What can Twitter posts tell sports marketers, product developers and budding entrepreneurs? For now, it’s hard to know — but the newly launched Sports Innovation Institute at IUPUI aims to find out.

By bridging the gap between academia and the sports industry, the institute will help both sectors gain deeper insight into the impact that sports has within the community and use that information to help create new ideas for sports-related ventures.

“The sports industry has grown so large that there is a strong need to think about ways to connect and grow it even further. The institute, working with public and private partners, will help answer questions such as, What comes next? How can Indianapolis do better? And how can Indianapolis grow and develop sports to yield even greater benefits for the city and the state?”

— Jay Gladden, dean of IUPUI’s School of Physical Education and Tourism Management.

In a baseline study prepared ahead of the institute’s launch, the Indiana University Public Policy Institute found that sports generates $3.4 billion in annual revenue within Central Indiana.

Read more about the Sports Innovation Institute here: