by Geoff Sherman
On Tuesday afternoon (June 18), before heading to Victory Field to work for Major League Baseball at the Indianapolis Indians vs. Iowa Cubs series opener, I headed downtown to the offices of High Alpha for a special event related to the USA Swimming Olympic Trials taking place right now in Lucas Oil Stadium.
Our friends at SportsTech HQ sponsored the USA Swimming Innovation Summit and it was an insightful afternoon. More than anything, it was a chance to talk with folks within the sports tech sector of Indianapolis, hear from founders on a panel, and hear a pitch for a really cool product from a startup founder.
Walking into High Alpha for the first time was an experience since I hadn’t been to the Bottleworks District in Indianapolis yet. I will say that the office (more specifically their stadium-style pitch room) overlooked the Indianapolis skyline and made for an amazing venue to take in an event like this.
To my surprise, I ran into a person I have worked with, but had never met in the parking garage. Kyle Armstrong, founder and CEO of RefReps, and I ran into each other exiting our vehicles. What a pleasure it was to finally meet the man who helped me one summer by employing me as a video editing specialist for RefReps. You want to talk about an innovation. That’s RefReps. Chatting with him was a pleasant surprise and we sat together in the middle of the stadium-style terrace seating overlooking the pitch and panel and talked about Caleb Lovelace and Shane Mattingly, two employees of RefReps and IU Indianapolis sports management graduates.
The event opened with Tim Hinchey, Rocky Harris, and Chris Brearton introducing themselves and the event to a pretty full audience of local founders and executives. Hinchey is the CEO/President of USA Swimming, Harris is the Chief of Sport and Athlete Services for the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and Brearton serves on the Board of Directors for USA Swimming. The trio talked about how Indianapolis is the perfect city to try something new like putting a pool in a football stadium and how Indiana Sports Corporation is vital to what they are accomplishing in Indy this week.
The intro was followed by the opening pitch and what an amazing product. Swim Warrior is the company being pitched and Thomas Meek, founder and CEO, did an amazing job conveying the service he has created. Leaning on the video game Rocket League, Meek has created a service that “gamifies the swimming experience” and the model is fantastic. As you play Rocket League your rank climbs with victories and improvement … Swim Warrior does the same thing but for swimming. What a cool product. Maybe we need to figure out how we can gamify every sport beyond winning percentages and such.
Meek’s pitch was followed by a panel entitled Making Waves: Sports Tech is Driving Innovation & Investment in Sports. US National Team alum and USA Swimming board member Sabir Muhammad moderated the panel of two investment firms and two innovative startup companies.
Michael Proman from Scrum Ventures and Konrad von Moltke from WISE Ventures represented the investment side of the panel while Rockwell Shah of Ozlo and Riley Reese of Arris Composites rounded out the insightful panel.
While the questions asked by Muhammad were all outstanding, one stood out to me. The question he asked was, “Swimming is a counter-intuitive sport, what is counter-intuitive about your product/service?” The answers followed exactly what we teach here at IU Indianapolis in tourism, event, and sport management.
Rockwell’s answer stood out as he focused on the fact that we tend to measure the problem first and obsess with the data involved with measuring the problem instead of finding the actual core problem that needs solving. “You do more harm forgetting about the humanity and focusing on the tech,” said Shah. The focus should be on the people and what problem you’re trying to solve.
That is exactly how we use human-centered design in our program and through our institute. We can focus on the data all we want, but the reality is that the people using it or feeling the problem should be the focus.
After the panel ended, I hung around for a few minutes and talked with Oliver Wells, vice president of strategic sports partnerships with Genius Sports, about college sports data and the future of betting in sports. It’s always a great discussion when I talk with Oliver so it was great chatting with him and reconnecting.
Finally, as I was walking out of the building, I would have been remiss to not go see my friend Jeff Hintz, the executive director of SportsTech HQ and vice president of innovation at Indiana Sports Corporation. I stopped to see him and thank him for the invitation to the event and the opportunity to see some founders and hear their perspectives on the sports tech ecosystem. It’s always a pleasure to see Jeff and chat with him.
The lessons taken from this event ring with me since we teach these same principles throughout our program. Every time I go to one of these events, I take something different, but this one dug particularly deep and was one I could highly relate … and I got to see some really cool people and get into their heads about their worlds for just a little while.
#Indy4Sports #TeamSHHS
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