Sports Biometrics Conference

Podcasts

Sports Biometrics is excited to offer a selection of audio podcasts from a variety of well-respected authors that specialize in the athletic training and sports management fields. Podcasts are posted regularly, so check back often.

Here is the most recent podcast by Conference Advisory Board member and Founder of the GAIN professional development network Vern Gambetta. Vern is also president of Gambetta Sports Training Systems.  Vern is recognized internationally as an expert in training and conditioning for sport having worked with world-class athletes and teams in a wide variety of sports. He is a popular speaker and writer on conditioning topics having lectured and conducted clinics in Canada, Japan, Egypt, Australia and Europe. Vern’s coaching experience spans 49 years at all levels of competition. His background is track & field, having coached at all levels of the sport. In addition, Vern served as the first director of the TAC Coaching Education Program, an innovative program designed to upgrade the standard of track and field coaching in the US. Episodes will appear here at the Sports Biometrics Conference site shortly after they are published by Vern.

We’re kicking off the year with our annual combined episode of the GAINcast and HMMR Podcast to discuss the state of training for sports. A lot has changed over the past year, so we sit down to discuss some of the biggest issues facing sports, the hot topics on our minds, and what we’re looking forward to in 2022.

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 1:30 – Moving targets: “They always tell us, if you do this then things will be fine. But then it isn’t. There’s a moving target and that’s frustrating.”
  • 4:00 – Controlling the controllables.
  • 5:30 – The value of the extra year.
  • 6:30 – Beyond leg circuits: “There are threshold criteria that need to be met before you even start the leg circuits.”
  • 10:45 – Examples of leg circuit progressions: “You don’t need to squat heavy twice a week to get a big squat.”
  • 15:45 – Buy in strategies for bodyweight exercises.
  • 18:00 – The 1×20 method: “It can tick a lot of boxes, but it can’t tick them all. It is a method, not a system.”
  • 24:00 – The value of a new stimulus: “All these new methods come out, and it works well. But sometimes that is just because it is new. Maybe it isn’t better or worse, but it is new.”
  • 24:45 – Throws outlook for 2022.
  • 28:00 – The transformation of American hammer throwers.
  • 31:45 – Gap year.
  • 34:30 – Flying the discus, throwing volume, and finding volume through other implements.
  • 40:15 – Transfer of maximum strength.
  • 43:00 – Lessons from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and how Nick’s training has evolved and rethinking how to teach technique.

Vern is a notorious reader and he’s only gaining steam with age. This year he had 151 books on this week’s podcast he shares some key takeaways from his 17 favorite books of the year.

Esa Peltola is a retired coach and sports scientist. Having started his career as a national sprint coach in Finland, he worked in variety of roles in Australia and Qatar throughout the rest of his career. In addition to his coach Patrick Johnson, he played a key role at the Australian Institute of Sport, helped start up the Aspire Academy, and launch innovative talent identification programs.

The best sports scientists bridge the gap between theory and practice. They bring coaching experience to the table and help help solve the real problems athletes are facing. This describes Esa Peltola. His diverse experiences in coaching, physiology, talent identification, and sports science helped him drive athletes to the next level, including coaching the first Australian to break 10 seconds in the 100 meters. On this week’s GAINcast he shares his journey.

  • 0:00 – Introduction.
  • 5:00 – Growing up and coaching in rural Finland.
  • 14:45 – Exploring talent identification and development in Qatar and Australia: “You can find talent, but if you don’t have the talent development systems it doesn’t matter.”
  • 19:45 – Applied work at AIS.
  • 26:00 – Establishing the Aspire Academy.
  • 29:45 – Sprint and hurdle transfer studies in Finland and Australia.
  • 36:00 – Case studies in drills: “You can have a negative effect from a drill. Doing it thousands of time will only do more harm.”
  • 39:45 – The Patrick Johnson story.
  • 50:30 – Talent identification and combining observation with testing: “With tests you can narrow down the pool of potential talents, but then you need to observe their movements in different tasks. You cannot measure everything. For example, some high jumpers have a great countermovement jump, but some do not.”
  • 1:04:15 – Trends in coaching: “Distraction is a big trend in training. Training journals can help keep focus. Without one it is hard to look back and see why you were successful or not.”
  • 1:07:45 – Advice for young coaches: “Young coaches need to go around and have some discussions with experienced coaches. The hunger for knowledge can speed up your development. Be curious and seek knowledge.” “Coaching is not about tricks, it is about being consistent with the right things.”

