PHILADELPHIA—Comcast has announced that the 10 companies chosen for the third class of the Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech Accelerator, powered by Boomtown, have secured 25 pilots, partnerships, and commercial deals while participating in the customized program.
Comcast set up the accelerator as part of a larger effort to encourage innovation in the area of sports technology.
In the past six months, the 10 companies in the accelerator collaborated with experts from Comcast, NBCUniversal, Sky, and Boomtown, along with SportsTech’s advisors, including NBC Sports, NBC Sports Next, Sky Sports, Comcast Spectacor, and GOLF, as well as Premier League, NASCAR, WWE, and PGA TOUR, and three US Olympic sports organizations – U.S. Ski & Snowboard, USA Swimming, and USA Cycling – to hone and advance their readiness for commercial success.
During the Startup Spotlight event – taking place at the SBJ DRIVE conference in St. Louis today – these founders will continue to showcase the product-market fit of their technologies and discuss how some of the leading sports organizations are now applying these solutions to solve critical business challenges.
“Each startup team selected was enterprise-ready and given unique access to decision-makers from some of the top sports brands in the world,” said Jenna Kurath, vice president, startup partnerships and head of Comcast NBCUniversal SportsTech. “The relationships formed working one-on-one with sports leaders are invaluable and our founders took every opportunity to test and refine their technologies to deliver business value. Seeing our founders use their learnings from the program to gain deep customer insights to scale their businesses and find sustainable product fit in the market has been exciting. We are proud of what these entrepreneurs will continue to accomplish as we bring fans closer to the sports moments that matter.”
This year’s cohort has also benefited from a series of unique excursions and working retreats that included these SportsTech partner events:
- The program began with a week-long partner roadshow experience in Florida designed to deepen customer discovery, taking founders into behind-the-scenes experiences at Universal Studios Florida, NASCAR’s Daytona International Speedway, and the WWE Athlete Performance Center while also showcasing how PGA TOUR and NBC Sports’ GOLF produce professional sporting events, like the Arnold Palmer Invitational.
- In Atlanta several months later, the partner consortium gathered with the 2023 class to present business results from proofs of concepts and pilots underway. Additional experiences at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, NASCAR’s Talladega Super Speedway and The Atlanta Braves’ Truist Park provided real-world exposure to see how their products and technologies could add value.
- SportsTech participant companies participated in a custom curriculum focused on refining their product and improving their go-to-market strategies, fundraising, sales, marketing and branding, product design, personal growth, company culture, and tactics for working at an enterprise scale.
Comcast said the 10 startups were vetted and selected through a highly competitive process that evaluated over 920 applicants from across 40 countries. The excitement behind the SportsTech program and the efficacy of its outcomes continues to fuel interest and demand with more than 1,500 applications for SportsTech’s fourth cohort, launching in Q1 2024. Since the first class in 2021, SportsTech portfolio companies have achieved 112 pilots, partnerships and commercial deals with consortium partners.
“We are focused on forming long-term partnerships with each of the founders who entrust us and our program with the opportunity to elevate their positioning and preparedness to make a significant and sustainable impact in the world of sports,” said Chris Traeger, executive director at Boomtown for the Comcast SportsTech program. “Our 2023 class has thrived from the elongated program structure, and we’re thrilled to be a continued part of their growth trajectories and appreciate the impact that their continued success has on our ability to continually attract the most innovative startups into our ecosystem.”
More information on this year’s class can be found here.
