Interview

Rakuten has strong ties with the Asian and international sports industry. In 2016 they became FC Barcelona’s Main Global Sponsor and first-ever Official Innovation and Entertainment Partner. They own one of the biggest baseball teams in Japan, Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, and soccer club Vissel Kobe.

We sat down with Vanessa Asell Tsuruga, Vice General Manager Global sports strategy and branding at Rakuten, Inc., and speaker at WFS Asia. Vanessa leads the Digital and Content portfolio, weaving in the contractual sponsorship assets from the sports properties in the Rakuten portfolio.

Can you tell me a little bit about your work experience and how you started at Rakuten? What’s your experience in the world of sports and football?

I think sport can change the world but sport cannot do it on its own. You need people and companies with a passion for empowerment and positive change. I moved to Tokyo for this job 9 months ago because I wanted to work with the big sports properties that Rakuten has. I have a personal connection with Barcelona since I lived there during my teens and I was at Camp Nou in 1994 when FC Barcelona beat Real Madrid 5-0 in El Clásico. Moments and celebrations like that live forever!

I wanted to diversify and help Rakuten reach its goals. Before Rakuten, I spent 12 years with ASICS in sports marketing and activation roles at the Global HQ in Kobe and in the Scandinavian region based in Stockholm. In 2014 I took leave of absence and went to Olympia, Greece, for a Master’s Degree in Olympic Studies at the International Olympic Academy.

Rakuten has been in Spanish news a lot since Iniesta signed for Vissel Kobe. For people who are not familiar, how would you explain Rakuten’s connection with the world of sports and football in particular?

We are not new in using sports as a platform – we own a soccer club, Vissel Kobe, and a baseball team in Japan, the Rakuten Golden Eagles. In 2017, we kicked off a major brand transformation project to unify our 70+ businesses – both in Japan and globally – under a single Rakuten brand. We chose sports as a platform to take this transformation forward because we wanted to bring the emotional connection to our users through our services the same way sport brings emotion to fans.

The Asian football industry is growing at a very fast pace. There’s a lot of involvement from private companies and governments, which are investing large amounts of money into building academies for children and helping clubs getting bigger. How do you think the Asian football industry will evolve in the next few years?

At the moment Japan is a buzzword when it gets to sports and Rakuten is really happy to be an important part of that conversation. We own Vissel Kobe which is getting stronger and stronger with big names such as Andrés Iniesta and David Villa coming in specifically from Spain. It looks like a great future for football fans in this region and Rakuten is actively playing a big role. We just announced the Rakuten Cup with FC Barcelona, Vissel Kobe and Chelsea FC matches planned for summer 2019 in Japan. FC Barcelona stars and former teammates Andrés Iniesta, David Villa and Sergi Samper will be on the same pitch again.

What is Rakuten’s main goal in the football and sports market in Asia?

We use sport as a tool for marketing and introducing our services. Our first goal is to get people familiar with the Rakuten brand so they can understand our philosophy of teamwork and empowerment of the community. The carefully selected teams we partner with share these values. We hope to ultimately get accepted by the football and sports community first, and seamlessly connect with them through our services.

We are hoping to connect with fans that are either going to the games or watching it through one of our services. We want to connect with them on an emotional level and try to spread the Rakuten brand awareness while explaining who we are and what it is we do.

What’s the main strategy that Rakuten is using to engage with fans and increase its brand awareness globally?

Our strategy is about reaching the hearts of the fans. Again, football is a very emotional sport. If we are able to create and be part of emotional moments and stories, whether it is live or after the games, and we’re able to give the fans that amazing fan-experience then we are in a really good position to spread engagement, increase brand awareness, introduce our services, and take football beyond borders.

What do you think about WFS and what do you expect to achieve? World Football Summit arrives in Kuala Lumpur at a time where the Asian football industry is at its best.

I think it’s a very good opportunity to speak at this event. It gives us a chance to talk about optimism, which is one of the pillars on which we are built. It’s good for us to tell our story about why we chose sports to put all our brands around one singular platform in 2017. Being able to tell this story to the wider audience and also the networking opportunities of meeting people face to face is very valuable.

Genius Sports is a leading provider of sports data, technology and integrity services. It specialises in enabling leagues and federations to collect, manage and distribute their live data.

