Europe’s premier professional basketball league, the EuroLeague, selected Israeli startup MindFly to enter into a deal that will make sports broadcasting history.
Every player in the 2022 season will be fitted with an AI-powered bodycam during the games. For the first time, fans will be able to see, hear, and feel everything their favorite player does on the court.
Beginning the season, two to three players will wear body cameras throughout games. MindFly’s cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) technology will use this footage to generate First-Person View (FPV) highlights for Euroleague social channels. This material will be converted into non-fungible tokens (NFT) and sold to Euroleague supporters.
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Recently, MindFly inked a similar arrangement with the Bayern Munich Basketball team, whereby the club’s players would wear bodycams during training sessions. The behind-the-scenes footage will be utilized on its social channels and may be marketed as NFT in the future.
“MindFly’s FPV solution will take spectators directly onto the court during games and training sessions, therefore strengthening the bonds between fans, players, clubs, and leagues,” says Alex Ferrer, the Euroleague’s Senior Director of Marketing and Communication. “We are happy to give such a phenomenal invention to our followers,” he continued.
“Finally, we’ve found an AI First Person View solution that’s 100 percent safe, 100 percent wearable, and 100 percent invisible,” says Marc Bertomeu, EuroLeague Innovation Manager, citing feedback from professional players across multiple Euroleague teams, who have tested MindFly’s solution since October 2021.
Two serial entrepreneurs, Eran Tal, MindFly’s CEO, and Yehuda Elmaliach, MindFly’s CTO, created MindFly in early 2021. Eran is no stranger to the video sector, having developed and managed the firms Evrideo, Goopi.tv, and Individual.tv in the past. Yehuda was co-founder and CTO of Optibase, a Nasdaq-listed company with a market worth of $500 million. He was also a co-founder and CTO of the Israeli firm Mobixell, which was acquired by Flash Networks.
MindFly, a company with eight workers in Tel Aviv and Barcelona, has raised $1.7 million in venture capital to date. Lior Alkan, who heads the M-Fund Club, a boutique private investor club, and has made early investments in some of Israel’s fastest-growing firms, including Zesty and GrowthSpace, leads its exclusive group of investors.
MindFly employs AI-powered bodycams and an AI-powered cloud platform to create a seamless, automated end-to-end solution, from recording to processing and distributing HD, Pro-quality, completely stabilized video highlights to all digital and traditional media endpoints. The solution is available for all sports and from any court, with no additional personnel or infrastructure required.
“Our message to the clubs and athletes is ‘you wear the jersey, we do the rest,'” explains Eran Tal, co-founder and CEO of MindFly. “Today, MindFly provides fresh and interesting material for all sports fans that did not previously exist.” “We are now in advanced discussions to establish agreements with a number of European teams, premier football leagues, and significant broadcasters. In the following year, we will expand our worldwide alliances, concentrating on clubs, leagues, and leading broadcasters in Europe and the United States.
Lior Elkan, Managing Partner of M-Fund Club, explains, “Led by Eran and Yehud, two seasoned entrepreneurs who ooze enthusiasm and creativity, MindFly distinguishes itself not just through invention, but also through the immense market potential of its ground-breaking concepts.” “Both Eran and Yehuda have built successful businesses in the past, and both possess the necessary technological and commercial expertise for MindFly. These statistics place MindFly on the road to success. Their capacity to rapidly generate complicated ideas and adapt products to specific markets is remarkable.”
Currently, the system broadcasts chosen video snippets from critical moments of games and training. In the near future, the system will stream whole games in real-time. The solution is compatible with all media channels, including social media, NFT, OTT, websites, D2C applications, and television on all devices, such as televisions, mobile phones, tablets, and laptops.
