Beyond Sports: Transforming Sports Engagement

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Beyond Sports
Image Credit: Beyond Sports

Beyond Sports is a Dutch sports AI data analysis and visualisation organisation challenging and transforming the way sport is viewed and engaged with.

Founded in 2014 in the midst of the Brazil World Cup, Beyond Sports founders Sander Schouten and Nicolaas Westerhof felt there was a significant gap in the market for data driven visualisations that catered for both businesses and consumers.

Since then, Beyond Sports has bloomed in popularity and value, culminating in it being acquired by Sony in 2022.

Beyond Sports’ Solutions 

Driving Beyond Sports’ success is its wealth of solutions for a variety of markets and consumers, operating a number of unique progammes designed for B2B and B2C.

Many sport addicts may have unknowingly witnessed Beyond Sports’ work across its numerous contracts with high profile broadcasters and leagues like ESPN, Fox Sports, KPN, Sky Sports and more.

Virtual Reality 

Beyond Sports’ initial projects revolved around creating real life football matches within a virtual reality environment. A partnership with ChyronHego, Feyenoord and PSV assisted the organisation in creating the first ever live computer-generated VR football match, which was broadcast on Twitch to 37,000 viewers in 2017, demonstrating Beyond Sports’ ability to broker the cutting edge of technology.

The revolutionary project soon blossomed into a longstanding partnership with Fox Sports Eredivisie alongside KPN to create a fully interactive VR environment of each week’s best goals, allowing fans to pick and choose their favourite player’s perspectives of the action for free.

From such an innovative project, Beyond Sports then provided broadcasters like Fox Sports and Sky Sports with VR tools to more effectively analyse games.

Additionally, the organisation’s use of AI VR to capture on the ground perspectives of real matches has garnered the interest of many elite level clubs. By being able to review moments through a direct one-to-one perspective, coaches are able to more effectively scrutinise mistakes and convey instructions to players more clearly. Through this, Beyond Sports has gained partnerships with clubs such as Arsenal, AFC Ajax and AZ Alkmaar.

AI Animated Visualisations 

Capitalising on the organisation’s impressive momentum, Beyond Sports pivoted to alternative animated visualisations of live sporting events using the company’s world class AI across world class broadcasters and interactive gaming environments like Roblox.

Beyond Sports’ live visualisations most notably broke through into the consumer market via a partnership with Nickelodeon, CBS and Next Gen Stats. Through the collaboration, Beyond Sports used live positional data of the 2021 NFL Wildcard Game to create an alternative animated broadcast of the event in Beyond Sports’ signature “blockie style”. While the real game aired on CBS, the animated version was shown on Nickelodeon to major success, drawing millions of viewers and earning a 2021 Sports Emmy award. The collaboration was then repeated in 2022, with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme.

To further drive and alter the way sport is typically viewed, Beyond Sports entered into a new collaboration with ESPN and the NFL to create a Disney Toy Story themed live animated broadcast of the Jaguars-Falcons London game in 2023. Like the prior Nickelodeon broadcasts, the live version of the game occurred simultaneously with the animated “Toy Story Funday Football” version. Displaying the game within Andy’s Room, the animated broadcast boomed in popularity. Beyond Sports’ work resulted in the animated game becoming the most viewed event on both ESPN+ and Disney+ ever and earning both Beyond Sports and ESPN three Sports Emmy awards.

In addition to the work Beyond Sports has done with the NFL, the organisation also has a long running partnership with the NHL. In 2023 and 2024 Beyond Sports created the Big City Greens Classic, an animated version of a live NHL game featuring characters from the Big City Greens Disney Channel show. Furthermore, Beyond Sports has also aided in the launch of the NHL’s “Hockeyverse”, a weekly condensed 30-minute animated version of a game that uses player tracking to feature stylized avatars battling it out on the ice.

Late last year, Beyond Sports also worked with the NBA to create the Dunk the Halls, an animated version of a live game featuring Disney characters.

