The New Now in Sports(tech)

A black swan event is rarely to be anticipated, after all that's why i's called a black swan. For the sports and event world, a change as the one that came like the drop of a nuclear bomb now is unseen and will change everything for good. The last four years of my life I spent growing our sports tech startup Fun With Balls, speaking with and helping federations, governments and other institutions how they can reinvent sports from ground up. Being at the front lines I thought I'd share some of my thoughts and the general feeling that I pick up from the scene these days.

For many sports tech startups this crisis will be a death sentence. We've seen a recent boom, which will now be hit with the full force of dropped funding rounds, development and important research coming to a full halt in some cases. If your startup is affected by this, please feel free to reach out to me. Together there's always a bigger chance for solutions.

Sports is a social activity - a big problem these days!

Who would have thought that sports would ever come to a complete halt a few weeks ago? Yes, especially at grass roots level, sports participation has already been suffering recently due to new, much more exciting forms of entertainment which are available much more accessible and easer to start with. But the full ban of any activity that includes social groups, sports per se are at zero which will let us see an unprecedented wave of sports companies, facilities and especially startups completely disappearing if they cannot adapt to the new world in rapid speed.

Since the ancient days, sports has been a cornerstone of society with all surrounding factors coming with it. It's probably too early to make any predictions of where this is now going, but there's certain elements which all players should be aware of this point to adapt their organizations and business models.

There will be a series of steps which we will have to go through, which in my opinion will be four clear stages defining how society will handle this. It's completely unclear how long this will take, but I believe you should definitely plan for 3-18 months until this is "back to normal" - but it will be ver different and new normal.

1. Quarantine & Lock down
2. Soft Opening - Plus the A**holes
3. The Meeting of Curves
4. The New Normal

1. Quarantine & Lock down

This one is not really hard to explain since most of us are living in this situation right now. As you might be able to tell, most normal sports activities in this phase will be close to zero. but given that we still all own a body and that we still run by the same social rules, sports will still be a great activity. After all, one thing most people now have is time ;)

Esports is already exploding even more than in the last months and years. For the, Corona is like dumping truck loads of dynamite on a burning oil field, and that's good! With sports federations already switching their traditional formats over to digital competitions like the FIA, this fuels a much needed focus on new forms of sports. Big federations have no more excuses now for "too busy to innovate, in my opinion one of the best things of this crisis.

Personal sports and home fitness are perfect for this situation and a lot of startups and companies already see a boom in that regard, even given the shock freeze that some parts of the population are still in. People can still go run (alone hopefully), do their home workout and the social element of comparing skills and accomplishments in sports is a perfect remedy for the social isolation we all feel now. New formats like the Icarace by Icaros, Peloton are perfect for this and I very much hope that these exciting companies and formats are the beneficiaries here and help society transition to these new forms of sports and entertainment, especially given the great response some of these companies to offer services for free in these times.

Some folks even take it to the max like this awesome french athlete, running a full marathon on his balcony.

Normally being a B2B company, we also made a very fast switch the last weeks, offering our successful sports gaming console MultiBall in a home edition that fits into basements or garages to play any ball sport in an exciting way and compete worldwide.

No matter how long this situation will take, the most important part will be if the key players of the sports industry will manage to keep society motivated to be active on their own. After all sports are one of the most effective ways to boost your immune system and many of our society are far below the recommended levels for a healthy life. So given the importance of #flatteningthecurve, governments and companies now need to realize it is within their responsibility to not be inactive. As with so many things these days, inactivity will bring even bigger harm to everybody. This goes for our health but also for business.

My tip for companies in this stage: Cut down cost as much as you can (and maybe more), focus on improving your products and processes and prepare well for the next steps. Be prepared to get beaten up pretty bad and making very tough decisions. But rest assured, the earlier to take these tough decisions, the more chances you'll have to maybe see tomorrow. Inactivity and waiting are your main enemy now, work your ass off!!!

2. Soft Opening - Plus the A**holes

We are all aware of the importance of the current measures taken to ensure our health systems maintain operability. But we also know that this cannot be maintained forever. In my opinion there will be a soft opening after a while of people returning to "semi-normal" activities slowly under enormous precaution. For sports and especially facilities and operators, this will have a multitude of effects.

