Entering its third year, the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator will expand to a six-month program, providing founders with more opportunities to collaborate with leaders from some of the world’s most recognized sports brands, including NBC Sports, NASCAR, PGA TOUR, Sky Sports, and WWE®.
Since the first class in 2021, startup alumni have participated in 90 pilots, partnerships, and commercial deals with consortium partners.
PHILADELPHIA — Today, 10 startups kicked off the third class of the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator, powered by Boomtown.
This year’s companies, selected from over 920 applicants across 40 countries, will collaborate with experts from Comcast, NBCUniversal, Sky, and Boomtown, along with SportsTech’s advisors, to improve their products and services and prepare for accelerated commercial success with program partners and the broader sports industry.
One of the hallmarks of Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech is the access to leaders and decision-makers from across the partner consortium, which includes four Comcast NBCUniversal sports brands: NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Comcast Spectacor, and Golf – alongside NASCAR, WWE, and PGA TOUR, and three US Olympic sports organizations: U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Swimming, and USA Cycling.
Since the first class in 2021, SportsTech startup alumni have participated in 90 pilots, partnerships, and commercial deals with consortium partners. This year, founders will be able to explore more long-term opportunities with partners as the accelerator expands from a 12-week format to a 6-month program, allowing for increased time for robust, meaningful collaborations.
“Our alumni from the first two classes of the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech accelerator continue to display a prowess for delivering impactful technology while unlocking new revenue opportunities, and I look forward to seeing what powerful innovations and unique partnerships emerge from this year’s program,” said Jenna Kurath, Vice President, Startup Partnerships and Head of Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech. “As we evaluated how to bring even more value to our startups and SportsTech partners, a clear need emerged – more time collaborating to tackle complex business challenges. The new six-month format creates additional space for focused testing and experimentation with a curriculum designed for business refinement while allowing the enterprise-ready startups we’ve selected to continue serving their existing customers.”
Entrepreneurs will work one-on-one with SportsTech advisors and participate in a custom curriculum focused on refining their product and improving their go-to-market strategies, fundraising, sales, marketing and branding, product design, personal growth, company culture, and tactics for working at an enterprise scale. This year’s class will also benefit from a series of unique excursions and working retreats structured around SportsTech partner events that will embed founders behind-the-scenes so they can gain a better understanding of how to deliver innovations that service these organizations’ operational needs.
The 2023 program kicks off this week in Florida with a roadshow of partner events, and immersion activations for founders designed to deepen customer discovery and identify how to align technology solutions to the business and operational needs of partners. With meetings at the offices of NBC Sports’ GOLF division, behind-the-scenes tech experiences at Universal Studios Florida and the WWE Athlete Performance Center, opportunities to observe how PGA TOUR and NBC Sports’ GOLF produce professional sporting events at venues like the Arnold Palmer Invitational, followed by focused sessions at PGA TOUR’s headquarters and NASCAR at Daytona International Speedway, the introductory week is designed to impart startups with critical insights and understandings.
Accelerator mentors will include industry leaders from Comcast NBCUniversal as well as strategic advisors from the Boomtown network and the partner consortium, including: Will McIntosh, President of NBC Sports NEXT and Fandango; Lora Dennis, Executive Vice President, NBCUniversal Local; James Clement, Director of Operations, Sky Sports; Craig Neeb, Chief Development Officer of NASCAR; Rina Thakker, Senior Vice President, Digital Products for WWE; and Lance Stover, Senior Vice President, New Ventures for PGA TOUR.
For those interested in applying to join the next Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech accelerator and to learn more about the program’s eight focus areas: media and entertainment, fan/player engagement, athlete/player performance, team and coach success, venue and event innovation, fantasy sports and betting, esports, and the business of sports, visit www.comcastsportstech.com.
The 2023 class of the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator program includes:
Aircast – Melbourne, Australia
Aircast provides sports fans direct access to near zero-latency multi-view video, audio, and data, making them the director of their own experience.
