Supponor reports season of growth
July 12, 2023
Supponor, a specialist in the virtual advertising industry, has announced that it exceeded its targets to double the deployment of its award-winning AI-based virtual advertising platform Supponor AIR, growing beyond the 1,000+ events delivered in the 2021-22 season. The technology was implemented in close to 3,000 live sports events across every continent, encompassing a wide variety of sports from football to hockey to motorsport during the 2022-23 season. The company also continued to grow in line with these achievements, announcing several senior executive appointments and the opening of a major new R&D facility focusing on AI.
A number of new deals with diverse sporting federations and organisations were brought to fruition this season, including the NHL, the premier North American professional hockey league, which partnered with Supponor in a multi-year agreement to develop its ground-breaking Digitally Enhanced Dasherboard (DED) technology solution, enabling the real-time digital replacement of camera-visible arena dasherboards within live local, national and international NHL game broadcasts. The award-winning technology was deployed this season across all 32 clubs and arenas, supporting over 2,500 distinct live broadcast integrations across more than 1,400 games, enabling market-specific, targeted advertising and promotional messaging for the first time. This is a major step in Supponor’s growth in the ice hockey world, building up from its ongoing partnerships with 3ICE and IIHF.
The adoption of Supponor AIR in football also continued to gain momentum, with leading federations including the FA (UK), RFEF (Spain), DFB (Germany), FIGC (Italy), ÖFB (Austria) and SvFF (Sweden) all deploying the virtual advertising technology during key international match broadcasts. Supponor’s technology has also been adopted by several elite football leagues and clubs across the Bundesliga (Germany), La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), Ligue 1 (France) and the A-Leagues (Australia) as well as on pan-European level.
In the past year, Supponor has also expanded its dominance of virtual advertising in several new sports, including basketball, cricket, rugby, motorsports, baseball, and handball. The European Handball Federation (EHF) worked with Supponor to implement virtual advertising at the Women’s EHF EURO 2022 tournament in Slovenia, marking the first ever virtual advertising deployment in handball and the first use of Supponor technology at a women’s sports event.
The Supponor team was strengthened during the year with several key senior appointments, including Simon Green as Chief Operating Officer, Jarod Were as VP Strategic Development, and most recently Rusty Lawrence as Business Development Executive.
Continuing its ambitious drive for technological innovation and market expansion, Supponor opened a new R&D facility in France this year to conduct short-term and long-term research into computer vision AI and natural scene rendering.
James B. Gambrell, CEO, Supponor, says: “It has been an incredible year for Supponor as we exceeded our goals for live event deployment, cemented existing partnerships and built relationships with new customers, and continued to develop our AI-based technologies as we seek new marketing opportunities for rights holders in sports. Far from resting on our laurels, we are galvanised to move towards the new season with renewed ambition to surpass this year’s outstanding achievements.”