Tokyo Games seen offering biz chances to sports tech startups

August 26, 2019

Silicon Valley--Attention is being paid to "sports tech" startups that use information technologies in providing new ways of watching sporting events and advising athletes on methods of training.

In Japan, moves to introduce such sports-linked IT have been gaining pace, with less than one year to go before the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Last year, Japanese advertising giant Dentsu Inc. <4324> and Scrum Ventures, an investment company with business bases in Japan and the United States, jointly launched a program supporting startups engaged in the sports business.

Twelve firms selected from across the world, including Tokyo-based Ventus Inc., which offers a service allowing people to cheer sports teams and athletes by buying digital trading cards, showcased their technologies and ideas at a related event held in San Francisco on Tuesday last week.

Of them, U.S. display technology company Misapplied Sciences exhibited its technology enabling spectators of sporting events to watch different images. The firm is in talks for demonstrating the technology at the opening ceremony for Japan's new National Stadium, located in Tokyo, in December.

Omegawave, from Finland, displayed its technology offering the most effective training plans for athletes, using data including nerve signals and heart rate collected by a wearable device.

The company is set to conduct tests on the technology with the Japan Triathlon Union and the Fagiano Okayama, a professional soccer team in Okayama Prefecture, western Japan, which belongs to the J2 second division of the Japan Professional Football League, better known as the J.League.

"Japan's sports world still tends to like the 'die-hard' spirit," Takuya Miyata, general partner of Scrum Ventures, said. Jiji Press

"Involving Japan (in the field of sports technology) is meaningful," he added.