Monthly Archives: March 2024

Atlanta at the Top: Strat-O-Matic Simulation Tabs Braves Champions

While their 104-win 2023 season didn’t result in a World Series title, the Atlanta Braves come into 2024 with high hopes of turning their talented young roster into a postseason champion. Strat-O-Matic (@strat-o-matic), the market leader in sports simulation games, has simulated the 2024 baseball campaign, tabbing Atlanta as the winner of 99 games and the franchise’s third World Series title since moving to The Peach State. The Braves need only five games to take down A.L. winner Houston in the Strat-O-Sim championship.

Strat-O-Matic’s simulation has the Braves winning the N.L. East by seven games over Philadelphia, joining Central champ Chicago (90-72) and West winner Los Angeles (99-63) as division titlists. Arizona (97-65), Philadelphia (92-70) and San Diego (84-78) claim the wild card spots, with the Braves taking out the Dodgers in a sweep in the NLCS after dispatching the Cubs in three straight in the NLDS.

In the A.L., Houston (102-60) enjoys the majors’ best record, backing it up by edging wild card Tampa Bay (90-72) in the ALDS and sweeping Minnesota (96-66) in the ALDS. The Twins, Central Division winners, had upended No. 2 seeded New York (99-63) to advance through the ALDS. Texas (91-71) and Cleveland (86-76) were the other A.L. wild cards.

Major award winners in the American League are New York’s Aaron Judge, whose 48 home runs and 113 RBI to go with a .962 OPS earned the MVP, while Minnesota’s Pablo Lopez turns in a 20-8 mark with 3.15 ERA and 235 strikeouts to win the Cy Young. In the N.L., Mookie Betts’ move to shortstop makes him an even more integral part of the Dodgers, garnering his second MVP with a .281 average, .945 OPS, 40 home runs and 118 RBI. Atlanta’s Spencer Strider breaks through for his first Cy Young, posting a 20-5 record and stellar 2.79 ERA with 260 whiffs.

Rebet Launches Free-To-Play Social Sportsbook

Rebet, a new free-to-play social sportsbook, today announced its official launch.  The Rebet App, which is now available for download in the App Store across 47 U.S. states, is set to revolutionize the sports betting experience with first-of-its-kind features including an entire social sportsbook, peer-to-peer contests, and dynamic user social feeds. 

Overall, the Rebet App will provide users with access to official and real-time data for more than 60 professional and college sports leagues.

Founded by current students at Dartmouth College who boast diverse expertise across economics, technology, entrepreneurship, and software development, Rebet takes a community-centric approach to the social sports betting experience.  The platform is free-to-play and boasts several groundbreaking features to ensure the platform is accessible, fun, and inclusive for everyone, allowing sports fans of all kinds to connect, share, and celebrate their love for sports.

“Sports fandom is about our desire for social interaction and community, and until today those elements have been missing in both traditional and social sportsbooks,” said Carson Hubbard, CEO of Rebet.  “Rebet is revolutionizing this experience with all the essential elements of the sports betting experience in one easy-to-use, and interactive app. We know users are going to love our experience and we are thrilled to introduce Rebet to the world.”

Rebet reimagines the conventional sports betting journey, enhancing it with a social dimension that encourages interaction among sports fans.  Through its innovative social media feeds, Rebet takes features like followers, posts, comments, and DM to create an engaging community atmosphere. 

“Today is a historic day for Rebet as we are bringing together the sports betting community like never before in a seamless app offering unprecedented features,” said Bella DiGiovanni, CMO of Rebet. “With access to official data across all their favorite sports, we are providing our community with a new, and incredible, experience on Rebet.”

The “Rebet” Button and “Peer-to-Peer” Contests

Named after its signature “Rebet” button, Rebet facilitates seamless collaboration among users, giving community members the option to duplicate anyone’s pick with a simple click of a button. 

The app also revolutionizes the sports betting experience by introducing an unparalleled peer-to-peer contest feature, setting a new standard in the industry. This innovative approach transforms the traditional sportsbook landscape by empowering users to engage directly with their friends in spirited competition, challenging each other’s sports knowledge and strategies. 

Moreover, unlike conventional platforms where wagers are placed against predetermined odds or the house, Rebet’s groundbreaking feature places the power in the hands of the players. Users can now create personalized contests, set their own terms, and compete in a more dynamic, interactive environment, deepening the social connections within the community, making every wager a personal duel of wits and prediction prowess.

For more information on Rebet please visit, www.rebet.app, and download the app here on the App Store.

