Speaker 1: You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio. Yeah, you are listening to Bloomberg Business Week
Speaker 1: on this Wednesday. I'm Carol Master in our Bloomberg Interactor
Speaker 1: Broker studio. So our next guest was appointed CEO of Catapult.
Speaker 1: I think it just kind of a little more than
Speaker 1: a year ago, put in charge of running the sports
Speaker 1: performance analytics and technology company, and talk about timing just
Speaker 1: a few months before the world and especially Catapult sports
Speaker 1: clientele world shutting down because of the pandemic. Having said that,
Speaker 1: the stock is on quite a tear this year, let's
Speaker 1: talk about this year and what's to come. Joining us
Speaker 1: as Will Lopes, CEO of the publicly held Catapult based
Speaker 1: in Australia. He's former chief revenue officer of Amazon's Audible subsidiary.
Speaker 1: Long time with that company. But we're joining us on
Speaker 1: this Wednesday on the phone in New York. Hey, Well,
Speaker 1: nice to have you here. Hey, Carol, thank you for
Speaker 1: having me. How are you So? What has your world
Speaker 1: been like since March? And how has it changed since
Speaker 1: March and April? God, it's it's it feels like, you know,
Speaker 1: like I one year anniversary with Catapult talk about timing
Speaker 1: five years. That's right, that's right. You know, the sports
Speaker 1: the sports world has changed quite quite drastically and very rapidly.
Speaker 1: But you know, luckily for us, it's starting to bounce
Speaker 1: back quite well. I think they've managed to find ways
Speaker 1: to return to play um and so I think we've
Speaker 1: been quite lucky on that front. But you know, I
Speaker 1: could tell you that from March to about June, I
Speaker 1: think we're all sweating trying to figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: where where where things were going. But it's it's actually
Speaker 1: turned out to be just fine. Yeah, I feel like
Speaker 1: in anything, it's funny. We knew things were getting really
Speaker 1: serious when all of the sports world started shut down.
Speaker 1: That's when we all started looking each other. We're like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is It's like, it's unbelievable. But that that was
Speaker 1: our metrics. Um. It just it just kind of took
Speaker 1: it to a whole other level because you know, right,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of money. It's it's the teams, it's
Speaker 1: the franchises, it's the statements, the stadiums, it's you know,
Speaker 1: um and it's the broadcast rights. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: just a lot involved. But it's interesting the sports world
Speaker 1: has really out like in many ways, especially look at
Speaker 1: what the NBA did, really figured out how to do it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you know what what you know, what was
Speaker 1: interesting for us from an industry perspective was that, you know,
Speaker 1: the shutdown was globally and all at once, right, and
Speaker 1: so unlike other industries where I think that you know,
Speaker 1: it's felt regionally for different parts. Um. For us, it
Speaker 1: really happened globally. UM. But I think you know what
Speaker 1: we saw from our clients was you know a lot
Speaker 1: of them reached out almost immediately and they right up
Speaker 1: right from the start, I wanted to have plans about
Speaker 1: how to return to play, how to use our technology
Speaker 1: in terms of training you know, their athletes at home
Speaker 1: because they got concerned about you know, getting stale from
Speaker 1: a from a from an athletic performance perspective, how do
Speaker 1: they review tapes from home? How do they start to
Speaker 1: view video and the like? Um? And what really changed UM.
Speaker 1: And I think you know what we're seeing in the
Speaker 1: industry quite rapidly is that you know, even with things
Speaker 1: like the NBA where they had a bubble, um, there
Speaker 1: was you know, a core set of people who were
Speaker 1: still working from home, UM, and so a lot of
Speaker 1: the activities that we did in stadium or in training
Speaker 1: centers really went to the house, which was was quite
Speaker 1: an unusual thing for us to kind of prepare ourselves for.
Speaker 1: I don't think we've thought about that. So tell tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit more about that, what you were doing.
Speaker 1: So there were a lot of athletes that were using
Speaker 1: your equipment at home and you guys were trying Just
Speaker 1: tell us about that. That's fascinating. So so so the
Speaker 1: core problems we have. You know, we have a lot
Speaker 1: of solutions that help teams perform and do their best.
