President & CEO Toshihiro Yamamoto has announced it and Scrum Ventures LLC,a US-based venture capital firm, will co-host the SPORTS TECH TOKYO in 2019 in Japan and the U.S.
This acceleration program* originates in Japan and aims to help the growth of sports-based startups gathering from all over the world and provide opportunities to companies in need of open innovation.
Startups in the field of sports with advanced technologies and new business ideas are expected to apply from all over the world. They will receive special support such as mentoring** through the one-year program. The participants will also have networking and pitching opportunities with the Sports Advisory Board*** that consists of players and specialists from a variety of sports organizations and professional leagues and teams from Japan and the U.S.
Leading companies that are interested in sports-related open innovation are expected to participate as partners. In addition, we are planning to provide a place for testing and validating the participants’ products and services, collaborating with sports facilities such as a stadium, during the second stage of the program.
In 2016, the U.S. sports market was estimated to be more than 50 trillion yen. Within this booming industry, the investment in start-ups involved in Sports Tech, a technological solution that makes the most of IT and other new technologies that add new value to sports and create new business, has tripled in four years from 2011 to 2015.
In Japan, the government-sponsored Japan Revitalization Strategy 2016 selected sports as one of the 10 strategic public-private joint projects to be cultivated as a growth industry. The report shows a guideline set by the government which aims to expand the market for sports industry from 5.5 trillion yen in 2015 to 15.2 trillion yen in 2025.
Under this favorable environment, we aim to build a new system with which the Sports Tech innovations driven by this program are effectively fed back to the sports industry. Together with strategic, on-going involvement in sports business, we will contribute to the development of domestic sports and revitalization of sports industry.