We had a chance to sit and talk with Daniele Gonteri, Head of Football at Genius Sports and speaker at World Football Summit Asia.

Welcome back to World Football Summit Daniele. Can you tell us a little bit about Genius Sports and your new role in it?

Thank you. After more than 15 years at UEFA, working across a lot of important projects and with some great people, I joined Genius Sports in January as Head of Football.

Genius Sports is a technology company that works in partnership with football leagues and federations. Our software enables all levels of sport to capture, manage and distribute their official data and statistics.

As Head of Football, I’m responsible for leading our football strategy, which includes product development, innovation, and expanding our global network of partners. Already, it’s been massively rewarding getting involved with a company that is growing so quickly and has such a clear commitment to driving the development of world football.

Big data has gone from being an unknown part of the football business to be a big actor, with clubs having big data experts on the payroll. What’s the importance of big data in sports and how can it be used?

Sports increasingly recognise that they need a dedicated strategy and technology infrastructure to thrive in the era of big data.

With control and the right tools, sports can use their official data to improve everything from how they run their competitions, to the content they provide to their fans, coaches and partners. Data has become a crucial element in growing a sports’ bottom line, enabling them to provide a more valuable product to their sponsors whilst creating new revenue streams.

Genius Sports seems to be growing rapidly in Asia. What trends have you noticed amongst Asian football leagues and federations?

Asia has certainly been a real success story for Genius Sports across multiple sports. In the last year, we’ve formed new data and technology partnerships across Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, India, Myanmar, China and more, while opening a new office in Singapore and driving the continued rollout of the AFC’s competition management system.

Each of our partnerships is unique but we’re noticing a real commitment amongst Asian football leagues and federations to enhance the product they offer their fans. This is driving a major overhaul of their technology infrastructure and services in order to provide live match updates in real-time, increase the number of platforms which their audience can engage with and provide a rich level of insight on individual teams and players.

Football has always been more of a traditional sport, where technology has not been welcomed. We’ve seen that trend change in the past few years, so in which ways can football benefit from technology?

I think it would be very fair to say football and technology haven’t always had the smoothest relationship! But hopefully, the successful introduction of new systems such as goal-line and VAR is paving the way for a better dynamic where technology can support and enhance the game experience.

The most valuable technologies are those that make sports lives’ easier or provide new insights. Digital transformation is a real trend across the sports industry at the moment and we’re seeing leagues at all levels actively disposing of manual or paper-based systems in return for advanced software.

Equally, the growing buzz around big data and AI has driven the development of advanced collection and tracking systems which are changing how we view players, teams and leagues. Nobody had heard of expected goals a few years while systems such as Intel’s True View Technology which enable fans to view the live action through a player, referee or manager’s eyes are now a reality.

What do you think the football landscape will look like in 10 years given the fast-paced progress in technology? What are the new technologies being tested and/or applied right now?

Modern football moves pretty quickly but we fully expect the trend of leagues and federations taking control of their official data to grow in the coming years.

Our philosophy has always been to empower our partners to take charge of their official data at every stage. This means capturing their statistics from pitchside, using their data feed to build official records on their competitions and powering their systems and fan-facing platforms with split-second updates.

This shift, and the evolution of the technology behind it will be hugely important over the next ten years.

How does your new data capture product (Football LiveStats) stand out from others on the market?

The data technology market is increasingly competitive so we’ve placed a real emphasis on creating a product that is unique and valuable to football.

The key differences of our system are threefold: speed, ease of use and control. Because Football LiveStats captures data directly from pitchside instead of from broadcast feeds, it provides our partners with at least a seven second advantage that ensures their websites, mobile apps and other platforms are providing the fastest key match updates.

Our extensive experience in live data collection and football has enabled us to develop a user-friendly system that combines leading UI with carefully selected workflows and a touchscreen to simplify in-game collection.

For the first time, football leagues and federations can be in complete control of their data, and can carefully select where and what purpose it is used for as well as creating official records and archives on teams, players and competitions.

What specific role does Genius Sports play driving digital transformation in football?

A surprising number of football leagues and federations still use manual or paper-based solutions to run key responsibilities such as managing competitions, registering their participants or collecting live data on their games.