EINBLIQ.IO – Munich, Germany
EINBLIQ.IO is an insights and automation platform that enables media companies to operate sophisticated, excellent, energy-efficient, and economic streaming services.
FanFest – New York, New York
FanFest is the easiest way for the biggest names in entertainment to empower superfans to grow their audience with interactive shows gated by digital memberships and tokens hosted live on their digital channels.
FanSaves – Ottawa, Canada
FanSaves is a digital couponing platform that gives fans discounts and deals from sponsors of their favorite teams, increasing fan engagement and activation while tracking important customer analytics for teams and their partners.
GeoSnapShot – Sydney, Australia & Denver, Colorado
GeoSnapShot is a Powerful AI media distribution platform that allows users to instantly share photos from an event and organize them so they can be found quickly and easily.
Quicc – Wichita, Kansas
Quicc is a powerful video content management system that automates video transcription, captioning, searching, and clipping workflows.
Recut – New York, New York
Recut helps users create unlimited personalized video content at scale for fans and audiences.
Rivalry Tech – Houston, Texas
Rivalry Tech is a food, beverage, and merchandise mobile ordering platform for high-volume settings, including stadiums, resorts, hospitals, and entertainment venues.
RIZZARR – Detroit, Michigan
RIZZARR is a content marketplace that connects brands seeking purpose-driven digital media with vetted, talented creators worldwide.
Tickets for Good – Sheffield, United Kingdom
Tickets for Good helps event partners fill venues and increase revenues by giving free and discounted tickets to targeted & validated consumer groups that support the local community.
About Comcast Corporation
Comcast Corporation (Nasdaq: CMCSA) is a global media and technology company that connects people to moments that matter. We are principally focused on connectivity, aggregation, and streaming with 57 million customer relationships across the United States and Europe. We deliver broadband, wireless, and video through our Xfinity, Comcast Business, and Sky brands; create, distribute, and stream leading entertainment, sports, and news through Universal Filmed Entertainment Group, Universal Studio Group, Sky Studios, the NBC and Telemundo broadcast networks, multiple cable networks, Peacock, NBCUniversal News Group, NBC Sports, Sky News, and Sky Sports; and provide memorable experiences at Universal Parks and Resorts in the United States and Asia. Visit www.comcastcorporation.com for more information.
About Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech
Comcast NBCUniversal invests in the best sports tech startups in the world. We back this investment by providing our startups with a rigorous, custom curriculum, and we surround our entrepreneurs with a dream team of sports industry advisors and experts who are passionately dedicated to helping them succeed. Comcast SportsTech features a partnership of four of Comcast NBCUniversal’s sports brands – NBC Sports, Sky Sports, Comcast Spectacor and Golf – alongside NASCAR, WWE, and PGA TOUR, and three US Olympic sports organizations: U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Swimming, and USA Cycling. This network of partnerships brings an early lens into innovation solutions, exclusive access to research and business insights, and differentiated value to Comcast’s media rights relationships. The program brings creative solutions to the partner consortium and to market through the lens of eight core investment categories: Media & Entertainment; Fan/Player Engagement; Athlete/Player Performance; Team & Coach Success; Venue & Event Innovation; Fantasy Sports & Betting; esports; and the Business of Sports. Visit www.comcastsportstech.com to learn more.
About Boomtown
Boomtown designs and operates exclusive, custom, and turnkey innovation platforms that unlock the power of open innovation for major corporations and organizations. Unlike traditional accelerators that mainly benefit investors, Boomtown Innovation Platforms are custom-tailored for corporate development, leveraging outside innovation to generate business growth and solve vexing corporate challenges, creating a long term competitive advantage. Since 2014, Boomtown has successfully executed more than 20 innovation programs and invested in nearly 250 startups, achieving a portfolio value of more than $1.5 billion. For more information visit https://boomtownaccelerators.com/
