In this week’s SBJ Tech newsletter, we break down the sports tech funding rounds of Q2 and connect with new Legends CTO Jim Scholefield on what he hopes to bring to the role. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- FIFA, Hawk-Eye innovating soccer through joint venture
- Monumental Sports Network, ViewLift to aid teams’ local TV plans
- United Pickleball Association teams with PlayReplay for line-calling tech
FIFA, Hawk-Eye innovating football through joint venture

The FIFA Club World Cup has not only been “a perfect test case” for trialing innovations that might debut at the men’s FIFA World Cup 26, but it also has marked the grand unveiling of the Football Technology Center AG. That’s the joint venture created last November by FIFA and Hawk-Eye Innovations with an initial charge of assisting referees and automating data collection.
FIFA and Sony-owned Hawk-Eye first debuted Semi-Automated Offsides Technology at the Qatar World Cup in 2022, and now it has created an enhanced version of it. Only calls in which a player is within 10 centimeters of the offsides line require manual oversight from an official. Also at this tournament, the tabulation of event data -- everything from shots, passes, corner kicks and the like -- has been automated with computer vision algorithms, supplanting what historically had always been a very manual process.
Early feedback has been positive, putting those innovations on track for an appearance at next year’s tournament. The quadrennial World Cup typically serves as a debut for new tech. Goal-line technology first appeared in 2014, VAR in 2018 and SAOT in 2022.
“We recognize that, in order to do stuff which is pretty game-changing, you have to do it on a two-, three-, four-year cycle,” Rufus Hack, the CEO of Sony’s sports businesses, told SBJ. “It doesn’t take a year to develop the technology, to implement it, to refine it, to test it, to introduce it. And so we came on this concept of, let’s do an eight-year joint venture where, effectively, they put in some of their IP, some of their technology, their football expertise. We put in people, our technology expertise, our learnings from other sport.”
The vision of the FTC
The Football Technology Center is based in Zurich, like FIFA, and relies on dedicated personnel from both FIFA and Hawk-Eye. In lieu of a CEO, it is steered by a board of directors, consisting of Hawk-Eye’s Hack and Managing Dir Ben Crossing and FIFA’s Dir of Innovation Johannes Holzmüller and Technical Director Steve Martens. There is also a separate joint operational management committee with equal representation from both entities.
“We see this as potentially the Football Technology Center creating new football technologies, assets and IP, which then can potentially be commercialized-slash-distributed to the rest of the sport,” Hack said. “Ultimately, FIFA are very much about looking to democratize sports technology down to the member associations,” referring to the 211 countries and territories across six continents that are represented by FIFA.
“For us, this is less about a significant revenue opportunity of being able to create new products,” he added. “It’s more about being able to be thought leaders and sitting side by side with FIFA, who are effectively the guardians of football technology in the game, to be able to do these new innovations, and then potentially working together to distribute some of that for the rest of the football community.”
Hawk-Eye’s cameras and algorithms capture data from 29 points on the human body, so a player’s limbs, hands and feet are fully tracked. That generates millions of datapoints per game, but FIFA sought practical use of it.
“We have high-quality data available, but at the end of the day, we also want to have valuable information -- an outcome, not only for officiating, but also for other areas,” Holzmüller said. “We needed to have some vehicle where we can develop and explore how this data can be used in the future.”
The lead time for many of these projects is long, but there other avenues that can be explored. For instance, Hack said it might be possible in the future to use technology to determine whether that ball has gone out of bounds or whether it struck a player’s hand or other part of the body.
“We believe in these big, long-term strategic partnerships,” Hack said. “We believe it provides a much better opportunity for the rightsholder and partner to co-invest alongside each other and genuinely feels like a partnership, rather than that buyer/supplier relationship.”
Monumental, ViewLift to aid teams’ local TV plans