Our digital technology replaces these inefficient processes, saving our partners valuable time and money. But perhaps most importantly, we are democratising this technology for all levels of competitive football by providing the necessary tools and expertise to help the sport build on its growing footprint around the world.

Crucial to our success was the decision back in 2013 to build a cloud-based data warehouse. By predicting the move towards open data transfers, our team went about building an ecosystem that enables live data to be easily and securely distributed across lots of different systems and third parties.

For example, our partners can use their live data feed captured at pitchside to power everything from their broadcast, fantasy football website, performance and analytics tools or third party systems for managing competitions or producing highlights packages. Digital transformation will be critical to football’s continued growth and our approach is to empower leagues and federations.

 Daniele will be one of the speakers at World Football Summit Asia in Kuala Lumpur on the 29th and 30th of April.

Lagardère Sports is one of the most important sports marketing agencies in the world. They have a large presence in Asia with partners such as the Asian Football Confederation and the ASEAN Football Federation.

We talked with Alberto Bernaldo, Director of Strategic Relations at Lagardère Sports, one of our speakers in World Football Summit Asia and expert in the international football industry.

Hi Alberto, we’re excited to have you as a speaker in WFS Asia. What can you tell us about your experience in the world of sports? How did you reach Lagardère?

Interestingly, I am a former banker turned sports professional. Following my passion more than 15 years ago, I travelled the globe working for internationally-renowned organisations, managing complex football commercial rights and relations with football’s biggest rights holders.

In particular, I worked at UEFA and since 2017, I have been with Lagardère Sports, based in Singapore, as Director of Strategic Relations for our Football division – Asia.

Since day one, I’ve enjoyed enormously being part of such a dynamic company that has been a major driving force in Asian football over the past two decades. I thoroughly enjoy working in such a fascinating environment across Asia.

During my career, I have also been involved in other major sporting events such as Formula 1, the America’s Cup (sailing), as well as Tennis.

As you mention, Lagardère Sports has great importance in the Asian football industry. As such an important part of the industry and with such heavy roots in it, what’s the company’s current strategy in Asia?

For the past 25 years, Lagardère Sports has been behind the scenes and playing a pivotal role in the growth and development of football in Asia.

We are truly proud of the work we have done with competitions such as the AFC Asian Cup, the AFC Champions League, the AFC Cup and the AFF Suzuki Cup.

We have been part of the football evolution across the region and this is something that will continue for many more years to come.

Our strategy is to build on the work we have done in the past quarter of a century, while also unlocking new opportunities in the football ecosystem across Asia.

This also applies to Europe, where we have a very rich history as well as a strong presence and expertise which puts us in a privileged position to steer the global vision within the business of sport.

It’s great that you mention it. In the past few years the exchange of information and business relations between Europe and Asia has grown massively. LaLiga, Premier League, Borussia Dortmund or Manchester United are just a small sample of clubs and federations that have opened offices on the Asian continent with the objective to strengthen their relation with the Asian industry. The fact that World Football Summit is celebrating its first regional event in Asia is a big proof of that.

The world has become smaller but the game of football has become bigger!

Europe is influencing Asia and vice-versa; both continents are communicating more, and we are seeing a greater exchange of ideas, strategies and plans.

These collaborations are mutually beneficial which creates a strong foundation for the game to flourish globally. As you’ve rightly put, hosting the World Football Summit in KL is a fine example of the progress being made.

Over the past decade, we have seen a huge increase in football viewership across Asia. As a case in point, the recent AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 was a defining milestone.

Incredibly, over 732 million people tuned in to the game, which was a huge increase from the 435 million who watched in 2015. China drew the largest audience with close to 215 million viewers, followed by Iran with nearly 162 million, and then Japan with just over 130 million.

The participation of teams like Vietnam, India and the Philippines for the first time – the result of the number of teams being increased from 16 to 24 – contributed to this increase in viewership. I’m confident that the participation of more national teams will boost the development of football in many countries.

In Asia – where consumers are more digitally connected than any other region, and the rise of the middle class has resulted in a significant increase in disposable income – football has inadvertently benefited from this socio-economic evolution. It has also led to the creation of many new business opportunities within the football industry.

As we have seen, Asia continues to dominate the headlines for many major sponsorship and TV rights deals; this underscores the strong interest and eagerness to consume football in the region.

