Innovate outwards
The German leagues are considered among the market leaders in their different sports, with the development of their digital infrastructures centred on delivering performance excellence in both a sporting and a business sense. The focus of their innovation is inwards. While this has driven success there is the opportunity for the leagues to become exporters of innovation in the way leagues in other nations do. For example, the Bundesliga’s Hackathon encourages innovations that improve their domestic product whereas Spain’s top-flight league established an externally focused entity in LaLiga Tech (which has since become Sportian, in a joint venture with Globant). Their approach has been to incubate and then commercialize innovation, and German Leagues have the opportunity to do similar.
Indoor specialists
There is a strong opportunity for DACH countries to become market leaders in remote production for indoor sports. The strength of domestic leagues in indoor sports such as handball and ice hockey give the DACH region the opportunity to test, refine and export AI-driven scalable remote production solutions for indoor arenas that could benefit other sports like basketball and volleyball.
Cross pollination
With a shared language, tech partners and centralised approach, there is great potential for cross sport and/or cross nation technology collaborations. For example, as fast paced, indoor sports, learnings from tracking technology could be shared between handball and ice hockey. Concussion monitoring in winter sports could be used to improve the same issue in football. Red Bull is already applying learnings across sports and there is potential for this cross pollination of ideas and innovation to drive further improvements in the market.
Major event catalyst
Germany’s football infrastructure benefited hugely from hosting the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the 2024 UEFA with a number of stadiums built or redeveloped to provide state of the art venues, where smart innovations could easily be integrated. With Germany targeting a Summer Olympics bid for Berlin in 2026 and Switzerland the preferred host nation for the 2038 Winter Olympics, these major events could provide the catalyst for infrastructure investment and a raft of new or upgraded venues for DACH sports to innovate in.
Download our whitepaper below to find out more.
How are sports leagues across the DACH region building and scaling their tech ecosystems to drive innovation?
Download the full whitepaper to explore the strategies shaping the future of sport in the DACH Region.
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