As football continues to be at the forefront of sporting activities in Qatar this year, Google Cloud announced today an expanded collaboration with Sponix Tech, the Qatar-based sports technology provider, that has been providing a first-of-its-kind immersive match experience for football fans around the world. Leveraging Google Cloud’s infrastructure, Sponix Tech has provided two differentiated technology solutions that are used by broadcasters, football leagues and clubs in the Middle East and Europe.
The collaboration with Google Cloud has enabled Sponix Tech to become one of the first companies worldwide to bring immersive replays and virtual advertisement technologies with fully remote production workflow over internet protocol (IP). This unique offering allows Sponix Tech to provide breakthrough software-based solutions for the sports industry without the need for any hardware set up in stadiums.
To provide an enhanced fan experience Sponix Tech introduced SPOV, a unique solution that serves up an immersive replay for viewers to experience the match in the eyes of their favorite players. Top-tier names like UEFA, Mediapro Belgium, UAE Pro League, S.L. Benfica and FC Koln use SPOV for their matches to provide their fans with the immersive experience. Also, broadcasters such as beIN Sports, RMC Sport and Al Kass are able to enhance their fan experience with this technology in their studio programs. The solution has become a very popular feature among fans, as it gives them the opportunity to relive their favorite moments of a football match from multiple perspectives. This innovative technology was implemented for the first time during the UAE Super Cup in 2020, where fans had the opportunity to replay their favorite players’ moments during the Super Cup finale.
The second technology solution developed by Sponix Tech that is deployed on Google Cloud’s infrastructure is SPboard, which adds virtual advertisements for sports events in real-time without the need for any additional equipment installed in the stadium. The solution has created a new era for sports sponsorship for rights holders by allowing them to accommodate a higher volume of advertisers while being very sustainable, as fans view rotating advertising banners in the stadium while watching the match at home or online.
Ghassan Kosta, Country Manager Qatar at Google Cloud said: “Our journey with Sponix Tech has been an exciting one, as we have supported them to deliver their technologies on the cloud since the company’s early days as a startup. With Sponix Tech now becoming a global player in the sports industry, this shows the potential businesses have in Qatar when building their infrastructure on Google Cloud. As Qatar continues to accelerate its digital vision and provide a platform for companies like Sponix Tech to innovate on a global scale, Google Cloud will continue to offer advanced cloud solutions to support these technological aspirations, and play an instrumental role in powering technology and infrastructure in the years to come”.
Mohammad Ali Abbaspour, CEO of Sponix Tech added: “Using Google Cloud helps us deliver our services in the highest level of the sports industry. From the beginning of our journey as a startup to where we are today, we’ve experienced tremendous support from Google Cloud as one of the main cloud providers we relied on to introduce and deliver our innovative solutions to the sports industry. With the latest collaboration on the dedicated resources of Google Cloud, I believe we will grow our footprint in new territories and continue to provide our services to more football leagues and broadcasters around the world”.
Running its virtual advertisement and immersive replay technologies on Google Cloud has allowed Sponix Tech to also deliver its business services and provide the capabilities necessary to deploy its solutions quickly, on a highly safe, secure, and reliable infrastructure.
