players that has dropped significantly in the past year.

🚀Best Quotes: Here’s some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Ron:

* On the Kevin Durant trade situation:

* “So when I hear people say that he's at a disadvantage or he doesn't have a lot of leverage. Boy! I wish I had that kind of leverage. So I think he's gonna be ok (..) And I don't quite understand. He seems to be a very intelligent, sensitive young man and he gets criticized more than almost any players in the NBA minus LeBron James. And LeBron brings some of that on himself. So I'm not really sure why. I mean, Durant is just one of the greatest players of all time”.

* “So I don't know what he needs to prove at this point, but as these players get older and they already have their money kind of stocked, I have a feeling that it's just like, “I want to go to a team that is good and close to getting over the hump. And certainly the Boston Celtics are that, and the Miami Heat or the Phoenix Suns are that too. So It will be somebody that was over 0.50 last year. I think Miami or Boston sound like a good idea. I think those teams are willing to make it work”.

* On Draymond Green asking for a max contract with the Warriors:

* “I would never give him a max contract at this age. His second contract coming out of Michigan state was the one where he made a mistake, not the first one. And you can't give that kind of money to an aging player. Now I know he is kind of the leader and the enforcer, but we saw enough things happen in the last year that makes me not want to give him that kind of money”.

* “So is he a Hall of Fame player? I don't know. That's to be determined, but he has been a major contributing player on that team, but his age kind of scares me off a little bit”.

* On the NBA surpassing $10 billion in revenue for the first time this season:

* “I think the growth was driven by the growth internationally. I think we got hurt with the whole tweeting things from the General Manager of the Houston Rockets where we lost a lot of that Chinese money. And then I think the feelings are a little bit better now, possibly”.

* “So some of that money came back. They stopped broadcasting games in China where there's 1.4 billion people (..) So I have to believe that it was a factor. Europe was another factor, and South America, and Africa, like all the continents, are showing more NBA games and creating more interest, which then leads to more hat and shirts being sold there, etc.”.

* On the Brittney Griner situation in Russia:

* “I think it's very tragic. Whenever we travel to any other countries, we have to play by their rules (…) And she didn't know that it was in her bag is what she's claiming. You know, we all got it. But we have to be careful whenever we travel to a country and what we're bringing into their country. I hope it gets resolved soon. It feels like she's a pawn in this situation and she needs to get back to the United States and it’s my understanding that the Biden administration is also trying to negotiate someone else who was captured over there”.

* “It's like, come on, let's just make a deal and get this thing over with. My greatest fear for her is that they actually find her guilty and they sentence her five years in prison. That would be awful. This crime and the punishment don't fit the crime in my opinion”.

* On who is going to win the Super Bowl this season:

* “Well Tampa Bay just signed a Hall of Fame wide receiver, who says he's 100% healthy although he is a little bit older, but he is a great player from Alabama and played with the Atlanta Falcons. His name is Julio Jones. And everybody wants to play with Tom Brady at the Twilight of their career (..) So I wouldn't bet against Tampa Bay, and of course, Green Bay is always among the favorites although somehow they tend to find a way to not make it. And everybody's jumping on the Cowboys”.

* “I'd also love to see the Steelers and the Eagles in the Super Bowl this year. That would be my wish of course. And I think the NFL is always unpredictable. It's the one league where at the beginning of the season, it's wide open. It is the greatest league for parity and that's all by design. They even designed the schedule so that the best NFL teams, the teams with the best record last year, play the other best teams with the best record”.

* On The Rock and the XFL and his goal to compete against the NFL:

* “It does seem like anything The Rock touches turns into gold, but I'll tell you this: This is going to be an uphill battle (..) But then again The Rock has a way of networking himself and the guy does a heck of a lot more than just movies and maybe he can turn it around, but I've seen a lot of very smart people fail at that”.

