SailGP launch AR & VR Experience

& Kraken become Atletico Madrid's Crypto & Web3 Partner + The Olympic Esports Games goes to Saudi Arabia

Author

Joe Condon
July 16, 2024

Hey everyone!

Welcome back to Edition #18 of The SEG3 Report!

And it’s been a busy week across sports, with Wimbledon, Copa America, Euros and more all coming to a head over this weekend - congratulations to the Spanish readers & speakers for reigning victorious in all those competitions!

But as ever the summer of sport is nowhere near finished, with perhaps the largest show of them all, the Olympics, only just round the corner.

It is however the Olympic Esports Games that takes the limelight this week, alongside Atletico Madrid’s partnership with crypto exchange Kraken & SailGP dropping VR & AR app experiences in time for their grand final in San Francisco.

So, let’s dive in:

SailGP launched AR & VR experience for final race of season

SailGP launched an innovative AR and VR app experience to enhance fan engagement for the Season 4 Grand Final in San Francisco over the weekend just gone, offering fans an immersive way to interact with the race in augmented and virtual reality. The SailGP app now includes features such as real-time data, interactive 3D race models, and exclusive behind-the-scenes content.

Why should you care?

A lot of the conversation at SEG3 the past couple of editions has been around immersive, and how brands can leverage AR/VR/XR to enhance or reinvent the fan experience either at the live event, or through broadcast.

One of the biggest questions has always been around accessibility - how are users going to access the experience - Mobile? Headset?

Although mobile is the most ubiquitous, does it have the capabilities/power to really bring to life the experience, or does it still feel quite 2D?

And with headsets, those of you at SEG3 London will have had the chance to test out the Apple Vision Pros, which certainly take immersive to the next level, but there’s the very real questions around price and whether the majority of consumers will wear a headset, or whether that is still too clunky for the masses.

But, with all that said, there is undoubtedly an opportunity here for a sport like SailGP to smartly leverage AR/VR given spectating is done at a distance, and they have a wealth of data and technology at the core of their proposition and business to deliver the experience.

So, how did it work?

The new VR feature, which uses GPS technology and works on both WiFi and mobile connectivity, providing a 360-viewing angle of the racecourse, along with water graphical overlays, live stats, F50 boat tracking and much more to ensure fans don’t miss any of the action.

The feature has been powered by SailGP’s LiveLineFX technology and use of the Oracle Cloud (some great partner activation for them, as well as allowing SailGP to integrate Rolex into the experience!), which enables the global championship to process 1.15bn data requests in real-time via 125 sensors from each of the ten state-of-the-art F50 catamarans per hour over T-Mobile’s 5G hybrid network solution.

Cool, huh?

I’m super interested to see what the uptake was like over the weekend when the numbers are released, and how they plan to further roll this out for the 14 events of the 2024/2025 season.

Overall, it’s great to see SailGP pushing the boat out (sorry!) and experimenting with new ways to engage their global fan base. Having chatted with a number of the team over the years, I truly believe a core tenet of the organisation is innovation, so I don’t expect this to be the last thing launched by SailGP using emerging technology.

Side note: for those of you with a web3 inclination, their loyalty program, powered by NEAR, is called The Dock - worth checking out!

Kraken becomes Atletico Madrid’s Official Crypto & Web3 Partner

Kraken, a leading cryptocurrency exchange, has announced a partnership with Atlético de Madrid, to become their Official Crypto and Web3 Partner as well as the Official Sleeve Partner for Atlético de Madrid's men's and women's football shirts.

Why should you care?

It’s been exchange wars for a while, with sports sponsorship being a popular marketing channel for a lot of the big players; i.e. FTX (the less said the better), Crypto.com (Formula 1, Crypto.com Arena & more), Binance (with Cristiano Ronaldo) and more.

Kraken, perhaps still one of the challenger brands (despite having been around for 10+ years) have been quietly building out their portfolio of sports partners, with this partnership with Atletico Madrid adding to their work with Williams Racing already.

And from the outside, the Williams partnership seems to be nudging along nicely. A post I saw this week from Dr Georgie Carroll even ranked Williams fan engagement as top of the pile…

Kraken despite being a web3 business seem to have avoided the trap that others in the space have made in over-complicating its proposition to end-consumers, instead focusing on simplicity and accessibility, whilst enhancing experiences that are already available to fans using web3.

An example of that is the Grid Pass Collectibles which Kraken launched with Williams. It’s a super easy registration (I claimed one for purposes of this post, and it took me under a minute - a big thumbs up from me) and drives people to link/create a Williams ID to give them ongoing benefits & experiences for free (at the Fan Zones, to win exclusive merch and digital collectibles etc). Simple but effective.

There’s limited detail about what Kraken & Atletico will be focusing on at the moment, but you’d assume it’ll follow a similar process and lean on the successes of Kraken’s work with Williams.

Atlético de Madrid's Chief Revenue and Operating Officer, Óscar Mayo, said he’s ‘confident that this partnership will enhance the digital experience for fans beyond matchdays’, so I look forward to seeing what that exactly means!

Inaugural Olympic Esports Games to be hosted in Saudi Arabia

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced that the inaugural Olympic Esports Games will be held in Saudi Arabia in 2025. This partnership with the Saudi National Olympic Committee promises to blend Olympic values with esports, gender equality and youth engagement. Further details on the location, timing, and game titles are to be determined​.

Why you should care?

Interestingly for readers of this, sports & emerging technology are a core pillar of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to bring social and economic transformation to the country.

Since 2019, we’ve seen Saudi Arabia really hit the accelerator on two things:

  1. Hosting Events

  2. Investing in sports & emerging tech

1) Hosting Events: Some of the biggest global sports events have been hosted in Saudi Arabia since 2019, staging over 100 international events for both male and female athletes, including esports, football, motorsports, boxing, tennis, equestrian and golf, attracting over 2.6 million sports fans. 

And perhaps most relevant to this announcement, currently hosting the Esports World Cup, which will inevitably be a test bed for the Olympic Esports Games (with the question being can and will the two co-exist?).

2) Investment: Whether NEOM’s investment into Animoca Brands, Savvy Gaming Group acquiring ESL & Faceit, or PIF’s LIV Golf or Newcastle United investments, the emphasis is definitively on driving innovation and growth through sports & emerging tech.

The investment into hosting the Olympic Esports Games clearly fits the countries objectives, and with the partnership being a 12 year commitment, there’s a lot of room for the games to shape the country and the country to shape the Esports Games too.

And if I were a betting man, it feels likely that Saudi Arabia could be holding all the major event infinity stones by 2036, with the World Cup in 2034 & Olympics in 2036 on the cards too…

No matter your perspective on Saudi Arabia, my opinion is that it’s exciting to see sports, games & technology taking the lead in the development of a country. It shows the power of our industries to shape the future!

In other news…

A quick round-up of other stories we found interesting this week!

Working on anything cool, or have a press release you would like us to cover? Send it in for the chance for it to be covered in next week’s edition!