As we enter the final month in the year, it’s a good time to look back and share some of our recent thoughts about training and coaching. On this week’s GAINcast we cover a wide variety of topics including coaching and athlete specialization, finding a process, tips on organization, athleticism, sprint technique, and more.

  • 0:00 – Introduction.
  • 1:45 – Specialization in coaching: “Coaches are specializing in narrower and narrower areas, but is the athlete getting better from this? The real success comes from connecting the dots.”
  • 8:15 – Balancing specialization and range.
  • 11:15 – Organizing technical training with more athletes.
  • 15:15 – Comparing analog vs. digital training journals.
  • 17:30 – Finding focus.
  • 21:00 – Processes: “Trust the process. But what’s the process?” “All the talk about process has lost its substance. Having a process isn’t enough. A good process isn’t just there, it is evolving and improving. Just because you have a process doesn’t mean it’s good and that you need to trust it.”
  • 26:00 – Front vs. backside mechanics.
  • 32:15 – Athleticism: “If you are not a good athlete and cannot do basic foundational movements, the training universe becomes very small.”
  • 37:15 – Lessons from Federer.

Ken Shannon was the head coach at the University of Washington for nearly 30 years, focusing on the throws and field events. Prior to that he was an assistant coach at UCLA and his alma matter Occidental College. Throughout his career he coached Shannon has produced 39 conference champions, 18 NCAA Champions and has coached 10 athletes to NCAA record-holder status. Among his top athletes was 7-time NCAA champion hammer thrower Scott Nielsen, American collegiate discus throw record holder Aretha Hill, Olympic discus thrower Adam Setliff, and collegiate decathlon record holder Mike Ramos.

Over three decades of coaching at the University of Washington, coach Ken Shannon quietly developed one of the most successful and diverse stable of field event athletes in the country and was a key influence on Vern’s own approach to training and weight lifting. In this week’s episode coach Shannon joins us to discuss his own development as a coach, throwing technique, and advice for young coaches.

  • 0:00 – Introduction.
  • 4:45 – Early coaching experiences as Occidental and UCLA.
  • 11:30 – Learning new events: “I always learned a lot from my athletes. I learned more from NCAA champion Scott Nielsen than he learned from me.”
  • 13:30 – Javelin technique: “Gymnastics was a big part of our javelin training program from the standpoint of flexibility and strength.”
  • 15:30 – Overlooked qualities for thrower: “What do you look for in a young thrower? Hand strength. Any thrower has to have hand strength.”
  • 19:15 – Javelin technique.
  • 21:30 – Discus technique: “So many throwers, when they hit the center of the ring they already start to throw. We worked on turning on the right foot.”
  • 25:15 – Remembering the 1976 Pac 8 championships and the historic UW throwing sweep.
  • 28:30 – Training tips.
  • 30:00 – Advice for young coaches: “(1) Be honest with yourself, assume responsibilities for your actions. (2) Find your own gifts and follow your own goals. (3) Be able to adapt to stress.”
On Tuesdays, Ronen Ainbinder hosts this ultra-snackable podcast, where in less than 30 minutes he chats with talented people working in the sports industry. The Halftime Snacks’ goal is to deliver quality content on a weekly basis to people working in the sports industry or interested in sports.

Legendary coach Vern Gambetta coaches the best to be better. On the GAINcast he answers one question a week on training and coaching. The GAINcast is brought to you by the GAIN Network.

The best teams in the world aren’t just teams, they are systems. A system lends order and structure to enable the coach and athlete to focus on the process. It provides a framework to build on. On this week’s GAINcast we look at the power of systems, what makes a good system, and how systems fall apart.

