Ryerson University, MLSE choose sports-tech startups for incubator
Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment and Ryerson University are funding a handful of tech startups to foster sports industry innovation and if they’re lucky, the early stage ventures might get to pilot their products with top sports teams and venues.
The Toronto-based university and the owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Raptors, Argonauts and Toronto FC have chosen six ventures to provide with mentorship through their recently launched Future of Sport Lab Incubator.
They are promising the companies four months of guidance, access to resources at the university and potential opportunities with MLSE teams and venues, including Scotiabank Arena, Coca-Cola Coliseum, BMO Field and other training facilities used by Toronto FC, the Raptors, Leafs and Marlies.
“We are going to help them expand out into the larger, global, North American sports and entertainment ecosystem,” said Humza Teherany, MLSE’s chief technology and digital officer. “We have relationships with all the other teams and all the other leagues, all the way into e-sports so we want to help those Canadian entrepreneurs grow and feed some of that talent here in Toronto.”
Brain imaging assessment business Performance Phenomics, e-sports scouting reports company Rival.ai and women’s sports news organization the Gist are all Toronto-based and have been accepted into the incubator.
Rounding out the ventures accepted to the incubator are Saskatoon-based athlete evaluations business SkillShark and New York startups Spalk and Stakes, which specialize in virtual sportscasting and real-time sports wagering between friends, respectively.
Ben Gallacher, the co-founder of Performance Phenomics, said his company was drawn to the incubator because there is a lack of support systems for ventures in the sports-tech arena, despite their prevalence in the wearables, apps, data and science markets.
“It is not an easy market to understand,” he said. “You quickly realize how difficult it is to break into and that can sometimes be a deterrent, but with incubators like this, I think it can break down the barriers.”
Canadian experts have long echoed Gallacher’s sentiments, complaining about a lack of support for Canadian tech companies and a need to keep homegrown talent, intellectual property and innovation from seeping across the border.
Gallacher, a 2010 NHL draft pick who stepped away from hockey after suffering concussions, said his two-year-old business has managed to land several angel investors, but is eager to take advantage of MLSE’s connections.
Performance Phenomics uses magnetic resonance imaging to study how the brain rewires after injury and helps athletes learn how their neurologic functions can be optimized with training.
Gallacher figures Ryerson and MLSE may be able to put his business in touch with sports scientists, who he believes will be key to the advancement of Performance Phenomics and the adoption of his company’s offerings. “It is really hard to get those meetings when you are a startup,” he said. “There are a lot of skeptics and innovative companies out there that you are competing against to get meetings so to be able to have that fast track into the franchises is a real honour and privilege and a good way for us to add some real value to them in a significant way.”