Australia's Blackbird backs virtual football league

A string of professional sportspeople participated in the round as strategic investors. They include former Manchester United players Chris Smalling, Patrice Evra, and Jess Lingard, tennis players Naomi Osaka and Nick Kyrgios, Australian cricketer Steve Smith, and UFC fighter Kamaru Usman, Peter Davis, co-founder and CEO of 1FF, said in a LinkedIn post.

Davis established the company last year with Rohit Bhargava. Both are serial entrepreneurs with backgrounds in social media and a longstanding interest in football. They became acquainted as fellow fantasy football league players, and 1FF could be viewed as an extension of this concept.

Speaking to the Sydney Morning Herald, they identified two sources of inspiration: a university friend of Davis who played the computer game Football Manager, often in front of large informal on-campus audiences; and a BBC article about entrepreneurs in the US inventing fictional football clubs to sell shirts.

They have now created a league of 12 teams – featuring 252 players – from around the world designed to appeal to young fans in each location. “We've created athletes with deep narratives, personalities and backstories that play in matches that are shorter, highlight driven and built for the changing way that younger fans are engaging with sports and content,” Bhargava said in a separate LinkedIn post.

The first round of matches on June 14 saw Naija United overcome Manhattan FC 3-2 at the Eleguishi Beach Stadium in Lekki, Nigeria, Inter Nusantara lose 3-2 to Paris St-Denis in Jakarta, and Tokyo Youth Club secure a 4-3 victory over Club Sportivo Palermo at the Parque Olimpico Stadium in Buenos Aires.

The platform is underpinned by artificial intelligence-driven engines: one determines the results by drawing on thousands of different data points; another generates off-field storylines to keep fans engaged with content between matches. Every match is freely accessible by social media in the form of highlights packages or no more than 10 minutes.

In creating the teams and players – 88 different countries are represented – the founders deliberately chose markets where football is popular but lack top-level professional leagues as well as the sport’s traditional strongholds.

“I have no real connection to Liverpool as a city. But I’m a huge fan of the team,” Bhargava told the Sydney Morning Herald. “We’re trying to create something that allows people to have deeper connections in the same way, but something that’s a little bit more representative of them and who they are and where they come from.”

Revenue is expected to come from in-game sponsorships, advertisements and other commercial partnerships. There are plans to sell player cards that effectively enable fans to own a piece of their favourite players - earning 1FF credits and unlocking collectables based on how a player performs.

Targeting the nexus of sport and technology has emerged as a popular early-stage investment theme that spans fan-oriented concepts such as fantasy leagues, e-sports, and gambling. This includes real as well as virtual sports franchises, which are increasingly focused on revenue source diversification and want to become brands that extend beyond the stadium.

George Pyne, founder and CEO of sport-focused investor Bruin Capital, which has exposure to Australia through marketing business TGI Sports, told AVCJ last year that new media will continue to grow even as old media players hold on as long as possible.

“We always talk about the lifetime value of the consumer – that will be the tip of the spear for future growth in sport. You might have fewer people at the match, but the way you position products around them could generate a lot more value,” he said.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Technology
• Consumer
• Early-stage
• Australia
• Blackbird Ventures
• TMT