American Cornhole League, Play Anywhere Team For Interactive Experiences

The American Cornhole League today announced a partnership with Play Anywhere Holdings, the global pioneer in driving on-screen interactive experiences, to bring cornhole fans a wide range of live games and engaging content. Beginning this season,ACL fans will be able to interact and play along while watching the live stream of professional cornhole matches. The start of the ACL season begins with “The Kickoff Battle” in Palm Beach, April 4-7.

Under this exclusive agreement for its live streams on ACL Cornhole TV, the league will utilize the Play Anywhere® cutting-edge technology to roll out real-time on-screen interactive experiences.  Fans watching live ACL tournament matches will have opportunities, offered via the Play Anywhere overlay, to play predictive and trivia games, win prizes and buy merchandise.Play Anywhere’s state-of-the-art AI engine will personalize the viewing experience for each of the millions of cornhole fans.  Among its feature-rich capabilities, Play Anywhere enables sponsors to associate their brand with a “magic moment” in the sporting action.

Using the Play Anywhere financial clearinghouse, all the stakeholders in the content distribution value chain will benefit from these new revenue sources gathered fromsponsorships, advertising and e-commerce. Where permitted, gaming advertising and affiliate fees, will also be included for fans interested in betting.  

The ACL professional championships and international tournaments have grown rapidly in the last several years.  The cornhole fan base has exploded digitally, in large measure because of ACL’s state-of-the-art technology platform and streaming of thousands of matches over ACL Cornhole TV.  The combined TV and digital audience for professional cornhole now exceeds 50 million with matches airing on ACLTV, as well as on their partner broadcasters ESPN/ESPN+ and CBS/CBSSN. 

Stacey Moore, Commissioner and Founder of ACLcommented, “Our fans love to engage with our competitions, and this well give them lots of chances to get in on the action and easily buy their favorite merchandise. ACL has always been committed to using state-of-art technology, and we are excited about working with a trailblazing company like Play Anywhere.”

Pete Scott, Chief Strategy Officer of Play Anywhere and former VP of Emerging Media and Innovation at Warner Media-Discovery, stated, “We are honored to partner with one of the premier sports leagues in the world and excited to explore new ways to engage and provide interactive experiences to the ACL sports fan, while utilizing our patented technology to generate new revenue for every participant in the broadcast and streaming value chain. We will leverage our AI software to hyper personalize every ecommerce, gamification and targeted sponsorship so the user is getting their own one-on-one viewing and interactive experience.”

Kitman Labs Announces Performance Data Deal With Tampa Bay Rowdies

Kitman Labs, the global enterprise SaaS platform providing the only single, centralized operating system for performance intelligence in the elite performance industry, today announced a new deal with USL Championship club, the Tampa Bay Rowdies. The Club has deployed iP: Intelligence Platform with the Performance Medicine and Coaching & DevelopmentSolutions across the Men’s First Team.

The Rowdies will now be able to combine player medical data with coaching and talent development data in a single, fully integrated advanced operating system – eliminating information silos, enabling cross-Departmental communication and supporting evidence-based, data-led decision-making. All relevant stakeholders across the team will now have access to a complete, real-time assessment of each player.

“One of our key objectives as a club is to provide our players with the holistic care and development they deserve,” said Rowdies Head Coach Robbie Neilson. “Kitman Labs is a platform that will help our staff achieve that ambition by equipping them with valuable resources and technology. From maximizing player readiness to mitigating injury risk to crafting detailed individual development plans, our team can now collaborate within a single platform to generate the actionable insights necessary to unlock the performance results we’re pursuing across the club.”

“It’s virtually impossible to institute or execute a holistic player care and development strategy with disjointed data and disparate operating systems and processes” said Stephen Smith, CEO and Founder of Kitman Labs. “Our technology unifies organizations around a shared, integrated platform and enables clubs, like the Tampa Bay Rowdies, to convert data into the analytical insights and intelligence necessary to support real-world, strategic and tactical-decision-making, on and off the pitch.”

Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top leagues, teams and regulatory bodies across a variety of sports, including soccer, basketball, rugby, and American football. The company’s technology is currently being used by leagues and teams within some of the world’s most elite sports organizations, including the National Football League (NFL), Premier League, Major League Soccer (MLS), National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).

Kitman Labs represents the industry’s largest network of elite and youth organizations (2000+), creating the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.

The Emirates FA Cup Takes Over New York With Unprecedented US Tour

The Emirates FA Cup, soccer’s oldest and most-esteemed national knockout competition, made its presence felt across the New York area last week, with an inaugural United States trophy tour scoring points and social posts with thousands of casual and diehard football fans, celebrities, youth groups and athletes.

