DOHA GOALS 2013: WISeKey Presents the ‘Fully Connected’ Future of Sports: Fan Apps and Stadium Hub Technology Combine for 24/7 Global Engagement
DOHA, GENEVA 11 DECEMBER 2013 – Speaking at Doha Goals, the world’s premier platform for world leaders to create initiatives for global progress through sport in Doha, Qatar today, Carlos Moreira, founder and CEO of the Swiss digital tech pioneering firm WISeKey, unveiled the company’s concept of ‘A Fully Connected Future for Sport’. This concept sees WISeKey’s Digital Stadium and WISfans team apps function in tandem to bring sports teams and their fans a fully-connected, 360 degree, 24/7 fully vibrant sports experience and brand engagement.
Major sports events are ideal opportunities to leverage cutting-edge technologies to increase the quality of experience. As the penetration of smartphones continues, they can become the hub of the customer’s experience, linked to their ticket, their seat, their favorite food offerings, their modes of transport, and most importantly, to the sporting event on show.
Clubs understand that their stadium venues and fan bases are tremendous assets in building and sustaining their global brands. The stadia of the future will function as hubs that centralize and aggregate all the team’s aggregated media content. Clubs also realize that the technology can unlock the powerful combination of exclusive team and player content, combined with fan-generated content, directly managed by the team’s from its own social media platform,
In his presentation, Mr. Moreira stated “By 2022 technology will enable clubs to provide a live international telecast of the event in hologram format, which would allow fans to go to a stadium and watch it played out as though it was real. This can work both ways: as well as going to an empty stadium and watching a hologram version of a game, clubs or players could play in an empty stadium, fill it up and increase the volume of the fans through an App, and feel like they are playing at Wembley. It’s a mixing of the virtual and the physical in both worlds.”
Carlos Moreira added that, “The iconic club Real Madrid, for example, has 80 million paying fans but there are additional 700 million declared fans around the world, in China, India, and around the world that have yet to be engaged. So how can they reach out to these fans? Through technology, and specifically, by turning stadia into media hubs and inviting fans to personalize the fan experience and share their content throughout the official fan ecosystem by using our WISfans app to transform their mobile phones into terminals connected to the club’s stadium/media hub.
“Will our kids mind that they are not watching the real thing? I don’t think so. The new wave of fans are so used to seeing Lionel Messi or Neymar do tricks on computer games that I don’t think they mind if they don’t see the real thing. They are used to 3-D versions and if you have to pay $5,000 for a live game, or $10 for the 3-D version, they will pay the $10. This technology could be ready within five or ten years, as soon as that and for sure during the World Cup Qatar 2022.”
See the technology in action at: www.wisfans.com
Press contacts:
WISeKey
Satu Kulmala
Tel +41 22 594 3005
skulmala@wisekey.com