A group of football clubs from across the world have come together in a venture designed to create mutual benefits across the likes of stadia, technology, sponsorship and events.
The Sport Innovation Alliance has launched with 10 member clubs, four in Europe, five in Latin America and one in the Middle East. The European members are Spanish LaLiga club Real Sociedad, Italian Serie A team Cagliari, Dutch Eredivisie outfit Feyenoord and Polish Ekstraklasa team Legia Warsaw.
In Latin America, the Sport Innovation Alliance includes Campeonato Brasileiro Série A club Vasco da Gama, Chilean Primera Division team Universidad Católica, Atlético Nacional of Colombia’s Categoría Primera A, Peruvian Primera Division club Sporting Cristal and Atlético Peñarol of Uruguay’s Primera Division. Saudi Pro League club Al-Ittihad has also signed up.
Sport Innovation Alliance will focus on promoting development and innovation across four main pillars. Technology will be the main area of attention, searching out and developing new solutions that can help member clubs.
Sport Innovation Alliance will certify companies or developers that are deemed to have introduced solutions that enhance club operations, serving as a guarantee for teams that are looking for a partner.
A new sponsorship platform will be launched to grant a more complete advertising offering for sponsors looking for a global positioning in the football market. Finally, the Alliance will target events such as conferences, friendly matches and esports tournaments that can be hosted in the stadia of member clubs.
In a statement, the Alliance said: “At the moment football clubs face the challenge of confronting processes of digital transformation, development of new technologies, innovation and improvement of processes with limited resources and experience.
“Nowadays it is increasingly common to discuss concepts such as Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Blockchain… linked to the world of sport and the innovations that the sector needs in all of its areas, from stadium management, to fan engagement, even to the development and planning of the sport.
“Even so, today these innovation processes are generally expensive and there are very few ‘best practice’ cases to search for and identify the best solutions. The main source of traditional income of clubs, such as sponsorship, is getting much harder and advertisers are demanding a better return on their investment as well as a bigger geographical impact on their advertising actions.
“It is to address all these limitations that Sport Innovation Alliance was created.”
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