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and digital solution company ViewLift have created a joint product offering to aid the growing number of NBA, MLB and NHL teams looking to either enhance, launch or reimagine their local broadcast templates.
According to Monumental President of Media & New Enterprises Zach Leonsis, more than 20 teams had contacted him over the last three years to discuss best practices, and, in concert with ViewLift CEO Rick Allen, they decided to co-offer a suite of services to teams that want to “own their own local network strategy” -- whether it’s a cable/DTC combination, a free TV/DTC pairing or a cable/free TV/DTC triumvirate. The yet-to-be named product offering will open in the fall.
Reacting to what he called an industry “wave” -- where teams are either acquiring or buying back their local rights amid RSN instability -- Leonsis said Monumental Sports specifically will help teams with the linear side of their local TV business. That could entail production services for live games along with pre- and post-game shows, crewing, management of trucks, consulting, ad sales, analytics, sponsorships, studio innovation, linear monetization, shoulder programming and subscription services. Monumental has crucial experience with all of that itself, ever since Wizards and Capitals owner Ted Leonsis purchased NBC Sports Washington in 2022 and transformed it into Monumental Sports Network essentially from scratch with new production plants and studios.
At the same time, ViewLift will lead their clients’ digital product, through an end-to-end DTC streaming solution, programming distribution and custom apps across web, mobile and connected TVs. ViewLift helped the Leonsis’ launch Monumental+, and, overall, has 16 major U.S. pro sports clients, including single local TV franchises such as the Lightning, Golden Knights and Panthers of the NHL, all of whom are aligned with Scripps. ViewLift also already has partnerships with six total RSNs, including Chicago Sports Network.
“This isn’t a forced buy on any team,” Allen said. “ViewLift will continue to offer its digital services independently of Monumental. ... But together, it’s the biggest a la carte menu available to teams out there. And so I think teams will take a look at what a full offering represents, compare that to what they have, or what else they’re looking at, and start to make some decisions about what they’d like to see from both of us as providers.”
The timing of the endeavor seems prudent. Over the past two seasons, NBA teams such as the Jazz, Suns, Mavericks, Pelicans and Trail Blazers have parted with their RSNs for OTA-DTC packages, with several creating in-house local networks such as Mavs TV, Gulf Coast Sports & Entertainment (Pelicans), and the Rip City Television Network (Blazers). But none of those teams’ rights fees or local TV revenue has been significant, which is why franchises such as the Hawks, Bucks, Cavaliers and Heat have all reupped with their Main Street Sports Group RSNs.
But the Main Street contracts for four more teams -- the Hornets, Grizzlies, Magic and Timberwolves-- expire after the 2025-26 season, meaning those teams, if not more, could conceivably hire Monumental/ViewLift for their learnings. Theoretically then, the Monumental/ViewLift enterprise could lure more teams to go at it alone. For instance, the Knicks and Wizards utilize the cable-DTC template, while a team like the Nuggets (a client of ViewPoint, as are the Avalanche) deploys a cable/OTA/DTC component. Teams can lean on Monumental/ViewLift gameplans to pick their respective routes.
“I think it could be a long-term solution, because in many ways, again, we’re not asking to own and operate networks on behalf of team clients,’’ Zach Leonsis said. “I think more teams are going to be owning their own networks, and this is in service to help them operate those networks.’’
“If you’re a small market single team, and you don’t have distribution with an RSN next year, and you say, ‘I got to stand up my own solution,’ where do you go? And [if they] say ‘We don’t have production resources. We don’t have trucks. We don’t have a studio. We don’t have a streaming solution. I don’t know how to get this. I don’t know how to how to handle transmission and play out. I don’t know who the distributors are?’ That’s where you would call us.”
Editor’s note: SBJ and Monumental are partners on a monthly television show, “SBJ: Inside the Industry,” that airs on the Monumental Sports Network.
UPA teams with PlayReplay for line-calling tech

The United Pickleball Association has signed a partnership with electronic line-calling technology vendor PlayReplay and plans to implement its tech across the PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball, likely within the next two years.
Under its current rules, UPA players call their own lines and are afforded video-based challenges if playing on one of an event’s two main, camera-equipped courts. UPA CEO Connor Pardoe said the vision is for PlayReplay’s system to roll out across all eight competition courts the UPA utilizes per event, although it is still yet to be determined whether the courts would utilize PlayReplay’s technology for live line-calling, or uber-precise challenges.
“We think there’s a problem in general with pickleball line-calling,” Pardoe told SBJ. “A lot of the time, all four players are at the net and the ball passes you, and the question is, ‘Is that ball in or is it out?’ One team hit the ball and is biased and is watching their own ball. The other team is flipping their head around as quick as they can, trying to see if the ball is in or out. It makes line-calling even more controversial than what you would see in recreational tennis, junior tennis, maybe even college tennis.”
Pardoe said precise financial terms of the partnership are still being finalized, but that another appeal was PlayReplay being more affordable and lightweight than more established line-calling solutions like Hawk-Eye. The UPA-PlayReplay deal will also see the UPA become PlayReplay’s “official pickleball distributor,” according to Pardoe, meaning they will act as an extension of PlayReplay’s product distribution arm at pickleball clubs.
Pardoe added that the UPA is planning to shift its athlete compensation model to be weighted further towards prize money, rather than guaranteed contracts, raising the stakes of match integrity further.
“One of the number one concerns we had from pro players was: ‘As soon as we move to [the prize money model], there’s so much on the line for every single point, we’re really worried about cheating,’” Pardoe said. “As soon as we get to that prize money model -- we’re hoping it’s next year, it might be the year after, but we’re hoping it’s as soon as possible -- then we’ll have this line-calling technology for all pro courts at all PPA and MLP events.”
PlayReplay’s ELC system, which has primarily been used for tennis since the Stockholm-based startup was founded in 2019, is comprised of four net-post-affixed, AI-powered cameras that track ball coordinates and other metrics. USTA Ventures invested in the company last year and has been demoing it at ITF Pro Circuit tournaments. PlayReplay also began working with the Intercollegiate Tennis Association (ITA) last year on a pilot program for ELC in college tennis.
Looking ahead, PlayReplay’s system additionally collects match analytics (e.g., ball spin rate) that the UPA could look to leverage once the cameras are in place.
“Our hope is, first, let’s get the line-calling -- and then, two, what made these guys interesting is you then can go further than that, it goes into actually data and analytics,” Pardoe said. “We just want to create the best thing for players to be able to understand their own game, understand their opponent’s game, and for fans to be able to learn more about the sport.”