British telecommunications giant BT has launched a competition to find startups that can help to improve sports broadcasts on its BT Sport subscription TV channels.
This is the second time this competition will be run for BT Sport and will be handled by BT’s Infinity Lab. The application to enter is now open and the deadline for submission is Nov. 13. The final sees finalists pitching to a panel, mirroring the format of the U.K.’s popular TV show “Dragon’s Den”. The selected companies will have a final pitch on Jan. 30 at BT Sport’s headquarters in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London.
The winner will have its innovation trialled by BT Sport and also could partner with BT further. In addition to this, the startup will also receive six months membership at TechHub, a startup community and coworking space provider, with access to their workspace and events.
Entries are, according to BT: “encouraged to focus on disrupting traditional broadcast approaches, including capturing the in-venue experience, encourage interaction between sports fans, use data, ways of making live sports more accessible for impaired viewers and new technologies such as VR.”
Last year’s winner of the BT Infinity Lab competition for BT Sport was Seenit, an app that enables fans to upload reactions to live TV sports coverage, before, during and after a match. This innovation has become a part of BT Sport’s Premier League Tonight soccer highlights show, with fans sending their video clips into BT Sport for presenter Jake Humphrey to show.
At the time of announcing Seenit as the winner, Humphrey said in a statement: “User-generated content is not a fad or a short-lived trend, it’s an integral part of broadcasting live events in the future, and this relationship with BT Sport really does put the viewers at the heart of our content. I’m really excited about it.”
The competition is also backed by prominent BT Sport presenter Craig Doyle and in a statement to support the launch, he said: “BT Sport has been at the forefront of bringing fans some of the most exciting innovations in broadcasting and digital media. Our Premier League coverage has been boosted by last year’s winner and I look forward to seeing how the rest of our sports coverage might benefit from this year’s Infinity Lab Competition winner.”