The New York ‘Takeover’ included a special event held pregame at Madison Square Garden with Knicks star Josh Hart and soccer legend Tim Howard; a visit to UBS Arena for a pregame meet and greet with Islanders fans (and their UK supporters group who happened to be on hand that night); a stop in with John Oliver at the Beacon Theater; and visits to other New York landmarks like the board at NASDAQ, Central Park, Brookyln Bridge, 30 Rockefeller Center and the Empire State Building. Additionally, local soccer influencers like Alexis Guerrero took the cup to his favorite NYC spots such as L’Industrie Pizzeria; Dylan Sadik, aka “The College Cuber” reimagined the trophy using Rubik’s cubes for fans to enjoy; and Frankie Flo freestyled alongside the famous silverware.

A major highlight of the tour was partnering with Black Star, a pioneering program dedicated to fostering the growth of soccer in Black American communities, and holding a special clinic at SoFive in Brooklyn. The event aimed to inspire the next generation of soccer players, while also highlighting the importance of diversity and representation within the sport. DaMarcus Beasley, renowned U.S. Soccer legend and Emirates FA Cup veteran, headlined the event and led a soccer clinic alongside local coaches. Beasley shared his personal soccer journey, spanning both sides of the Atlantic, and offered invaluable insights to aspiring players.

Speaking after the event, Beasley said: “Black Star teaming up with the Emirates FA Cup to grow the game in black communities and inspire the next generation is so important. Programs and clinics like these are much needed. My time spent with the kids was so much fun. To be able to watch them compete, learn and have fun was the best outcome I could have asked for.”

The tour was capped by a pair of sold-out viewing parties of the Emirates FA Cup Fifth Round at Moonlight Studios in Soho, where one lucky fan (and a plus one) won the Grand Prize to be a guest of The English Football Association (The FA) for the Emirates FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium in London this May.

James Gray, Commercial Director at The FA, said: “We were delighted to bring the Emirates FA Cup to the US for this historic trophy tour. It’s an exciting time for the game in the US, with the ongoing growth of soccer evident to see, especially with the FIFA World Cup just a couple of years away. The trophy tour was an ideal opportunity to bring US fans closer to this iconic competition through the Watch Parties in collaboration with our broadcast partners ESPN+, and it was special to meet and engage with new audiences at these events.”

Kitman Labs Expands Performance Deal With 2023 NWSL Champions, Gotham FC

Kitman Labs, the global enterprise SaaS platform providing the only single, centralized operating system for performance intelligence in the elite performance industry, today announced a new deal with the 2023 NWSL Champions, New Jersey/New York-based, Gotham FC. On the heels of the NWSL’s deployment of the Performance Medicine Solution from Kitman Labs as its league-wide advanced EMR and securing their first title, Gotham FC will expand the use of iP: Intelligence Platform across the Club to include Performance Optimization.

Gotham FC will now be able to combine player medical data with performance data (eg. game, training, gym, physical testing and more) in a centralized and fully integrated advanced operating system – eliminating information silos, enabling cross-Departmental communication and supporting evidence-based, data-led decision-making. All relevant stakeholders across the team will now have access to a complete, real-time assessment of each athlete. Both players and practitioners will be able to access and input data through a dedicated Coach and Player App to allow for real-time data capture on and off the pitch.

“Our objective at Gotham FC is to set performance standards across the League and across the Sport. To that end, we want to empower our coaches and players with the tools, resources and intelligence necessary to develop talent and unlock player potential. Partnering with Kitman Labs allows us to not only unify our data and analytics, but enables us to collaborate at every level of the organization – on and off the pitch,” said Julian Haigh, Gotham FC High Performance Director.

“Fragmented data leads to fractured teams” said Stephen Smith, CEO and Founder of Kitman Labs. “Our technology enables leagues and teams like NWSL and Gotham City FC to mobilize their data and galvanize their staff and athletes with the actionable insights and intelligence necessary to compete at the most elite levels in sport.”

Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top leagues, teams and regulatory bodies across a variety of sports, including soccer, basketball, rugby, and American football. The company’s technology is currently being used by leagues and teams within some of the world’s most elite sports organizations, including the National Football League (NFL), Premier League, Major League Soccer (MLS), National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) and Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU).

This launch follows other recent business strategy moves Kitman Labs has undertaken including two strategic acquisitions of The Sports Office and Presagia Sports. The combined companies represent the industry’s largest network of elite and youth organizations (2000+), creating the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.