Conclusion

While many people will still prefer to watch sports in a traditional format, Beyond Sports has found incredible success in creating new alternative methods of watching live events through its proficiency with AI to create VR and animated experiences.

For more information on Beyond Sports, check their website.

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Victory unites with Roasting Warehouse in culture-led partnership

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Image credit: Melbourne Victory

The Melbourne-based anf family-owned business will join the Victory family, uniting two institutions which represent the city’s culture and identity.

A partnership with local roots

As the newest partner of Melbourne Victory, Roasting Warehouse joins forces with a vital part of the city’s sporting landscape.

The club’s Managing Director, Caroline Carnegie, outlined why the partnership bears so much value to both parties.

“We are excited to collaborate with Roasting Warehouse, a community-oriented destination for high-quality coffee, proud of its foundations in Melbourne,” said Carnegie via official media release.

“Football and coffee sit at the epicentre of Melbourne’s culture. The two go hand-in-hand, consistently at the centre of the conversation that stirs Melburnians, which is no different to the conversation sport and Melbourne Victory stir in the State.”

Indeed, this is a partnership which combines the identity, passions and culture of an entire city, therefore giving it the foundations required for long-term, mutual success.

Representing the best of Melbourne

Both Victory and Roasting Warehouse are hugely successful in their respective industries. They are institutions with community-oriented philosphies, who pride themselves on craft and quality.

“We’re incredibly proud to partner with Melbourne Victory, a club that represents the heart, passion, and ambition of Melbourne,” revealed Roasting Warehouse Head of Brand, Alexander Paraskevopoulos.

“As a Melbourne-founded, family-run business, supporting a team that means so much to the local community feels very natural for us.”

Furthermore, through their high-quality blends, Roasting Warehouse will look to prepare Victory’s players and staff for high performances on the pitch as the seasons nears completion.

But this is about far more than just fueling athletes.

This is a partnership which embodies and unites two of Melbourne’s greatest strengths and cultural markers – a connection forged from the city’s very own DNA.

 

For more information about Roasting Warehouse, click here.

Marie-Louise Eta makes history as new Union Berlin head coach

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Image credit: FC Union Berlin

In an historic appointment, Eta will take over as head coach of Union Berlin until the end of the season.

History in the making

Previously the first female assistant coach in Bundesliga history with Union Berlin, Eta will now take the reigns of the men’s first team on an interim basis.

Currently, the club sit in 11th place in the Bundesliga table, but with only two wins so far in 2026, relegation appears an all-too-real prospect, and one which the club is desperate to avoid.

“Given the points gap in the lower half of the table, our place in the Bundesliga is not yet secure,” said Eta via official media release.

‘I am delighted that the club has entrusted me with this challenging task. One of Union’s strengths has always been, and remains, the ability to pull together in such situations.”

Eta will begin as Union’s new head coach with immediate effect, and will be in the dugout for the club’s matchup against Wolfsburg this weekend.

 

A step into an equal future

Eta’s appointment signals a major step towards a more level playing field in the football landscape.

Furthermore, Eta joins other coaches including Sabrinna Wittmann, Hannah Dingley and Corinne Diacre who, in recent years, have blazed a trail for female coaches to step into the men’s game.

Wittmann currently manages FC Ingolstadt in Germany’s third division, and was the first female head coach in Germany’s top three divisions.

In 2023, Dingley became caretaker manager of Forest Green Rovers, and thus the first woman to lead a men’s professional team in England.

Diacre, now head coach of France’s women’s national team, managed Ligue 2’s Clerment Foot between 2014 and 2017.

 

Final thoughts

The impact therefore, is that Eta’s appointment will show future generations of aspiring female coaches that men’s football is an equally viable and possible pathway as the women’s game.

The time is now to level the playing field.

And while it may be a short-term role, its effect on attitudes towards equality and fair opportunities in the game will hopefully resonate long after the season ends.

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