  • 3:30 – A historical look at systems: “If you look at the teams that are good, there is more to it than talent. They have a system.”

  • 8:00 – Historical examples of systems and processes: “The best teams might not have the best technique, tactics, talent, or periodization. But what they do, they do well. They have a system to execute it to the best they can.”

  • 13:00 – Staring to create a system: “By the time you finish your second year of coaching you should have the identifiable elements of a system defined. Then the rest of your career you are constantly refining those elements. Don’t be so rigid that you can’t modify them.”

  • 15:45 – Key elements of a system: “Good systems are built on core values, progression, individualization, goals, and evaluation. They also have have a willingness to innovate; innovation comes around the edges, not in the core beliefs.”

  • 19:15 – The athlete’s role in the system.

  • 25:30 – Rigid systems and learning to adapt: “A system cannot be static. You have to be asking the questions that will get you better.

  • 30:00 – Talent identification and development.

  • 30:45 – Avoiding inbred systems.

Gaincast Podcast Session 202

This episode begins with some thoughts on learning before diving into some highlights from last week’s event in the GAIN Master Class Series on periodization and planning with Vern, myself, Nick Lumley, and Dan Noble. After the panel discussion, we take a look ahead at the next event with Keith Baar by revisiting our interview with him on GAINcast 177.

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 3:00 – Some initial thoughts on technology: “Often we are giving coaches cut flowers when we should be teaching them how to grow plants.”
  • 6:00 – Has technology over promised and under delivered?
  • 7:45 – Advances in measuring in game actions: “Good technology facilitates conversation between coach and athlete, rather than interfering with it.”
  • 9:45 – The cost of technology: “There’s a fear of missing out, but you have to ask what is the cost to buy the technology, learn it, and use it. And what benefits it will bring. Then simply measure the return on investment.”
  • 14:30 – Putting technology in the athletes hands without creating dependencies.
  • 16:45 – Using technology without understanding it.
  • 20:30 – Interpreting the data: “Data is meaningless unless you can put a dimension to the number. No matter how much technology you have, you still need the human element.”
  • 22:15 – Ask the questions first: “Most people start with the technology and then figure out what to do with it. But you have to know what you questions you want answered before you go and start buying technology.”
  • 26:30 – Driven by technology vs. informed by technology: “Technology should inform decisions not drive them. If you’re going to invest heavily in technology and science, you as a coach better invest heavily in learning the science and technology.”
  • 28:00 – Final thoughts. / Marginal gains.

To hear more about these topics you can listen to the full episode above. If you like what you hear on the GAINcast, don’t forget to give us a review and subscribe on iTunes.

Gaincast Podcast Session 203

Gareth Sandford is a post-doctoral research fellow at Canadian Sport Institute Pacific. Sandford came to our attention with his doctoral work analyzing the 800-meter run. He traveled the world to dissect the event, coming up with some interesting and novel findings. He continues to support track and field, but also has a background across many sports and continents.

  • 0:00 – Introduction and GAIN update
  • 4:30 – Introduction to Gareth Sandford and the 800-meter run.
  • 7:15 – Sandford’s background and current role.
  • 11:45 – Summary of Sandford’s dissertation: “The 800m is thought of as primarily aerobic. There is an important aerobic part, but it is not just that. We have a good idea of the aerobic physiology of the 800 meters, but when we talk about the speed and neuromuscular side, there was no reference point.”
  • 15:00 – Rethinking speed reserve and maximum sprint speed.
  • 18:00 – Fatigue and freshness: “If you cannot maximally express force fresh and have the biomechanics to do that, then you won’t be able to beat them even if you start the race on the last lap.”
  • 20:00 – The evolution of 800-meter tactics and physiology: “Championship finals used to have a slower first lap, which the physiology required is more similar to the 1500m. Over the last decade, tactics have been to go out hard and hold on. That requires different physiology.”
  • 28:45 – Talent ID and development.
  • 31:15 – Profiling athletes: “All the things that determine your aerobic capacity and maximum sprinting speed: how many of those things have we trained? And what are the current limiting factors to moving those things along?”
  • 36:30 – Balancing speed and endurance work: “In sport, we end up in thinking it’s volume OR speed. The reality is the best programs are doing the best year-round, with a bit of a bias in one direction or the other.”
  • 44:30 – Implications on strength and conditioning and learning how athletes express force.
  • 50:30 – Training tactics, video analysis, and preparing for racing.
  • 55:00 – Parallels to training in swimming and examples of developing a training model.
  • 1:00:30 – Individualization in a large group environment.
  • 1:04:15 – Influences from sprint research, team sports, and more.