* “I mean, it's a tough one, but you never know. I think The Rock is so popular and he's got obviously lots of connection. The fact that he signed a deal with ESPN Disney that's The Rock. I think that's pretty clear. He made that happen. So it will be interesting to watch, but I don't think they've got a shot at competing against the NFL, but the XFL could that be a pretty fun league to watch”.

* On what we have learned with the NIL and how that impacts the NCAA:

* “We learned that it's still evolving (..) The student athletes are all going to be able to transfer without any hassle from their current team (..) As a student athlete, you're not going to have a big NIL deal unless you are getting playing time. So that's what the they transfer for, especially the male athletes”.

* “So I think the NIL is here to stay. It's still evolving. And I'm happy for the players. I know so many of them think they're going to play in the NFL and play at the next level, but the studies have shown that less than 1%-2% really do get to play professionally and make real money. So that to me it does not tarnish the fact or marginalized the fact that they are making money on the college campus for those universities during their three or four years of playing. So I think they should be compensated for that”.

* On Charles Barkley who he worked with for many years at the Sixers:

* “So I worked for years with Charles and the way you see him on TNT is the way he was on the bus rides to New Jersey, Washington, or New York. We drafted him number five overall. He was in the Jordan draft in 1984 (...) The way you see him today on TV is not an act. That's just who he is. He's just a fun, loving guy and he loves living life. He breaks people's chops. I mean, he's from Alabama, but boy, did he get adopted quickly here in Philadelphia?

* “And he is just one of the greatest power forwards of all time. And it seems like he has a real passion for golf and that comes through when he is commentating”.

You may also like:

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

🔥Upside Chat: Alexi Pianosi, Strengths and Conditioning Coach, Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL)

🔥Upside Chat: Pierre Barrieu, High Performance Director, Toronto FC (MLS)

⚡ 📈 Upside: Injury Risk Assessment Solutions Ecosystem (Key Trends, Vendors, Recommendations to Teams) Analysis

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe

This week we had the honor to interview Mélanie Pauli, BOP (Best Player on the Pitch) & Athletic trainer at the Swiss Football Association.

Show Notes: Through this interview, we touched on her background, her role at the Swiss Football Federation. We also touched on the importance of technologies in the world of women soccer, and the growing amount of interest for women's soccer around the world. We also discussed the great progress being made in the world of women sports and what type of product she would build if she had unlimited engineering and financial resources.

Best Quotes: Here are some of the key discussion points and best quotes from our conversation with Mélanie:

* On her background:

* “ I studied sports science in Switzerland in Lausanne. I worked as a sport teacher first and then in parallel I specialized myself in sports and performance, and in strength and conditioning. Then I created my own company, an athletic training center specialized in performance and rehabilitation and general population fitness (..) I worked for 10 years with individual athletes or professional teams across several sports, not just in soccer, but also in volleyball or in track and field and so on”.

* On her role as athletic trainer at the Swiss Soccer Association:

* “Then I got the opportunity in 2019 to join the Swiss Football Federation and especially the women department to help develop the performance aspect of the soccer women teams. Back then there was a gap so I have helped filled that gap. That’s what convinced me in this project. The goal was also to help reduce the injuries, with some specific developments. My goal was also to develop the physical structure (of players) and help develop the Federation”.

* “My role at the Swiss Soccer Federation is quite diverse as I am involved in various things with the national women soccer team but also with the youth women national Swiss soccer team. I also support the coaches in terms of planning on and off the pitch at the academy that we have in Switzerland, but also with the soccer clubs in the first division. I help them adopt the right strategy and structure in terms of performance training. I also help in terms of recommendations especially when the coaches are trying to find solutions. I also try to use the synergies between the men and women teams”.

* “First we focus on the clubs in the first division. And then we focus on the Youth teams because that's really important. And then we focus on the national soccer teams and we try to implement what we have learned in terms of the management of menstrual cycles, performance optimization, activation, regeneration, or injury prevention. We try to teach athletes and coaches how to use those strategies daily when they are with the national team as well as with their club in order to help them individualize their strategy and their routine”.