Easier access to content has also triggered an exponential growth in the Asian football fan base which has a strong appetite for premium content.

This bodes well for brands who are in the football space – because football is drawing huge crowds and engaging more eyeballs than ever before, it justifies corporates’ investment in the sport as they are able to leverage multiple platforms to connect with their target audience in Asia.

Do you believe that there’s specific region of Asia that is leading this growth and football expansion? For instance, Singapore is home to many clubs that are choosing to open offices in Asia. There’s also a big growth of sponsorship opportunities coming from the Middle East since the World cup in Qatar was announced.

Yes, in addition to China which we all know is becoming a major player in football, the Middle East has been investing hugely in the football industry for many years now. All eyes are on this region as they gear up to host the next World Cup in Qatar 2022.

Saudi Arabia, recently hosted the Italian Serie A Super Cup, and we will see them increasing their presence in football in the upcoming years. We’ve also just heard that China is discussing with the Italian football federation about a broader political tie-up between the two countries.

And not forgetting the UAE who did an outstanding job hosting the AFC Asian Cup 2019. They pulled off 51 matches involving 24 teams across eight venues in four host cities!

LaLiga, Serie A and Premier league are doing efforts to reach these countries. Many have opened offices there. It’s clear that there is a competition to see which of them will reach the most amount of fans. Who do you think is doing it better?

 There has always been a strong interest in European football in the region. The Premier League is leading the Asian conquest and were the first to approach the market here and engage with its ecosystem.

In the last few years, we’ve seen a big push from Spain’s LaLiga as well as the German Bundesliga and their clubs in trying to further develop their brand equity and fan base across Asia.

At the same time, the Asian market has also matured and become much more demanding.

To succeed here, mid to long-term strategies are needed. International organizations who decide to invest in this region must be prepared to do so for the long haul. They must build their brand over time by establishing continuous touchpoints with their target audience. They will need to offer solutions, content or experiences that will benefit local partners, community, and fans – all of which will result in an enduring legacy.

It is important that European organizations invest in understanding and treating each country market differently, and develop “tailor-made” strategies for each of the heterogenous markets in Asia.

What do you expect to achieve in WFS? Why do you think is important to have these types of events?

World Football Summit lands in Asia at a very exciting time.

It is extremely healthy to have events like this, where you can meet key players from the industry and share expertise in an open forum.

WFS Asia also highlights the union of two huge sport markets, Asia and Europe, and this will provide further opportunities for the business of football to grow and expand.

I’m privileged to have the opportunity to chat with the industry’s heavyweights during my panel session. And I also look forward to sharing with you some best practices Lagardère Sports has acquired from cultivating the Asian football landscape over two decades.

See you soon in KL!

Borussia Dortmund has been playing a leading role in the European football scene during the past ten years. The club has achieved the Champions League’s second place in 2013 and winning two Bundesliga trophies in 2011 and 2012. BVB is also known for its development of young players, such as Mario Götze or Ousmane Dembélé.

We have interviewed Borussia’s Managing Director in Asia Pacific, Suresh Letchmanan, and discussed the current situation of BVB and the Asian Football Industry scene in general.  

Hi Suresh, can you tell us a little bit about your career and experience in the football industry? As I understand you didn’t start working in the industry until a bit after graduation. What can you tell us about it?

I have a diverse background of a career. I worked for around six years in the legal industry and graduated from the UK, reading law. Even though I started on that path, I always had a huge interest in sports, so I did my master’s law degree in International Sports Law at Anglia Ruskin University, England. I was involved a lot with sports law related work and it was a difficult move for me to start a new career totally in sports but I was particularly passionate about football.

In my younger days I played football at a semi-professional level, so when I saw the opportunity to work around this sport, I jumped on it without hesitation. I got the break at World Sport Group, Lagardere Sprts for three years and thereafter a further two years at a city law firm in Singapore before joining Dentsu Sports Asia, as the company’s Vice President. The opportunity to work with Dortmund came around 5 years ago. I’ve been in the industry for around close to 12 years and I am very passionate with the work that I’m doing here at Dortmund an am also familiar with the activities and the sports business in and around Asia.