To hear more about these topics you can listen to the full episode above. If you like what you hear on the GAINcast, don’t forget to give us a review and subscribe on iTunes.

Gaincast 206

We’re bringing back our annual tradition to start off the year with a combined episode of the GAINcast and HMMR Podcast to discuss the state of training for sports. A lot has changed over the past year, so we sit down to discuss some of the biggest issues facing sports, how things look going forward, and what we’re looking forward to in 2021.

  • 0:00 – Introduction

  • 2:15 – Taking your BBQ skills to the next level.

  • 6:15 – Corona excuses: “Corona exposes your mindset and culture, even more so during the second wave. Some people come with excuses on what they can’t do. Others find a way to do what they can.”

  • 9:00 – Adjustments to training and how lockdown training has filled gaps.

  • 14:30 – The future of monitoring and wellness questionnaires.

  • 18:45 – Monitoring with large groups: “You can get a good gauge for the team by the energy level. Listen to the volume of training: if everyone is quiet, they’re probably pretty tired. If they are getting loud then they’ve got energy.”

  • 21:00 – Switching team makeup to find leadership groups: “50 years ago I dreamed about measuring all the things we can now measure. But now I don’t know. We can measure a lot, but what do we do with it?”

  • 28:45 – Olympic selection and 2021 Olympics.

  • 35:30 – Lasting impacts of the pandemic on high school sports and the loss of the dual meet.

  • 41:45 – Looking forward to new challenges in 2021.

Gaincast 207

Vern is known as one of the most well-read people in sport. In 2020 he read 137 books. On this week’s GAINcast he shares his favorite books of the year, as well as some insights on the process of reading.

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 3:15 – Reading tastes.
  • 5:30 – Developing a passion for reading.
  • 7:15 – How to read.
  • 8:30 – Favorite book of 2020.
  • 10:00 – Top 5 books for 2020.
  • 13:30 – Additional books and sports-related book recommendations.
  • 18:00 – A call for listener recommendations.

We often think about the stimulus of key sessions or training phases. But more often than not adaptations come from the accumulation of training over the long-term. On this week’s episode we look at the cumulative training effect, the role of small doses of training stimulus, and how to connect sessions together to enhance the cumulative effect.

  • 0:00 – Introduction
  • 3:00 – Cumulative effect of training: “We get the idea that we can train isolated systems, but they are all connected. So it’s only natural that all training is cumulative.”
  • 7:15 – The Bill Knowles approach to micro-dosing: a dollar a day.
  • 9:00 – A modular approach to training: “I use a modular-driven training system. Each module is 3-5 exercises around a certain emphasis.”
  • 12:15 – Consistency.
  • 14:15 – Recovery and confidence: “Microdosing requires confidence and an understanding of recovery. You have to have the confidence that small doses of trainign will add up. And you have to understand what you can recover from since there are certain things you just can’t repeat daily, even in small doses.”
  • 16:15 – Battling monotony.
  • 18:00 – The red zone, key workouts, and the influence of Stephen Seiler.
  • 21:30 – The set up concept.
  • 24:30 – Skill acquisition and interleaving: “The more we learn about skill acquisition, the more we see how microdosing also can help skill acquisition though concepts like interleaving.”
  • 26:00 – Investing time in planning.
  • 27:30 – Developing autonomy.

