BT Sport has launched Innovate 21 – a new competition aiming to discover the next big sports broadcasting ideas.
AriSports, the brainchild of Rassim and Djewed Hariz, won the competition with their creation of a digital prediction platform.
After wowing judges Suzi Perry, Brian O’Driscoll, and Robbie Savage, AriSports will now work alongside BT Sport to boost their gaming concept.
MotoGP presenter Perry sat down with GiveMeSport Women to talk about Innovate 21 and the importance of growing virtual fan experiences within sport.
"I just love the technology that we have in MotoGP – the camerawork and the gyroscopic cameras that give us a really good sense of the skill of the rider. So it was really interesting to see what start-ups would come up with," she said.
Perry covered MotoGP for 13 years for the BBC before moving to BT Sport in 2016. As a lover of technology, she also enjoyed hosting The Gadget Show on Channel 5 for nine years.
Sport is constantly growing and introducing new ways for fans to enjoy events – BT Sport's 'Watch Together' created a new sense of community during the most troubling times of the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, a domino effect has been triggered and new fan experiences are dominating the virtual world.
"It’s vital that these things are created," Perry said. "If you’re my age, you might just be happy to watch sport in its entirety, but millennials want more on screen, they want more layers, more technical information. And I think that’s important to bring that market to sport.
"I do think there’s a big place for this. There’s a lot of technology around and if you look at what’s going on in Formula 1, that’s the pinnacle of engineering. Their telemetry is incredible and the way those cars are controlled in real time from all over the world always blew my mind when I was covering Formula 1."
Innovate 21 is the third time BT Sport has backed the search for new viewer innovations in recent years from small businesses.
New experiences across motorsport and football have completely changed the game. Supporters can watch as a group online and even see directly through the eyes of racing drivers and footballers – giving access to a whole new dimension of these sports.
“I’m taking myself back 25 years to when I started and it would have been unimaginable to have had this amount of information. I also don’t think we would’ve been able to take it in," Perry admitted.
“I think it’s exciting for people to be able to have a much more visceral experience of being the driver in the car, the rider on the bike, the player on the pitch. We now have this understanding of the skill element that’s required.”