Student entrepreneurs develop Matchday to ‘gamify’ live sports
Posted on: 11 October 2016
Students from Trinity College Dublin are looking to partner with sports bodies, clubs and major media outlets to ‘gamify’ live sports for fans watching alone, with their friends in a group, or even a whisker away from the action in a stadium.
Business and economics student, Jonathan Deane, and physics students, Dylan Scully and Ian O’Reilly, created the company Matchday to tap into the way modern-day technology is having an increasingly significant impact on how fans engage with their favourite sports.
Matchday works by sending out propositions during live sports and allowing users to make predictions as to what will happen next. For example, viewers might be asked ‘Will Cristiano Ronaldo score in the next 15 minutes?’, and points are then provided for correct predictions. Matchday partners with brands to provide prizes to users who earn sufficient points over the course of a game.
Matchday partners with sports bodies, clubs, media and sponsors and connects them directly with their viewers; its gaming technology opens up a new channel by which these partners can engage directly and personally with their target audiences.
Matchday’s development was nurtured through Trinity’s LaunchBox student entrepreneur accelerator programme this summer.
The venture has recently been accepted onto the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme, which provides a source of funding and mentorship to further develop the business model.
Co-founder of Matchday, Jonathan Deane, said: “We had always played fantasy football together and loved the competitive element but were often frustrated by the experience. We realised that our generation desired a more on-demand experience from fantasy sports. We still desire the same social and competitive elements but wondered if we could create real-time games that could be played and that would be more fun and immersive to play than traditional fantasy sports.”
“We got to tweak our business model and product over the summer with the help of the mentors in LaunchBox, which was incredibly helpful. At the end of the programme we were awarded the Blackstone highest potential start-up award and are now delighted to see how far the Enterprise Ireland New Frontiers programme can help us fly.”