Cool Runnings: A Conversation with Casey Wasserman

There’s No Crying in Baseball: A Conversation with Andrew Friedman

Any Data Sunday: A Conversation with Mina Kimes

September 3, 2021

The Data Dangle: Hockey Analytics

Meghan Chayka – Co-Founder & CEO, Stathletes

Alexandra Mandrycky – Director of Hockey Strategy and Research, Seattle Kraken

Hilary Knight – Professional Hockey Player, US Women’s National Ice Hockey Team

John Buccigross (moderator) – SportsCenter Anchor, ESPN

The amount of data available to NHL teams has exploded over the last year as player and puck tracking officially entered the rink. By some estimates, tracked players and pucks produce a total of 2,200 data points per second. Will this be data overload for a sport that has only recently embraced the use of analytics to drive on-ice value? And how do video analytics complement – or compete with – tracking data? How are expansion teams emphasizing data from day one to build a franchise? And what will it take to convince players, many of whom pushed back on the quality of pucks with tracking technology, to embrace analytics? This panel will dive into the world of hockey analytics, examining how teams are using the abundance of new information to help inform player personnel decisions, in-game coaching strategy, and scouting, amongst other things.

September 3, 2021

A Conversation with Mark Cuban and Andy Slavitt

Mark Cuban – Owner, Dallas Mavericks

Andy Slavitt – Senior Advisor, White House COVID Response Team

Nate Silver – Editor-in-Chief, FiveThirtyEight

Of all the aspects of everyday life that data has transformed, perhaps nowhere was the impact more deeply felt than in healthcare. As friends and two leading public voices, Andy Slavitt and Mark Cuban will discuss healthcare and the role data has had and will continue to have, in improving care and society at large. While data has revolutionized health for everyone, Andy and Mark will narrow in what data has taught us about the health of athletes, who come from diverse backgrounds, experience higher physical and mental health risks, and are exposed to inconsistent healthcare experiences.

September 3, 2021

Super Glue: Investigating Basketball Culture vs. Analytics

David Fizdale – Former Head Coach, New York Knicks

Shane Battier – Vice President Basketball Development & Analytics, Miami Heat

Zach Lowe – Senior Writer, ESPN

Adrian Wojnarowski (moderator) – Senior NBA Insider, ESPN

Analytics have revolutionized sports to identify new strategies and help evaluate players, but what about intangibles? How do we evaluate the ‘glue’ players that play a pivotal role in the locker room, but whose names are not necessarily atop the stat sheet, or the hustle that does not get marked down but leads to a steal breakaway? This panel examines how teams try to put numbers on these vital moments for teams. Hear from coaches, players, and the journalists who report out on the ‘culture codes’ of teams as they discuss the analytics behind culture and the potential to measure these ‘glue’ players.

You Had Me At Sabermetrics: A Conversation on Analytics in Sports with Bill James

Field of Dreams (and Data): A Conversation with Jonathan Kraft

Defend It Like Shane: A Conversation with Shane Battier

Join co-hosts Jessica Gelman and Daryl Morey as they team up with guest Shane Battier, Vice President of Basketball Development & Analytics, Miami Heat. Hear them discuss how Shane is applying lessons learned as a former player to analytics, quantifying culture and the unique way Coach K influenced it at Duke and a recap of Shane and Daryl’s legendary karaoke duet at Shane’s annual Battioke charity fundraiser for the Battier Take Charge Foundation.

The Sloan Sports Analytics Conferences invites you to join our Co-Founders and sports industry experts Daryl Morey (Head of Basketball Operations, Philadelphia 76ers) & Jessica Gelman (CEO, Kraft Analytics Group) as they host and chat with high-profile guests in the sports, media & entertainment space. Each episode will focus on demystifying and debunking the myths of analytics in sports, specifically, the dangers of using trash data to make decisions. Produced and edited by Jasonaduclos.

There’s No Crying in Baseball: A Conversation with Andrew Friedma‪n‬

Join co-hosts Jessica Gelman and Daryl Morey as they connect with guest Andrew Friedman, President of Baseball Operations for the reigning MLB champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers. Hear them discuss how the Dodgers leverage analytics to customize individual players’ development and maximize their likelihood of success, and what Andrew thinks the biggest opportunities for analytics in the MLB are.

