Digital Sport’s Weekly Wash-Up 21/07/16

Villarreal to supply away-day travellers with audioguides…through the kit.

To celebrate their return to the Champions League big-time, Spanish side Villarreal have incorporated a unique digital dimension into their new kit: fans who scan the club badge on the breast with their phone camera using Shazam will be treated to an audio guide on the city that their next European opponents call home.

The Champions League qualifying stage has a tendency to throw up a name that draws blank expressions from all but the most geographically clued-up, so this should be a handy feature for those travelling on the European away days from Spain.

La Liga has become the centre of intriguing kit-launch innovation at the moment, with newly-promoted Leganes even releasing a scratch-and-sniff badge which they claim “tastes and smells of success”. Whether or not fans will actually ‘taste’ the badge aside, the cut grass aroma which the badge gives off is an interesting way of helping fans feel like they are in it together with the players out on the pitch.

“The idea fitted really well with how we see ourselves. A close-knit club, with a sense of fun, and with a desire to do things differently as we have been doing since we were in the Segunda Division B”, the club’s Marketing and Communication director, Daniel Abanda, explained.

Save the date thanks to the Premier League

With the introduction of Friday night football to the ever-more varied selection of Premier League kick-off times, gone are the days when you knew your club would be taking on their latest challengers in a 3pm Saturday start.

In a helpful move for football fans ahead of the English top flight’s big kick-off on 13 August, the Premier League has teamed up with event calendar marketing software providers ECAL to help them stay ahead of the game.

The partnership will see kick-off times added directly to whichever digital calendar a fan uses, wherever they are in the world – the notifications adapt to the local timezone, in what must be a godsend for fans of the English game abroad.

Samsung release the ‘Olympics Phone’

The Olympics is now just over the horizon, and Samsung have moved to highlight their position as sponsor of the games by putting 2,016 Olympics phones onto the market in Brazil, the United States, China, Germany and Korea. Officially named the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge Olympic Edition, the device has customised elements in each of the colours of the Olympic ring.

The home button and earpiece are yellow, the power button is red, the volume controls are green and the bezel around the camera is blue, with the Olympic logo printed on the back.

Whilst undoubtedly a nice idea and a great marketing move, potential buyers may feel that these surface changes – some pre-installed Olympics wallpapers and apps being the only software update on the standard model – are not quite the bang they would expect expect for their $100 extra buck.

VR comes to Minnesota Vikings’ new stadium

Fans of the Minnesota Vikings will soon be able to jump on board a virtual ‘Vikings Voyage’ through the club’s history at the team’s all-new 67,000 capacity U.S. Bank Stadium.

Visitors to the stadium will have the chance to test their skills in a number of trials (think shuttle drills, vertical jumps and catching passes) using a virtual reality device, as well as getting the force of their impact measured when crashing into a blocking pad. The results will be tracked through a bracelet equipped with a radio-frequency identification (RFID) system. The most interesting part: fans can compare their results to the marks posted by players from the NFL Combine.

“This experience center mirrors everything we’ve been talking about with our values system: being progressive, unifying with the community and being relentless,” said Vikings VP of Partnerships Activation and Special Projects, Tanya Dreesen.

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