INNOVATION AWARD – NON CLUB
o AiSCOUT
The greatest challenge for football clubs and scouts, is finding new players from the available worldwide pool. Traditionally, scouts attended games and watched game clips. Then Covid-19 brought football to a standstill. This highlighted the perfect opportunity to introduce analysed data of amateur football talent worldwide.
AiSCOUT, uses AI to find amateur footballers globally and has been found to increase scout’s access to players by 100%. AiSCOUT is the only app enabling the participation of prospective recruits in virtual trials, allowing them to receive near real-time analysis using benchmarked data collected from R&D, and offering club automated feedback and visibility via entry into the AiSCOUT player database. Players initially complete a series of physical and technical tests to receive their National Ratings Score (NRS) and then enter Professional Club, League, National Squad and sponsor-specific trials.
In January 2021, AiSCOUT launched, trialling an early release on the App Store in May 2020.Currently 19,000 users and professional clubs including Chelsea, Burnley, Olympiacos and Nottingham Forest use the app to trial players.
To date and during the MVP stage – 45 players in the UK have been trialled, signed for professional clubs.
o EE
EE has been awarded best network for eight years in a row in the UK, coming out as the fastest, most reliable and with the best data performance. EE is also leading the UK on the rollout of 5G, now in 160 towns and cities across the country. We needed to demonstrate this superiority -showing that EE is always a step ahead – by creating an innovative tech-first experience showcasing the strength of EE’s 5G network.
However, in a year of uncertainty, with Wembley Stadium closed to fans, we had to activate EE’s rights as lead partner in a completely new and inventive way. So, we transformed the famous Wembley turf into the World’s first AR Foosball game, powered by 5G.
EE successfully brought 5G Foosball closer to fans , reminding them of the magic of the stadium and EE’s award-winning network capabilities, even when they couldn’t be there. Even better, EE positioned itself ahead of its competitors, by creating an innovative tech-first experience that contextualised the magic of EE’s 5G network. The campaign reached a total of 15m people, via 49m impressions, over 5m views and a VTR of 14.6%, +244% across EE channels. Impressive stuff.
o Element 16 Media
Element16 Media is a fledgling company founded in 2020 by two 16-year-old secondary school students as a result of the disastrous financial effect that the COVID-19 pandemic had on their local football club, AFC Telford United. After having voluntarily live-streamed Telford’s home matches during lockdown, to maintain fan engagement with the club, they then decided to create a mobile app for the club – with no budget or coding experience – making AFC Telford United the first – and only – non-league football club in the country to have their own, dedicated, mobile app. Features include a countdown to the next game, league table, social media feeds, latest news, squad hub, online ticketing and a sponsors lounge. It also includes the Live Game Centre which provides fans with instant live stats, line-ups, scorer details and even possession stats – it’s so good that even opposition media teams are using the stats from the app on match days in their own match coverage! All this voluntarily and free of charge, from a bedroom in North Shropshire – helping a non-league football club in tier 6 of the football pyramid recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.
o Pixellot
Faced with a crippling lack of gate receipts during the Covid pandemic, SPFL clubs (Scottish Professional Football League) deployed Pixellot’s advanced automated broadcast technology to enable to produce live footage from their games.
The system uses a combination of AI (Artificial Intelligence), machine learning, camera arrays capturing a panoramic view of the pitch, software optimised for individual sports, and cloud computing to deliver dynamic automated coverage of the flow of a game by focusing on the relevant action happening on the pitch — all at the fraction of the price of a conventional broadcast/OB deployment.
Deployed initially at two League 2 clubs, Albion Rovers and Stenhousemuir, and with the financial assistance of comics writer, Hollywood producer, and long-standing Rovers fan Mark Millar, the Pixellot system has since gained buy-in from 12 teams in League 1 and League 2 and produced more than 300 live and on-demand matches. Crucially, as well as providing coaching teams with valuable video analysis of the games, it has also generated to date over £200,000 in revenue via an integrated OTT solution that gives each club its own OTT platform.
o Puma
PUMA’s brand positioning is ‘Forever Faster’. Faster to innovate, faster to set trends, and faster to create original content. The brand’s football proposition ‘Faster Football’ showcases how PUMA does things differently, with innovation at its heart.
PUMA’s key audience in football is the ‘football-obsessed teen’ (FOT), a generation of fans who have grown up with football content and culture at their fingertips. Through this activation we successfully drove relevance and connection with FOTs, supporting PUMA’s ambition to move from famous brand to favourite brand.
EURO 2020 was the perfect opportunity to engage FOTs who know PUMA, but who don’t necessarily consider the brand as their preferred option. There was only one problem – with no official tournament rights, PUMA had to reach this audience in an original way, cutting through a saturated post-pandemic sports lifestyle marketplace. Enter ‘Unlock Greatness’ – an innovative, socially-led, interactive Instagram gaming experience, reaching over 1M consumers.
o The FA
‘Football Your Way’ has created a vital long-term destination for disability football content, offering a comprehensive suite of tailored, accessible resources and inspiration to keep disabled players engaged and active. In turn, raising the overall profile of Disability Football.
The campaign’s legacy was bolstered by the introduction of a new, FA-led, three-year plan, designed to help develop, improve and raise awareness of Disability Football in England.
This first-of-it’s-kind response represents The FA’s commitment to ensuring that as part of the equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, disabled people have the opportunity to engage and participate in football, their way. Impressive stuff.
o The Player Care Group
Player Care is increasingly becoming a hot topic in football but often clubs are unsure what they should/can be doing in this space – The Player Care Group gives them expert support from those who have been there and built industry leading Player Care departments at a variety of different clubs in a clear, concise and easily measured way. There is nobody else providing this service at the level we are which is why there has been such interest worldwide in what we’re doing in both the consulting & education courses.
o YesRef
YesRef is the easy way to find and pay sports officials, globally. A marketplace platform, helping Sports Organisations to find and pay referees in one platform and helping referees find games and get paid digitally. The YesRef platform is available across web iOS and Android making it accessible to all users across sport