Cool Runnings: A Conversation with Casey Wasserman

Join co-hosts Jessica Gelman and Daryl Morey as they chat with Casey Wasserman, chairman of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic games and CEO of Wasserman. Hear them discuss the importance of analytics when representing athletes, Casey’s plans for the 2028 Olympics, and the launch announcement of the SSAC Mentorship Program presented by Wasserman. This mentorship program is designed to assist students and young professionals from underrepresented backgrounds in navigating potential careers in the sports industry.

Impact Resilience
Sports Loft Podcast

Sports Loft works with the most exciting tech startups in sport and entertainment. Listen for our network’s insight into sport, entertainment, investment, and technology. Available as an Apple Podcast Series, the authors have given us permission to present this session.

Data & elite sports performance with Jesus Perez & Tal Brown of Zone7

Data plays an increasing role in elite sports performance management. We chatted to Jesus Perez, assistant manager to Mauricio Pochettino at Tottenham Hotspur for five years, and Zone7’s Tal Brown about data informed decision making. Both set out that context is king. Someone needs to analyze the data. Coaches, like Perez and Pochettino, are the point at which data sets merge and decisions are needed. If done well, clubs can save money because their players are not picking up wages while injured, estimated at £35m a year in the Premier League. They discuss how managers have to be held accountable for players getting injured if the data said they needed a rest. Tal said: “when I’m asked by investors in Silicon Valley ‘why are you in sports, it’s not a very big market? There are no sports teams in the Fortune 500.’ My answer is that if you want to create technology for human performance, you need data about it, and going back 2, 3, 4 years, the only industry that had this kind of data at scale consistently is sports.” Jesus discusses how he has used data to understand players and gives examples from his time at some of the biggest clubs in England and Spain.

Innovation in Fan Experience

The Atlanta Hawks’ State Farm arena has been ranked as the best NBA Game experience in both 2019 and 2020. With the focus on the game experience in the NBA and heightened consumer expectations, that’s no mean feat – especially when, in the first year they won they award, the team wasn’t doing well: “When the team’s winning, the beer is colder and the hotdogs are warmer.”

So for teams, how can you deliver a better experience for the fans across all aspects of their experience – from before the game, at the venue and after the venue. How do you help them get the information that they need to ensure that they have the best experience? How do teams compete against other ways that people can spend their time?

In this episode, Yanni spoke to Donny White, CEO at Satisfi Labs and David Garcia, Senior Vice President, Experience & Innovation at Atlanta Hawks. They discussed the approach that led the Hawks to be ranked as the #1 gameday experience in the NBA, what David has been able to bring from his background with Amazon and Disney into the NBA and how the data captured by Satisfi’s AI assistant is informing changes to the fan experience at Atlanta’s State Farm Arena.

Quotes from this episode:

David – “When fans rate their experience at a game, it’s tied to the amount of information they have before they arrive and the expectations that they come in with. For example, the bag policy doesn’t change from one guest to the next. But the guests that knows you can’t bring a bag will have a better experience than the guest that didn’t know and shows up and has to deal with that.”
 
Donny – “The new fan is a data giver. They’ll ask questions, they’ll tell their friends, they’ll be on social media, they’ll communicate – they have an expectation that brands will respond to them.”

Building B2B Brands

It used to be that all the most exciting marketing happened in the B2C space – those were the campaigns that won awards and got featured in the industry press. The B2B marketeers were solid, reliable but not that interesting. Not any longer. A world of always-on consumers has forced B2B brands to totally re-think how they talk with their consumers. The B2B tech buyer is the same person who is buying the Vans trainers and subscribing to Netflix. They want personalization, content relevant to their interests, and businesses who share their values. B2B marketeers have had to up their game.

For early-stage companies, this is a challenge. How do you deliver the quality of marketing and content across multiple channels with limited resources and budget? How do you build a consistent message when the product is evolving so fast? But equally, in the early days of a startups’ journey, companies are focused on understanding their customer’s needs and building an initial product that they can sell – do they really need a brand at that stage? As they acquire more customers and the product becomes increasingly defined, that’s when the company’s brand – as Jeff Bezos put it, “What other people say about you when you are not in the room” – becomes increasingly important.