* “I have been working with the Swiss Football Federation for the past two years. Our goal has been the European Women Soccer championships and we were just there in England for that competition. And our next goal is going to be to qualify for the next Soccer World Cup”.

* On the importance of technologies like Orreco in her role and in women soccer in general:

* “We use technologies and it's really important. We try to include them step by step, but it's so important for us to monitor the loads of athletes and try to individualize training more and more for our athletes. If you are in a team sports in 2022, it's about individualizing (training, recovery, treatment) for athletes”.

* “Technologies are important for the monitoring of menstrual cycles and to track, report and understand the trends to help the women athletes develop their own strategy and routine. First we can monitor the pre symptoms to help minimize the stress on the body in order to help our athletes recover better”.

* On how technologies and research provided by companies like Orreco are a game changer for the world of women sports:

* “For me technologies like Orreco are a game changer. These types of technologies are the future of women sports, not just in soccer, but in women sports in general. Orreco is really pushing the boundaries in the world of research on women. And we need that because 97% of the published studies are made by the men and with the men”.

* “So it's really important to understand the physiology of the woman and the influence of the hormone and menstrual cycles are part of that. But it's just one part of several different critical parts in the world of women sports”.

* On the fact that technologies like GPS and HR monitoring systems are already being used by women pro soccer teams today:

* “Technologies is like GPS or HR monitoring systems are commonly used in the world of pro women soccer. At the European women soccer championships, every team uses those types of technologies, and every Federation already invested in at least some GPS and tracking technologies”.

* On the need to better monitor and understand women athletes’ menstrual cycles:

* “However when it comes to monitoring the menstrual cycle of women athletes it is not widely used by teams but we are talking more and more about this topic”.

* “There are still a lot of questions about how to manage menstrual cycles and how to take than into consideration into the practice and training within a team. I'm speaking with a lot of athletic coaches and there are a lot of men in this profession and this topic is also sometimes taboo so I can help break the ice to speak about this”.

* On the great progress being made in the world of women's sports:

* “And a lot of it has to do with the fact that the US women soccer team was very vocal about it (..) So I think by being more vocal, you get the attention of the general public and the authorities and Federations have to do something about it because there's more pressure on them now to do something about it”.

* “And I think it's a big step to also push the other Federations in the world to think about it, to reflect about it so they can ask themselves: What about us? What are we doing to help? We need some row models, and we need someone to inspire us”.

* “And I think that equal pay between women athletes and men athletes is an extremely important point, but in my opinion, it's more than that. When we speak about equal pay, we have to be careful. I think we should speak about not just about equal pay, but more about equal chances in terms of development or structure”.

* On the type of product she would build if she had unlimited engineering and financial resources.

* “ I would focus on women research because I'm involved in the athletic and performance part. We need to better understand the physiology of women athletes to be able to better help women athletes and create much more individualized programs to help women athletes with injury prevention. So we need to really push the startups and engineers to focus on that. When it comes to monitoring, what can we do to optimize the performance of women athletes, or better prevent injuries? These are the types of questions we need to focus on”.

You may also like:

🔮 2022 Upside Top Sports Tech Predictions (NFT/Metaverse, Sports Performance, IPOs/M&As..)

🔥⚽Upside Chat: Fabien Allègre, Chief Brand Officer, PSG (Ligue 1) on PSG's NFT/Metaverse & Brand Strategy.

⭐🥽 Upside: Sports Metaverse Ecosystem Analysis: Trends, Drivers, Challenges, Recommendations to Teams

🔗 🔥 Upside Analysis: NFTs Vs Crypto Vs Digital Currency, How Are They Different?

🔥 Upside Chat: Dave Hancock, CEO, Apollo (Leading Athlete Management Systems (AMS) vendor)

🔥Upside Chat: Alexi Pianosi, Strengths and Conditioning Coach, Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL)

🔥Upside Chat: Pierre Barrieu, High Performance Director, Toronto FC (MLS)

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theupside.us/subscribe