We’ve reached the end of 1st And Future — a sports-centric startup competition thrown as a joint effort between the NFL, Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, and TechCrunch.
The final of three categories in the competition today was “The Future Stadium”, focusing on technology that would advance the stadium experience of tomorrow.
And the winner is… HYP3R! HYP3R is a location-based engagement platform.
Sports games and events are massive sources of social media updates — but more often than not, these updates go out without hashtags or other identifying marks. HYP3R’s dashboard helps the venue and sponsors identify these posts, allowing them to engage in unique ways (such as sending a “Welcome to the arena!” message the first time it identifies a visitor)
Perhaps more interestingly, HYP3R provides a CRM for those it has identified as having posted from a venue — helping them to identify repeat visitors, and notable social media influencers.
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The judges in this category were Vice Chair of GE Beth Comstock, Benchmark Capital General Partner Bill Gurley, Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam (standard disclosure: Verizon owns AOL which owns TechCrunch), and San Francisco 49ers CEO Jed York.
As for the competition, here’s a quick rundown of this category’s other finalists:
ReplyBuy: Instant purchases via text. Sellers (such as stadiums) can text potential customers with something like “We found two tickets to tonight’s game! Want them? Reply BUY TICKETS and the quantity you want”, and customers can reply to complete the purchase.
Paranoid Fan: Social mapping at events. Fans can pin different points of interest — tail gate parties, food spots with short lines, or their current location — onto a map of the arena and the surrounding area for other fans and friends.
Sidestep: Lets eventgoers view/purchase merchandise before or during the event from their mobile phone, allowing them to skip the long lines and have the purchase ready to go.
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