In the latest Sports Loft podcast, we are joined by the Chief Marketing Officers of FEVO and Greenfly, Betty Tran and Tom Kuhr respectively. They discuss why a brand is important to achieve scale, how their brands are constantly evolving and how building a brand plays into fundraising conversations.

Innovation in the sports broadcast

Sports fans have got so many channels that they might subscribe to – and in many cases, they are driven by which channel has the right to whatever they want to watch. However, the experience of watching a game is varying more and more between broadcasters as the channels seek to differentiate themselves – whether it’s through cameras, commentators, interactivity, graphics, or studio presentation.

Consequently, the need to innovate (and sometimes innovation for the sake of doing something different) becomes more important for content owners. How can the broadcasters get the fans to watch just a bit longer? How can they provide the fans with a differentiated experience that enables them to have their voice heard or to access more complementary content on their phone? How is interactivity changing the presentation of the broadcast? How do they have to compete (or compliment?) the teams, leagues, and athletes who are becoming content producers in their own right? How is on-screen talent being evaluated – is it now as much about the community that they can bring?

In the latest Sports Loft podcast, we are joined by Michael Bucklin, Vice President of Digital Content at Fox Sports, who leads the development of content to complement Fox’s rights portfolio such as the Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup, as well as studio shows such as Fox NFL Sunday. We are also joined by Tagboard’s President Nathan Peterson, whose clients include content owners such as Fox Sports, NBC, NFL Media, and MLB. 

Deven Hurt: Building the Sports Stock Market

Deven Hurt’s background in sports includes work in cybersecurity for Nike and the NBA.

He’s currently the CEO and co-founder of PredictionStrike – the world’s first sports stock market, allowing fans to buy and sell shares of their favorite pro athletes.

The company raised its first VC funding in 2021 and has processed over $4.5M of transactions on the platform to date.

In this conversation, I discussed with Deven the past and present of PredictionStrike, the differences, and similarities between the stock market, sports betting, and PredictionStrike (risk profile, intrinsic value, expected returns, etc.), his plans, projects, and projections for sports investing, and so much more.

Scott Deans: Preparing Athletes On and Off the Field

Today’s Halftime Snack features Scott Deans – former collegiate kicker and punter, architect, designer, and data analytics manager.

Scott is an expert in design, performance, and technology. Today, he’s the CEO and founder of BeONE Sports – a platform that uses AI to help young athletes maximize their performance, gain exposure for their talents, and get advanced training on demand.

In our conversation, we talked about:

How Scott’s background as a semi-professional athlete tied him to BeONE

BeOne from idea to product to monetization

Strategic growth for BeONE

Scott’s vision for the future of young athletes & NIL

And more!

Come snack with us!

Santosh Vuppala: Building Solutions Through Technology

Today’s Halftime Snacks features Santosh Vuppala – an expert in software and product development from India who’s passionate about building solutions for people.

Santosh once led the development of a renewable energy platform that helped over 50,000 people and built a digital product that gave access to educational experiments to high school students.

Today, he’s the co-founder of HomeGround – a platform that helps grassroots cricket players and coaches with instant analytics, recommendations, and expert feedback on their training sessions.

We talked about the power of code and software, the technology, value, business model, roadmap, projects, and vision of HomeGround.

Come snack with us!

Pierina Merino: Bringing Digital and Physical Spaces Together

Written By Ronen Ainbinder

On today’s Halftime Snack, I’m snacking with Pierina Merino!

Pierina is a Venezuelan entrepreneur who’s innovating daily. She’s pushing the boundaries of technology to bring the physical and digital world closer together.

Her creative industry experience covers everything from designing architectural projects with one of the greatest architects of our time (Frank Gehry) to leading the design strategy for premium VR experiences for fashion brands.

Today, she is the founder and CEO of Flickplay. This platform combines immersive video technology with gaming tools to create a new and innovative experience.

We talked about creativity, working with Frank Gehry, Flickplay’s technology, and how the digital and physical spaces will coexist to create new social experiences in the future.

🗣Come snack with us!

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