Wednesday, July 17, 2019 – A roundup of some of the key sports technology stories you need to know, including SportTechie’s own content and stories from around the web
- Electronic Arts becomes Liverpool FC’s official soccer simulation partner. EA Sports, developer of the FIFA video game series, will create content specific to LFC for the club’s social channels. Peter Moore, the current CEO of Liverpool FC, previously served as the president and COO at EA Sports until 2017. Moore discussed EA’s FIFA series in an interview with SportTechie in 2018. “Oh, it’s definitely influenced the real game of soccer,” he said.
- World TeamTennis adds international streaming and betting deals. This season, all 59 WTT matches will broadcast in China for the first time through streaming service Youku, while 17 matches will stream in Latin America via Marca Claro. Stats Perform will supply game feeds to legal betting sites and apps outside North America and China for every game, allowing consumers to watch and bet on the action at the same time. WTT also announced media rights deals with Dailymotion, ESPN+, and various NBC Sports’ and Fox Sports’ regional sports networks.
- Diamondbacks install STEM education dugout at Chase Field. The new space in the upper concourse rotunda is part of the team’s Science of Baseball program. Kids visiting the dugout will learn about science, technology, engineering, and math through activities such as catching baseball cards to calculate fielding percentage and using mini slingshots to demonstrate the ideal angle to hit a home run. More than 13,000 students, 400 teachers, and 300 schools have participated in the Science of Baseball program since its launch in 2013, according to the Diamondbacks.
- Sports media company theScore rebrands as Score Media and Gaming Inc. to reflect a new sports betting focus. The company previously announced plans to launch an online and mobile sportsbook this year. That will initially only be available in New Jersey and will be powered by the Bet.Works platform. Roughly 80 percent of all sports wagers in New Jersey are placed via mobile device, and sportsbooks in the Garden State generated more money than Nevada bookmakers in May.