Top 6 Fan Engagement Wearables

Wearable X is a fashion tech company that brings together design and technology to create a better quality of life. The Sydney-born, NYC-based company launched in 2013 with a product centered around touch. The company launched Fan Jersey X at Super Bowl 50 in collaboration with several large consumer beverage brands and was awarded the Wearable Award at ShowRoomPrivee. Connected wirelessly to your phone, Jersey X lets you receive real time haptic vibrations so you can feel the excitement of every highlight in the game. Jersey X communicates interceptions, turn overs, touchdowns, fumbles from the other team, Red Zone plays, and more — putting you front and center with the game no matter where you are.

Another product by Wearable X is the Alert Shirt – a fan jersey that uses wearable technology to take the experience into the physical world, allowing fans to feel what the players feel live as it happens during the game. Real-time sports data is transmitted via a smartphone app to the electronics within the jersey. The Alert Shirt then converts the data into powerful sensations that simulate live sports action.

Visa teamed up with Lotte Card, the financial arm of South Korean-based retail giant, Lotte Department Store, to produce 3 commercially available wearable payment devices: NFC-enabled payment gloves, commemorative stickers and Olympic pins that allow fans and athletes to complete seamless and secure payments with a simple tap at any contactless-enabled terminal. The commemorative Olympic Pins come in the form of 4 unique lapel pins that feature Pyeongchang 2018 designs to offer a payment-enabled collectable for fans and athletes to utilize on-site.

With the average temperature in Pyeongchang being 4.8°C, the NFC-enabled payment gloves will offer fans a way to pay safely and securely without having to get cold hands. With a thin and flexible adhesive design and an embedded dual interface NFC-chip and antenna, the commemorative stickers can be attached to almost anything to make seamless payments in a moment’s notice.

Manchester City introduced Fantom wristband that lets fans see details of the countdown to kick-off for matches, live match updates, interactive quizzes, breaking news and more. The light blue wristband donning a black touchscreen display is the world’s first football smart band aimed at die-hard football fans. The smart wristband with NFC capabilities doubles as a season ticket allowing fans an easier access to the ground. Fans can also pay for snacks using the smart band, and the tech will detect other nearby fans to help ‘spark new connections’.

BriziCam, the fan-controlled camera at sports events, makes the selfie sticks obsolete. Using BriziCam, fans take control of the cameras fitted inside the arena, photos of themselves and immediately share them on the social media. The mobile phone of the fans acts as a remote control for the cameras. BriziCam has been successfully used at the NBA playoff games. BriziCam has been deployed in 7 countries, working with organizations across sports and landmarks including NBA basketball,Grand Slam tennis, European soccer and at the Washington Monument.

The Fan-Controlled Football League (FCFL) is the professional sports league that puts fans in control of their sports entertainment experience. The FCFL is the first ever fan-controlled professional sports league, where fans are no longer just viewers, but part-coach, part-GM, and part-owner. Fans have the power to hire coaches, draft rosters, and even call plays while streaming the games live in a digital-first broadcast. We are bringing power to the fans! Using the league’s mobile app, fans make real-time play calling decisions.

Christian Stammel is CEO at WT | Wearable Technologies, a leading innovation and business development platform for wearables, and updating ISPO.com readers about latest trends on digitalization, wearable tech and IoT in sports, fitness and well-being. More information about WT at www.wearable-technologies.comhttp://www.wearable-technologies.com