Fifty Years of Innovation in Football (part I)

I distinctly remember the FIFA World Cup in Mexico in 1970. It was engraved for fifty-three years in my memory as one of the first national celebrations I attended in my early years in Brazil. A single event, confirming Football as an essential molecule in Brazilian cultural DNA. It is also an excellent half-century landmark to compare the evolution of the sports industry between two events: the Mexico World Cup won by the Brazilians and the next North American FIFA World Cup that Canada, the US and Mexico will host in 2026, over five decades from that first Mexico Cup.

Still using the benefit of the perspective of decades, in 2022, Canada announced that it would be in Qatar for the first time in a FIFA World Cup in thirty-six years. In the same month of the FIFA announcement, a Startup launched a football platform in Brasilia, the capital city of Brazil, and as reminded by the guest of honour in that momentous kick-off, Mme Jennifer May, Canadian Ambassador to that country, Canada was venturing into the "land of football." That day, LINKSPORTS launched the first AI-based, player-ranking system, allowing fans to funnel micro-sponsorship to their favourite athletes. A revolutionary peer-to-peer support, directly sending funds from fans to players. This article will answer one question: What has evolved in Football between the two eras summarized by two events separated by over half a century?

A ONE-SIDED INNOVATION

To measure innovation in Football, ask yourself who benefits from it first. Yes, several inventions have been applied to one side of Football. They coexist with century-old practices in other areas of the sport that make it seem stagnant. Transparency and accountability are rare. The talent management and selection process usually involves compromise and hidden negotiations. So many characteristics of Football have standard practices of a past era when inclusion and transparency had less value than in today's world.

It is undeniable that there have been incredible technologies at the service of the sports business, where many things improved on the "Spectacle" side—from satellite transmission to video recording (VT), allowing "video replay" for the first time in the seventies. Streaming and super interactive game geometry graphics generated by Artificial Intelligence in real-time during broadcasts, not to mention VAR, player heat maps, and backstage, all the technology focused on athletic performance, kinesiology, data-driven models, probability models, and "Scouting" analytic tools, have revolutionized many areas of Football. But as much as on Football's technical and entertainment side, the progress is clear; unfortunately, significant innovation is almost absent on the other side of the industry: how the clubs run the business.

CONSOLIDATION and CULTURE

As in many industries, one could also measure the stage of evolution in the sports industry by observing the market consolidation. What is the degree of consolidation in Football? We know that every sector goes through cycles of consolidation (smaller players acquired by larger groups), but sports is a different animal. Football, specifically, but not as an exception, deals with tons of passion. Thus, it is improbable to see one team acquired by another. There is an incomparable level of loyalty between fans and their clubs. In Brazil, Football has a place in one's life that can't be quantified in numbers. Well, there are 130,000,000 Brazilians who love the sport and have their "heart team". A survey from FGV (Getulio Vargas Foundation) has determined that 30% of them lie because of peer pressure. But even if measured against the whole population, the 100 million football fans and general Brazilians (213 million) would agree that change is a natural part of life. Many change partners, addresses, spouses, professions, careers, political parties and even religion, but Brazilians always keep their childhood Football team. A similar degree of loyalty that over one billion fans from all around the world and many more in other sports also have for their clubs.

Compared to other industries, one would never accept an M&A (merger and acquisition) between teams. Would you imagine a merger between Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain or a joint venture between Chelsea and Arsenal in the United Kingdom? Would anyone in Brazil imagine a day when Palmeiras team would acquire Corinthians, or vice versa? No matter how successful and wealthy a team is, this would be an impossible kind of industry efficiency-driven consolidation: sports brands command a degree of passion that is even stronger than national pride!

CONCLUSION

In conclusion, no consolidation will bring efficiency to the football industry. Then what will? The answer is technology if it helps increase equal access to opportunity, which is precisely what LINKSPORTS does.

The fundamental transformation of the sports industry has yet to happen. It will only occur when the impact of innovation allows diversity and fair access to the benefits of this industry. Inventions become innovations when they effectively generate commercial applications within an environment that combines traditional forces, such as culture, with the improvements caused by these new technologies. They should address existing problems. What is more critical today in Football than increasing equal access and gender diversity to professional football opportunities for amateurs?

Once you validate skills and performance with transparency, both the old and the new forces can work together to benefit the ecosystem's main stakeholders: fans and aspiring players.

Neissan Monadjem

Co-founder and CEO of LINKSPORTS—the creators of the first sports Micro-Sponsorship fan platform. Three-times Startup/Fintech Founder & CEO with successful exits and awarded payment innovations and patents in Blockchain, Loyalty systems and micro-payments.