A new sense of "clean"

Sports are sweaty, there's touching and it's generally not a very sterile thing at all. I believe we will see a wave of new facilities that focus on a no-touch, permanently disinfected and cleaned environments to reduce any potential infection. If we're honest, Corona will also lead to a gigantic new fear of germs and contact in general and there will be a gigantic market to cater to this. Playing a round of golf, no problem already. But how about Tennis with sterile balls? Soft ball with new rules to not touch each other? No matter wich way this will go, it will fuel business for racket sports and anything else where you don't have to be close to anybody and also have a lot of people avoid those smelly locker rooms and group showers all together (I already did that before actually).

Not caring about "dirty"

On the other hand we will also see a soft opening of groups that have already been infected or simply don't care and are okay to be engaging in activities in "infected environments". Once people have been going through an infection, why not meet with others like that for a soccer match? Generally this is no problem in my opinion if communicated and maintained absolutely well in the transition time between stage 2 and 3. I believe we will see a very small portion of this actually and given the growing awareness in general, not just corona, one can only very much hope that there will be proper rules and procedures in place for this. For the sports business this will mean a mich needed relief and a chance to return to activity, but it will come with great responsibility in this stage.

Of course there will also be certain people which will move in between the two sides of clean and dirty environments, let's call them the a**holes for now.

The A**holes

Unfortunately, we will also see these during stage 2. This stage will divide the first daring ones into groups that maintain and grow sport in a responsible way and the ones just not caring about others. Sports is attractive, especially in times of isolation. People not following procedures, not testing themselves or being fine with infecting themselves or the others. This egoistic and ruthless behavior will be the biggest danger, especially since every bad example will lead to more restrictions for sports in the future. Just like in life these few will probably mess it up for all the rest, so it's even more important to implement water-proof rules and find the exact right time for operators and governing bodies to plan their return to the classic or the launch of new forms of sports.

My tip for companies in this stage: Innovate and leverage risk/ profit of when to act where. Timing will be very important here. Moving to early will kill you and so will too late. If you used the time in quarantine well, you should be well prepared to start gearing up again and work with the rest of the eco system coming back from hibernation. Working together will be the key, don't be afraid to ask for help and be ready to go the extra mile in helping others.

2. The Meeting of Curves

Right now we do the very right thing. We all limit ourselves to protect our health system and the weaker ones of our society. But looking into the future we have to be honest that this might change over time. We will be able to flatten the curve, it will still hurt massively and we will see great damage to society and the economy. But my question is what will happen once the curve is flattening. The second curve coming will be the want to return to normal, stop the bleeding and dying of companies for the sake of other people's vulnerability. This is why I believe all steps taken by governments are an absolute must, since I generally believe the majority of society unfortunately does not give too much attention to others over their own gain.

The moment when these curves meet will be when most of our true self and responsibility will show. The IOC was holding on to the olympics way too long due to financial reasons and it will be all up to ourselves how we will treat it individually. If it's your call to open a soccer stadium again and the government allows you to, are you still okay with potentially launching another spike in infections?

We can only speculate when this moment will come but it will probably be the most important one in this crisis.

My tip for companies in this stage: Be aware of your personal, civil and professional responsibility. It might seem attractive to go back to normal, but chance are that starting the machine slowly will be better for everybody involved. You might end up with a completely new company or career, so be prepared that all rules that applied before will have to be evaluated.

The New Normal

This is not about corona actually. This is about the human race on this planet. We know we're too many and pandemics have been a part of us since we started living in villages. Now it is corona, but I believe that this will show many aspects and change a lot of the ways we live our lives. With more humans, the chance of new mutations and new diseases only increases and all places where we come together are where all these problems begin.

For sports this will mean that both sides, the athlete and the spectator, need to improve. Yes, we will find vaccines and develop antibodies and yes, we will return to these activities at some point. But who knows when? Maybe it's time to rethink the whole idea and I believe that the sports that will be striving in the future are the ones which can be scaled rapidly based on tech and at least have the option to survive without the need to gather large groups of random people. Tech, startups and completely new forms of sports will be a crucial aspect of this and only our imagination is limiting us in finding out where this will lead us. But that's more of a topic being discussed in my upcoming book.

In the end, crisis always made humanity advance in rapid speed and so will this one. The main thing will be for you to focus on solutions, staying positive and most importantly, BEING ACTIVE AND NOT FALLING INTO A BLACK HOLE OF DEPRESSION. So let's get to work and shape the future!!!

My tip for companies in this stage: Challenge everything and be aware that skills and integrity are everything. If there's one thing that you should take away from this if your company survived it should be that things like this can always happen and the only way to be prepared os to constantly innovate, react quickly and work together as a community - and this also includes being there for another even if it means we will also share not just the profits but also the harm.

Be there for each other!