Prof. Dr. Sascha Schmidt, "Sports Tech Talk"

The Sports Entrepreneurs Podcast by Marcus Luer

Our guest Prof. Dr. Sascha Schmidt, a German Sports Business Professor with a McKinsey background. We look into the future of the industry, with his book “21st Century Sports”. We explore the different technologies, how to categorize them and how to create your own tool to better follow the trends and take advantage of them.

Key Highlights

1. Early days from Uni to his first Consulting gig at McKinsey working in Switzerland, New York and South Africa.
2. Thesis for his Phd “Walk the talk”, do company’s deliver on what they promise
3. a-connect – German operations, develop business with sports clients in Germany, bring top tier consultants and sub-lease them to multi-national companies.
4. Institute for Sports, Business and Society – Dietmar Hopp one of the founding partners (SAP Founder, Billionaire and owner of TSG Hoffenheim)
5. Exploring SPOAC – Sports Business Academy by WHU , Havard Business School Case studies and MIT Sports Entrepreneurship Bootcamps
6. Book – 21st Century Sports – essay collection, how technology will effect sports in the future. 21st Century Sports (whu.edu)
   • Athletes and tech impact on them
   • Sports Consumer – how tech changes consumption of sports
   • Management – how the sports executives and leaders use tech

7. Impact of AI in sports – example scouting , science and art
8. Moneyball and new tech coming – motion tracking technology, even used for amateur sports
9. Man(kind) vs Machines – how far has it come and will it go
10. Fan controlled sports leagues (Fan Controlled American Football in the US) - younger sports fans, different consumption habit, want more participation
    • Lessons on Customer Engagement from Fan Controlled Football

11. Consumer tech in sports, AI – individualization of content, virtual arena’s, metaverse – Sportsfix white paper example (and learning effect of Amara’s law)
12. Management and tech – can be overwhelming – below a simple matrix navigation system to sort through the tech jungle
    • Physical tech (robotics, wearables)
    • Data processing (AI, Quantum tech, etc)
    • Human interaction tech
      • VALUE to:
        • Athlete
        • Consumer
        • Management

13. New Football concepts from Kings League (Gerard Pique), Baller League, The Icon League (Toni Kroos)
    • Deliver an online experience, streaming, voting, influencers
    • The Golf League (Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, etc)
    • IPL – Indian Premier League Cricket

14. Blending sports, music, fashion, education – edutainment products
15. Esports discussion – big push in Asia and Middle East, World Cup of Esports in Saudi – US$ 60 million prize pool (new Club Championship concept), difference to traditional sports, publishers control
    • Traditional Football teams entering the space – diversification moves

16. FC Barcelona – new approach in the tech and digital space with Barca Media
17. Transformational Technologies Course – in partnership between WHU, MIT and Borussia Dortmund
    • bvb.de/online-course/transformational-technologies-by-borussia-dortmund?cmpscreencustom

18. Sports becoming an Asset Class – new institutional capital coming in – SMRF Capital – new value creation, still in development
19. Bundesliga and new Investors collapse
20. Resource: WHU European Sports Business Program

About

Sascha L. Schmidt is a professor and director of the Center for Sports and Management (CSM) at WHU - Otto Beisheim School of Management. At the same time, he is the academic director of "ESBP - European Sports Business Program“ of WHU, ESSEC Paris and Stockholm School of Economics as well as affiliate at the Laboratory for Innovation Science (LISH) at Harvard University in Boston/USA.

He studied economic sciences at the Universities of Essen and Zurich, where he also graduated with a doctorate. At the invitation of Harvard Business School faculty he worked in Boston as a visiting scholar, after which he joined strategy consulting. After several years at McKinsey, Sascha was appointed director of the ICS research program at the University of St. Gallen, and qualified as a professor at the EBS University (habilitation). He then entered into the world of entrepreneurship, building up the activities of recruitment agency a-connect within Germany. In 2011, he returned to academia and founded the Institute for Sports, Business & Society at EBS University. Sascha joined WHU in 2014. In 2019, he was a lecturer at the first MIT Sports Entrepeneurship Bootcamp.

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