SBA Offers Grace Period to Business Owners With Covid-Era Loans
New Small-Business Applications Surged by 5.5 Million in 2023, Marking Yet Another Record
7 Successful Founders Share Their Favorite Leadership Advice
How These Hollywood Entrepreneurs Saved Their Company After Its Founder Died Unexpectedly
What's Driving Entrepreneurs This Presidential Election
What You Need to Know About Amazon's 'Buy With Prime' Button Now Available on Salesforce
5 Documentaries for Business Owners at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival
Imagine your startup is struggling to gain a foothold. (Granted, that's not hard for most entrepreneurs to imagine.) You'd love the opportunity to test your innovations and get extensive data, input, and feedback in a real-world setting from a world-class organization.
Turns out, if you get accepted by Major League Soccer's just-announced Innovation Lab, you can. And if your startup isn't sports-related? You can use the Innovation Lab's application template to better frame your search for testing partners, joint ventures, angel funding, etc.
"The league has been at the forefront of innovation for a long time," says Chris Schlosser, MLS SVP of Emerging Ventures. "This is nothing new for MLS. But what we've never had is a formal innovation program that allowed us to run a more structured process to consider, evaluate, and manage all the technology opportunities we see every day."
Granted, MLS had partnered with startups, launched prototypes, and tested new ideas. But as Schlosser says, "It was always in everyone's 'ten or twenty percent' time. No one woke up every day focused solely on chasing new opportunities."
Creating the Innovation Lab not only lets MLS see more impactful opportunities, it also provides better value to partner companies by marshaling assets at all levels of MLS. How does it work?
Recruiting starts in the spring and summer, with the formal nine-month program kicking off in the fall. Recruit companies in spring and summer, program kicks off in fall. Included are three tentpole testing events: MLS NextFest, the Adidas Cup, and the MLS Next Playoffs. There's additional testing, pilot programs, a robust rollout, etc. At the end of the nine months, three companies are selected to present to the MLS Board of Governors.
"Keep in mind this isn't like Y-Combinator," Schlosser says. "It's for companies that have a great soccer product, or one they want to adapt soccer, or one they want to further build out. We'll give you testing reps and a platform to prove and improve your product. And on the flip side, we get to kick the tires on your technology, your team, and the value your product can provide."
This year MLS looked at nearly 500 companies from around the world. The first sort? Three broad areas that are most impactful for the league: on-field player development, fan engagement, and new media technology to improve game broadcasts and digital media. Less than 100 companies made it through the first cut. The next step? Real-world use cases.
One company that made the top-six cut is Camb.AI, a UAE-based company that produces live translations of broadcasts into multiple languages. Another is A-Champs, a French hardware-based player training system.
A third is Fitogether, a South Korea-based startup founded by Jinsung Yoon that uses wearable tech and optical tracking to provide data and insights on player performance, technical analysis, playing styles, etc. The company's technology is already proven; with an accuracy level of two to three centimeters, Fitogether is FIFA's Preferred Provider for live player tracking.
Why start a company focused on sports? "I always wanted to have a global business," Yoon laughs, "and soccer is global." Another motivation? Yoon twice ruptured his Achilles tendon while playing soccer, sparking an interest in fitness, biomechanics, recovery, and the burgeoning field of player performance and load management.
His team's primary focus was on data accuracy: the more accurate the system, the better the data and insight. Accuracy also removes the need for heavy downstream processing or human manipulation, speeds analysis and insight, and makes it possible for fans to view nearly real-time player data. (Think your team's striker rarely tracks back? Now you'll know.)
"Our mission is to empower players and engage fans," Yoon says. "We're delivering well on empowering players, and now we're implementing ways to help fans engage."
Currently, over 500 clubs around the world use Fitogether's technology, but to date the company hasn't focused on the U.S. market. "We have top-tier experience from the European market," Yoon says, "and lower-level and academy experience from Asia. The Innovation Lab program lets us further refine our proof of concept for the U.S. market because we can work all levels of the soccer ecosystem."
That's because, in addition to the top-tier MLS league, in the last few years the organization also launched MLS Next Pro, a professional league affiliated with MLS, and MLS Next, a youth soccer program with over 11,000 participants.
"We have really great test beds for these types of companies," Schlosser says. "MLS Next Pro is set up to test new products, new rules, new everything. The mission of that league is to develop new players, new coaches, new technology... and the Innovation Lab lets us unlock the entire organization."
Yoon plans to open a branch in the U.S. this year and consider fundraising by the end of the year, which also fits MLS's vision for the Innovation Lab program.
"Long term," Schlosser says, "our goal is to build a robust portfolio of companies we've made investments in that drive the sports industry forward."
Interested in being part of the Innovation Lab? Schlosser and the team look for three basic things. One, does your company's vision align with an area or initiative important to MLS. Two, technical due diligence: does your product actually work? (You can't just have an idea.) Three, is your team capable, and do you have sufficient runway to be sustainable?
"Tangible is the key," Schlosser says. "Here's our idea, here's our demo, here's our prototype, here's our team, here are our resources, and here's our roadmap. A tight package based on tangible results, and tangible resources."
Yoon's first demonstration was in December. "We met with a number of clubs and academies," Yoon says. "We'll visit the U.S. again in February and March. We plan to build a dedicated team for the U.S. this year, and look at fundraising near the end of the year."
Will fundraising include an investment from or partnership with MLS? While that remains to be seen, Fitogether's inclusion in the Innovation Lab program is already paying dividends. Extensive real-world testing helps Yoon and his team further extend the technology's capabilities to individual biomechanical analysis and training evaluation. (A sprint demo I watched broke down each stride in terms of length and acceleration and deceleration power, by leg.)
Company visits are something Schlosser always looks forward to. "Spending a week," he says, " "immersed with six startup founders? It's the coolest thing you'll ever do, because all of them are running through walls and making things happen. That's great for everyone in our organization, at all the various levels, to see and be a part of."
The Daily Digest for Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders
Privacy Policy
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Rami G Khouri
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Nikkei Editorial
visit website