Have you seen a lot of changes in the Asian football industry? There is a World Cup coming in 2020 in Qatar and the AFC just organised an amazing Asian Cup, which has been a great success. The AFC revealed that the 836 million interactions during the tournament broke the record, and that in many cases, fan engagement was ten times higher than in the previous cup in 2015. How do you see the future of football in this continent?

Asian football has grown tremendously and rapidly over the years. The quality of football is getting stronger and closer to some of the leagues in Europe. One example is that you could see many Asian players plying their trade in Europe. I can speak about the Bundesliga, where, for instance, we have so seen many Japanese players playing in the league.

Furthermore, it is a great spectacle to see how successful the Asian Cup has been. There’s a lot of media interest and also brand exposure for the local brands as well as a great deal of partners and sponsors interested in participating in a tournament like this. It’s also a great platform to see top Asian talents on display.

It is also important to notice how smaller nations have closed the gap with the traditionally bigger football-driven nations. Vietnam is a great example of that, but you can also look at what India has done in the last few years to get closer to the “big boys”. China is another good example, with a great professional league that helped them pushed their national talents forward.

Asian football has developed well over time and there’s a lot of interest on the Asian players globally, as mentioned. I’m confident that in the years to come we will see more Asian footballers making their marks on a bigger European stage. It’s just a matter of time of when you see the gap between the Asian players and European players become smaller.

Borussia has been growing both as a club and as a brand, what can you tell us about the work you’re doing? What are your club’s strategies in Asia? Are you looking for sponsorships, to build academies or a mix of everything?

There are a lot of things that we expect to accomplish here in Asia and we have organically grown our visibility and reach in the last five years in Asia. However, the first important element for a club like Borussia Dortmund to achieve is for us to be closer to our fans. We would like to think that we are a club that is always close to the people. An example of that is our stadium, where you can see 25 thousand people on the south stand at every home match. It’s an amazing spectacle and atmosphere. Here at Dortmund it’s in our DNA that we maintain a close relationship within our club including our fans, staff, coaches, players and partners. We’re a family here.

For us in Asia it’s important that we are seen and to be present in the various markets in and that’s why we were the first German club to come to this Continent. We would like to continue to be closer to the Asian audience, fans, partners, media and the Football community. We also want to be close to those who can’t afford a trip to Europe to watch the team play in the stadium, that’s why we bring the team to Asia, with our players, legends and create nice stories.

Secondly, we want to export our knowledge. A club like BVB has a very strong technical knowledge of how to grow talent. We have a great youth-driven philosophy and we would like to share that with Asian market. There are many ways to do it, such as club development programmes or just by sharing our knowledge with the academies, clubs and schools here. What ever we do we want to do it in an authentic way and at the same time keep the intensity to grow more black and yellow hearts.

Thirdly we want to add more black and yellow colour to Asia. We want to grow our merchandise and to have more people having access to our products. It’s nice to see some black and yellow in this region; it’s a nice colour and you can use it even to go to the cinema or for a night out.

We want to be present in each and every way. Sometimes we send our former legends to meet the fans; some other times, our current players come to Asia in the preseason to share stories, talk with the media or just to a meet and greet with our fans.

If we do all these exercises we might also find the possibility of securing a new partner or sponsor, but that’s not our first aim: our first one is to be closer to our current and future fans.

Bundesliga has also grown a lot in the past few years. There has been an increase in the amount of money invested in it, and we’ve seen how the German league has topped the Italian one in the UEFA ranking. This great success has come hand in hand with the one in the German National team. Also, many young talents in Europe are coming from German teams. What’s the secret behind this great success in German football?

The most important thing is to develop and cherish the youth. They are the future. The German clubs give the young players a chance to play on the big stage, in huge competitions like the Europa League or the UEFA Champions League. You can find examples of that in our club, like Christian Pulisic, but this youth-driven philosophy happens also in the other Bundesliga clubs as well.

We see many players coming at a very young age and become superstars. The latest example of that is Jadon Sancho. I believe that this philosophy makes our league really attractive and special.

Secondly, we have the best fans. Every stadium is full on every match day and you can see and feel a huge amount of emotions, adrenaline, passion, character and support in the air. It’s unbelievable what we see every weekend in the Bundesliga. Every match, at our stadium we have close to an average of 81.000 attendance and for some fans it has become difficult to get hold of season tickets.

