See sports games from the perspective of the players

Euroleague basketball players will wear body cameras from the Israeli start-up company MindFly. In addition, the company signed an agreement with the Bayern Munich basketball team

The Israeli start-up company MindFly offers an innovation in the world of sports broadcasting when you start one of the biggest innovations in the sports experiences of hundreds of millions in the world. MindFly and the Euroleague have signed an agreement under which, starting next season, basketball players from the factory teams will wear MindFly's personal body cameras during the games and the cloud system based on artificial intelligence that it built will produce videos from the players' perspectives for the Euroleague's digital channels for the enjoyment of the spectators who will be able to see, hear and experience the player on the court . About 2-3 players are expected to wear the cameras in each game. Under the framework agreement with the Euroleague, the biggest clubs in Europe will enter, including Maccabi Tel Aviv. The video content shown from the perspective of the players is called FPV - First Person Point of View. Also, EuroLeague plans to turn these contents into NFT tokens to be sold to EuroLeague fans.    

MindFly recently signed a similar agreement with the Bayern Munich basketball club in which the club's basketball players will wear body cameras in training as content for social platforms as well as for content that may be sold as NFT-.

MindFly was founded at the beginning of 2021 by two serial entrepreneurs: Eran Tal, the CEO of the company, and Yehuda Elmaleh, the CTO. Eran Tal, a serial entrepreneur in the field of video, founded and managed the start-ups Evrideo, Goopi.tv and Individual.tv. Yehuda Elmaleh is one of the founders and CTO of Optibase, which was issued on Nasdaq and reached a value of about half a billion dollars. He was also the founder and CTO of Mobixel, which was sold to Flash Networks. Mindplay employs 8 people in Tel Aviv and Barcelona. To date, the company has raised $1.7 million in seed funding from a group of private investors led by venture capitalist Lior Elkan, who runs the M-Fund Club investor club, and has invested in the early stages of a number of growing start-up companies in Israel, including: Zesty and GrowthSpace.

"We have finally found an FPV solution that is 100% safe, 100% wearable and 100% invisible," says Mark Borthomao, the EuroLeague's innovation manager who cited feedback from professional players from several EuroLeague teams who have tried the solution since October 2021.

"MindFly's FPV solution will place the spectators right in the center of the field during the matches and training sessions and will deepen the relationship between the fans and the players and the teams participating in the tournament," said Alex Ferrer, Marketing and Communications Director of the EuroLeague. "We are proud to provide such an amazing innovation to our fans."

MindFly provides an end-to-end solution for professional sports that uses AI-based body cameras that capture the player's point of view, including sound, and an AI platform in the cloud that stabilizes, directs, edits and distributes videos and, in the future, live broadcasts as well. The solution is offered to all sports on all types of pitches and can be implemented without the need for additional teams and no investments in the infrastructure.

"Our message to the teams and players is: you wear the vest, and we take care of the rest" said Eran Tal, CEO and co-founder of MindFly. Eran added: "MindFly produces new and exciting content for sports fans that did not exist until today. We are in advanced negotiation processes towards signing agreements both with teams and senior football leagues in Europe, as well as with major broadcasters. In the coming year, we aim to enter into additional partnerships around the world with an emphasis on teams, leagues and senior broadcasters in Europe and the US with the goal of reaching sales of millions of dollars in 2023."

Lior Elkan, director of M-Fund Club, says: "MindFly brings to the market a groundbreaking idea with tremendous market potential, led by Eran and Yehuda, experienced entrepreneurs with a sparkle in their eyes and creative joy from a deep connection to their field. Both Eran and Yehuda have founded successful companies in the past, and both have exactly the experience required for a company like Mindplay, both technologically and business-wise. Their ability to move quickly in complex development and adapting the product to the market is phenomenal."

At this stage, the system broadcasts selected video clips of highlights in games and training and will soon broadcast entire games live. The solution is adapted to all media channels including social media platforms, NFT platforms, OTT, websites, D2C applications, TV channels and all types of devices (TVs, mobile devices, tablets and laptops).

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