AriSports digital prediction platform crowned winner of BT Sport's Innovate 21 competition By Ann-Marie Corvin
Tuesday, September 28, 2021 - 13:00
Print This Story
Entrepreneurs pitched to a Dragon's Den-style panel led by BT Sport chief operating officer Jamie Hindhaugh and director of mobile strategy Matt Stagg
A squabble between two siblings over Neymar's controversial dribbling during the 2018 FIFA World Cup has resulted in a digital prediction platform that could shape the way that future audiences interact with live sport.
Last week at BT Sport's studios in Stratford, East London, AriSports co-founders Rassim and Djewed ( Djo') Hariz were crowned winners of BT Sport's Innovate 21, a competition for entrepreneurs and startups that seeks ideas for new sports broadcasting and live matchday experiences.
Manchester-based Rassim Hariz's winning pitch involved transforming live sports content and match highlights into an immersive gaming experience.
As the winner of Innovate 21, AriSports has gained the opportunity to work with BT Sport to develop its technology for future use.
The original idea for the tech came out of a heated debate between the French-Algerian brothers three years ago, over whether Brazil's Neymar should have dribbled for so long during a FIFA World Cup game against Colombia.
Rassim recalls: We had an argument about what the best sequence should have been and it was at that point that Djo realised that there's no independent third party to assess the football talent of a TV viewer or for any other sport and it all started from there
The brothers, both environmental engineers by trade who are passionate about football and gaming, teamed up with Guillaume Panot, founder of Singapore-based fan engagement consultancy Harpan Sports, to help shape the product and work as AriSports' technical lead.
The resulting tech claims to be the world's first digital gateway between fans and live game' comprising a gaming overlay designed for mobiles that enables viewers to watch live matches and put themselves in the boots of up to two of their favourite players.
The AriSports tech is described as the world's first digital gateway between fans and live game'
Viewers are able to control these players' movements in a gamified' version of the live match or highlights package, tracking their players' movements in real time and making their own decisions about what to do when the ball comes their way.
These choices can then be compared to the real life' ones made by the players, as well as to the choices made by fellow viewers.
Rassim adds that correct decisions would be assessed and predicted by an AI engine during live matches, which will pull in sports analytics data provided by companies such as Sportsradar and Opta Sports.
The next level is beating your best player and guessing the next best move of every single sequence better than Ronaldo, better than Harry Kane, he adds.
According to Rassim, successful at-home players could be awarded prizes and, further down the line, the company has ambitions to develop a fantasy gaming league with trading cards and its own currency.
Rassim says that the experience could be scaled up eventually to become a multiplayer game; while the rollout of 5G could also enable it to be extended into stadiums for a live play-along experience.
As well as increasing fan engagement and attracting younger generations of viewers to live events on BT Sport, Rassim says that the app complemented existing BT Sport Matchday Experience features, such as the recently rolled out Manager Mode, which gives real-time data insight, and Hype Mode, which offers enhanced graphics around individual players.
We think the natural transition would be to go to Gaming Mode' based on a gaming overlay SDK, he says.
Rassim also explained to a Dragon's Den-style panel led by BT Sport chief operating officer Jamie Hindhaugh and director of mobile strategy Matt Stagg that while football was the flagship sport, cricket, rugby and basketball were some of the other sports on their roadmap.
On choosing a winner, Hindhaugh says that he was impressed with AriSports' understanding of what BT Sport wanted to achieve with its app and he was particularly interested in the live element of the firm's prediction platform.
You can see it's a natural evolution in terms of where we are going, says Hindhaugh. There's definitely a challenge around new audiences coming through and staying with content I think you can no longer turn a TV screen and point people at it and expect them to sit and watch it.
Stagg says: We also liked that AriSports wanted to work with us, they knew that there was a partnership there, it's about working together on something really innovative.
While AriSports claimed that it would be able to turn around a working demo for live matches within 12 weeks, Stagg says that the sports broadcaster would work on the product for as long as it takes to get it right , using Paul Bojarski's Sceenic as a case-in-point.
Sceenic, the 2018 winner of what was then called the BT Infinity Lab Competition, is a co-viewing app, which was further developed in partnership with BT Sport over a two-year period before launching as Watch Together on the BT Sport app Match Day Experience last year.
We did trials to get Sceenic right if you launch new things that people haven't seen before and don't get them right, then audiences don't go back to them, says Stagg.
Besides the BT execs, the rest of the panel comprised a trio of BT Sport presenters: former Wales midfielder Robbie Savage, former Ireland rugby captain Brian O'Driscoll and motorsport commentator Suzi Perry who also fronted nine seasons of the BBC's Gadget Show.
Luc
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
When Canada qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026, OneSoccer knew this wasn'...
04/07/2026
Celebrates company's 80th anniversary
Rhodes have recently revealed that they will be producing a limited run of electric pianos in celebration of their...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
AriSports digital prediction platform crowned winner of BT Sport's Innovate 21 competition By Ann-Marie Corvin 