Suresh Letchmanan, Managing Director in Asia Pacific – Borussia Dortmund

That’s another thing that says a lot about the boom that the German football is experiencing. How do you think that it happened? What’s the difference between the way Spain, England or Italy are having their strategy in attendance. German attendance is the highest in the big five leagues. Does it have to do with the price?

Absolutely. You need to keep prices at a reasonable and affordable rate for the people to continue to come and support their teams. At the end of the day the fans are the ones that are spending the money at the club and are the ones that go to the club’s shops to buy scarves and all sorts of merchandise.

We want our fans to have a fruitful and wholesome experience, not just a trip to the stadium and back home. It is nice to see families going to the matches and be able to buy a drink, some food or even make a visit to the museum on an affordable price. That’s why we offer discount prices with the tickets, or bundle it with a visit to our club museum for example, which, at the same time, makes the fans happy and attracted to the club. Also, at the end of the day, that’s money that is coming back to the club, and it’s a way for the fans to keep supporting us.

Finally, what’s your opinion about World Football Summit? It is the first time that WFS arrives in Asia, an ever-growing market. What do you expect to accomplish there?

This is a great platform. It is amazing to have all the top different industry football players coming in one day and all in one place and ready to share their knowledge. its the football community and it’s nice to see and meet everyone at the same spot. It’s also great to share with each other what each of us are doing at our respective clubs. Is a great stage and I look forward to attending and supporting the event.

We have visited the Yerba Buena VR’s office in Madrid to interview their CEO, Héctor Prieto. The office is set in central Madrid, Gran Vía, in a co-working space hosted by Telefónica and its brand Wayra.
YBVR is the winner of the WFS 2018 StartCup, a competition for the sport-tech companies around the globe.

Héctor, what could you tell us about the company? Imagine that you are trying to explain Yerba Buena VR and its history to a person that has never heard about it in their entire life.

This is a company created by four video lovers. Constantino and I started working together a long time ago. We built the ONO platform in Spain and created an IP-based television company, which Ericsson loved and bought. They asked me to go to the US, where I met really interesting people, which would later become my partners in YBVR.

The idea came up during those long nights where we stayed up working for Ericsson. We saw that VR [virtual reality] was getting the attention of many companies. For instance, Facebook invested 2 billion dollars in Oculus; Disney also invested 65 million dollars in virtual reality. We looked at each other and realised that there was something missing in the market. People were investing in technology, but nobody was looking at how to market it or deliver it in an efficient way.

How did you find a way to get into the market? What was the solution you brought to the table? After all, VR is a relatively new market in which new ideas are probably welcome.

We had to think out of the box. The problem we saw was that VR requires really heavy high-definition images being streamed at a very fast speed. The streaming VR platforms had to lose most of the quality in order to deliver a good service. We decided to concentrate all the quality, 8K-12K, in the spot where the person using the headset was facing, while losing quality in those areas that are not being seen by the user. This idea worked amazingly and we patented it.

That’s the way we reached 4 times the quality with half of the Internet use.

Did YBVR start as a company focused on the world of sport? I understand that you have been working with Mutua Madrileña tournament and the Australian Open. How did you decide to dive into the world of tennis?

One of us, Constantino, was a semi-professional tennis player, so he knew the business. We started to work with the Spanish Tennis Federation, afterwards we did the Davis Cup in Marbella, entered the Madrid Mutua… at the Mutua Madrileña tournament we had a stand where people could watch Rafa Nadal playing live with the VR headset. More than 2500 people saw it, with around 75% of them being teenagers and young adults. That was a success since the director of the tournament brought us because he wanted to organise a technological and youth-driven tournament.

Such experience showed us that this tool is great to bring the young people closer to the sport. In the USA for example, tennis is a sport watched by people in their sixties…. our tool could attract young people back again to tennis.

YBVR was the winner at the World Football Summit 2018 StartCup by GSIC. How was your experience in this event? Did it help you move your company towards your objectives?

It did wonders for us. It’s important for you to know that we, as a company, won’t serve the audience; we serve other companies like LaLiga, Fox Sports or the Australian Open.

