Startup accelerators and innovation hubs are increasingly turning their focus to the sports industry, MLS Commissioner Don Garber is welcoming their growth, seeing them as crucial to the league’s long-term development.
The wave of in-house accelerators and innovation hubs in sports has been driven by leagues and teams searching for technologies that can modernize their operations and help them remain relevant to new generations of fans. Earlier this month, Garber put out a call for more of them to pitch him with ideas that he might eventually be able to deploy on a league level.
MLS currently works with two active accelerators, which it runs through the venture capital firm R/GA. The league launched a strategic partnership with R/GA in June 2018 with a focus on identifying “groundbreaking technologies to drive continued growth of the MLS fanbase.” The league is also among the dozen sponsors of a separate R/GA project, called Global Sports Venture Studio, alongside UEFA, the NHL, Fox Sports, the Dodgers, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Adidas.
“The RGA accelerator is about trying to take as much of that energy we have over two or three specific ideas and going out to a startup space and thousands of potential folks and trying tp get them to pitch to us so we can invest in them and ultimately use that technology to achieve our goals,” Garber said.
At the heart of the league’s interest in the venture capital world is information. Garber said MLS is searching for data providers that might be able to offer its front office and its clubs analytics about players, fans, and operational efficiencies.
“The entire tech space, which is enamored with sports and data and analytics, has been very focused on how to use all that innovation to benefit player analytics, team, and fan insights,” he said. “For us it’s in the fan space: fan analytics—understanding who is going to our games, why they are going to our games, where they are when they’re in our stadiums, what’s turning them on, what’s turning them off, what can we do to motivate them to be more engaged with us.”
The commissioner also hinted that the league is considering several “event oriented” data-driven ideas as it works to test new technologies. The MLS is looking for “insight and understanding” into consumer behavior, such as using artificial intelligence to build predictive models about the likely actions of a fan. One product centered on player tracking may debut at the MLS All-Star game at the end of July, according to Garber.