Testing the HYPE: Small Town Football Club Becomes the Validation Hub for Innovations
TEL AVIV, Israel, Oct. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- With a senior team in Israel's 4th division league, Hapoel Kiryat Ono, a small Israeli football club from a city of just 40,000 people, turns out to be the most technologically-orientated in the nation. As the 2018/19 season kicked off, the team engaged in a formal cooperation with HYPE Sports Innovation, an organization that inspires, develops, invests, and promotes technology innovation in the world of sports. Just a few months into the collaboration, Hapoel Kiryat Ono Chairman, Yaniv Buchnik, enthusiastically testified to the rapidly emerging results:
"There is a huge buzz in the air from both staff and players. People like sports and they like technology so the combination is a genuine thrill for all of us."
Via HYPE Sports Innovation, two major sports-technology startups are already employing Hapoel Kiryat Ono's under-19 youth team as "guinea pigs," and the players are participating with great enthusiasm. The first is Denmark-based VEO – an AI driven automatic camera that records, edits, streams, and even analyzes football matches and trainings without requiring human intervention.
"As an exceedingly affordable piece of equipment that helps us be on the same level with much bigger professional teams, VEO gives access to people that can't come to the stadium," said Buchnik.
The second sports-technology startup involved is Tracktics, a best-in-class set of analysis and performance tools already in use by the Real Madrid Foundation, Eintracht Frankfurt FC and others. Tracktics immediately measures and exports athletic performance data to a Smartphone for comparing past performance, opponents, and teammates.
After HYPE Sports Innovation began supporting Hapoel Kiryat Ono's under-19 youth team, HYPE's President and Founder, Amir Raveh, looked for the right place to pilot some of the affiliated startups in HYPE's ecosystem - and the choice was easy, as they were looking for a "fast and professional" beta site to allow their startups and partners to implement their solutions. An extra bonus is that the club is only 5 km from HYPE's TLV office.
"I'm a past player of the club, so this was easy," said Raveh, who combined his dual passions for sports and innovation in founding HYPE. "I'm into sports because it reminds me of more innocent times, and frankly it's a real privilege to combine your passion with your work. I know how lucky those kids on the pitch are and we aim to make them feel even luckier."
"We attract more players now and we know that in the long run we will also produce better results on the field," concluded Hapoel Kiryat Ono Chairman Buchnik. "We are already eager to see what HYPE is preparing next for us."
Tracktics:
TRACKTICS develops a system that enables football teams and players to track athletic performance data including distance, acceleration, and speed on the pitch. TRACKTICS' unique offering of a football wearable and data analysis is the first system of its kind, and accurately delivers valuable data, affordably, to players and coaches on every level.
VEO:
VEO sports camera uses revolutionary software that finds and always follows the ball to records the action automatically. Easy, affordable tool that can stream, record, edit and even analyze matches – everything without a cameraman.
HYPE has the world's largest network for sports innovation, comprised of 40k members including: sports brands, startups, investors, athletic clubs, federations and academia, as well as 11 Sports Accelerators around the world. Together with 10,000+ startups, HYPE has unrivalled outreach capacities for global partners across all sectors. www.hypesportsinnovation.com
Contact details
Amir Raveh - Founder & President, HYPE S.I. LTD
SOURCE HYPE Sports Innovation
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