That’s why the WFS StartCup worked so well for us, a lot of interesting things came out of it. The jury, which was composed of around 18 people, was formed by around 80% of potential clients of ours. One of them was an executive from LaLiga and she approached us to see if we could do something together. We are now in very advanced conversations with LaLiga thanks to our participation in the summit. I encourage all startups in the sports world to sign up for this event.

How is the company moving forward? What are your aims for the next few years? You are now establishing yourselves in the world of sports. Will you keep growing your presence there or try new markets?

We’re really happy because the thing is going great. We’re based in Silicon Valley, but our technology is made in Spain. The partners are all Spaniards, except for Víctor, a Mexican. We have investment from different kinds of Venture capital and Telefónica just joined as well in the investment. HTC is also working with us in San Francisco. We have raised more than 3 million USD in investment and we are growing the project, with 12 clients, mostly from the sports industry.

Our biggest client is the Australian Open, and we expect to see them increase the value of their sports rights package and bring it up by 10% in three years thanks to our product.

Why is the Australian Open such a great ally? What made you go to that tournament in particular? After all, you’re based in California, and other tournaments in Spain or USA would seem to make more sense.

We started working with tennis, not just because of Constantino, but because we knew that the Australian Open has always been open to the application of new technologies. They are the ones that are always looking for a way to improve and make their tournament more broadcasting-friendly. They were the first ones to use the spider cam, the net cam, etc. They have always been innovative.

But now, as you mentioned, you have started to negotiate with LaLiga. Is there a big difference between the way that football and other sports approach technology? We’ve witnessed how, for many years, football has been more of a traditional sport that didn’t adopt new technologies. Do you consider that this is changing?

We think that our technology is best applied in sports. We tried different fields like tourism but we believe that our technology shines in a live broadcasted event. The sports industry has changed a lot and it is now more open than ever for new technologies.

It’s true that football is more of a traditional sport, but that’s also beginning to change, and LaLiga is a great example of that. It is amazing to see the way they are doing a push in technology and internationalisation over the past four years.

I realised how big the brand is when I moved abroad. Wherever you go, LaLiga is a well-known entity and Real Madrid and FC Barcelona are known in each and every corner of the world.

The efforts made in the internationalisation and the technology application of the tournament is amazing. Also, a lot of Spanish companies are working to make it a better and more modern competition. We will see amazing results soon.

I had the opportunity to try your technology in the VR headset and I quickly understood why you won the WFS StartCup by GSIC. It is an amazing way to experience sports and all these kind of events. How is this going to be marketed? How much could it cost for the average user to have this experience in their living room?

I think that the sports audience will be enjoying this technology really son. That’s what we’re working on. It is not as expensive as most people think. The typical VR headsets cost 180 USD. In Japan they are selling a lot of these because houses are smaller and there is not as much space to put a TV. But, even if the technology is as good as it is, there’s still need for agents like Facebook to push the VR revolution forward and use technology like 5G to keep advancing. I think that Movistar could release a Premium service with VR headsets, that’s something that could happen really soon.

People will start to use the VR technology when there’s content behind it. In the NBA, for instance, there already is. We are now talking with FIBA and want to reach the world cup in China.

As a user, what would I need? There are still a lot of unknown things about the use of this type of technology. But let’s say that Movistar does release this premium service, what kind of hardware would I need to enjoy it as a user?

That’s the great thing about our technology. You don’t need anything but the headset and an Internet connection. The day that a service is launched, you just need the headsets and you will enjoy it.

It will seem as though you are at the World Cup without having to take a plane. It’s important to understand that we are creating a new medium that is not the TV. We are trying to replicate the idea of being at a sports event without actually having to be there. My partner always says that the day will come when you know you were at the Australian Open, but you won’t be sure if it was via VR or if you were actually there.

I know that this is a difficult question to ask, but when do you believe that this will happen? VR technology has moved a long way in the past few years and it is now more than ready for the general use. When will the average user enjoy this new technology?

The project we are thinking about is the 2020 Olympics. We want to make it available for everybody in that time. We have Japanese capital working with us and we think it is a possible objective. I don’t think that 100% of the audience will have this technology in one year and a half, but I do believe that the 2020 Olympics will be watched with our VR streaming technology.

Learn more about our World Football Summit Asia StartCup and the Startup Competition in Madrid.