Speaker 1: But you know, we have really two core solutions. One
Speaker 1: is a wearable device that athletes were on their torso
Speaker 1: and we're using that to measure all kinds of data points,
Speaker 1: really trying to help them, you know, stay healthy and
Speaker 1: return to play and kind of bp performance during their
Speaker 1: training sessions. And then we have a video solution that
Speaker 1: is utilized by hundreds of teams here in the US
Speaker 1: UM where they use that to analyze basically, you know,
Speaker 1: their past game or their next opponent's game. UM. And
Speaker 1: so from a wearables perspective, typically that's utilized in the
Speaker 1: training center, so they you know, athletes come into more
Speaker 1: in their trainers hand them out, they look at the
Speaker 1: data that you know that's coming in from from the athletes,
Speaker 1: and then they're modifying the training session based on that. UM.
Speaker 1: So we had to modify that so that all of
Speaker 1: these pods when individually to everyone's home and they could
Speaker 1: train at home, then upload their data and have the
Speaker 1: trainer basically modify their training sessions from from their own house. UM.
Speaker 1: So that was a very different workflow for us. And
Speaker 1: then in the video front, UM. You know, typically you
Speaker 1: have you know, coaches are are reviewing tape UM where
Speaker 1: they have athletes near them and they're doing illustration live
Speaker 1: and they're talking about you know, you know you should
Speaker 1: have done this differently or here's something that you know
Speaker 1: you should think about in the next game. UM. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, that workflow had to be you know,
Speaker 1: uh remote workflow, just like we're all the only with
Speaker 1: from you know, from a zoom perspective, right, UM. And
Speaker 1: so the illustrations needed to be you know remote, They
Speaker 1: needed to kind of adapt so that they could use
Speaker 1: video conferencing. UM. So we had to modify our software
Speaker 1: quite a bit. For that for dealing with this situation.
Speaker 1: I'm also curious, well, how did I'm also tracking the
Speaker 1: virus specifically be part of this. I'm assuming that that
Speaker 1: was added to the platform. If not, Yeah, it was,
Speaker 1: it was. It was actually you know, European Soccer was
Speaker 1: the first group of professional athletes that came back to
Speaker 1: play UM, and they had quite a high bar in
Speaker 1: terms of what they are allowed to do during training sessions. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so they could come in, they had to come
Speaker 1: in with you know, a certain number of people given times,
Speaker 1: and they had to ensure that they were keeping six
Speaker 1: foot distance during training UM. And so what they were
Speaker 1: using our hardware for it was actually to monitor that
Speaker 1: to say, you know, here's a training session that allows
Speaker 1: us to do it and keep social distancing. UM. They
Speaker 1: also wanted to make sure that they tracked it and
Speaker 1: send it back to the league office to say, look,
Speaker 1: you know, we're following the rules. UM. So they utilize
Speaker 1: our software from a contract tracing perspective, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: very widely at this point. Yeah, it's really fascinating. It
Speaker 1: sounds like the pivot was fairly just got about thirty
Speaker 1: seconds and then we'll do some news and come back.
Speaker 1: But in thirty seconds. It sounds like the pit of
Speaker 1: it was fairly easy for you guys in terms especially,
Speaker 1: you know, doing more tracking of athletes at home and
Speaker 1: so on. Yeah. Well, in hindsight everything that's so true,
Speaker 1: it's not when you're in the middle of it, right
Speaker 1: in the thick of it doesn't feel so I think what,
Speaker 1: you know, what was great was that, you know, we
Speaker 1: were able to act so quickly, But in hindsight, you know,
Speaker 1: if you look at at the time, it was actually
Speaker 1: quite a monumental task for our team. Well, what's your
Speaker 1: outlook for I don't know, maybe what are you hearing
Speaker 1: from your sports client? Tell in your customers about what
Speaker 1: looks like because I think people are starting to get optimistic.
Speaker 1: I keep hearing about people thinking, Okay, maybe we'll have
Speaker 1: this conference, or maybe we'll have this event. You know,
Speaker 1: they're just kind of waiting to get a little bit
Speaker 1: better of a better feel. What are you hearing What
Speaker 1: are you anticipating for next yearly supporting the supporting world,
Speaker 1: You're you're definitely seeing some optimism in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: I think people feel that probably by the springtime that
Speaker 1: you know, things will be fairly back to normal. Maybe
Speaker 1: stadiums will be full yet with with fans, but it
Speaker 1: will be starting to get close to it. So there
Speaker 1: is optimism you're seeing in the industry. We're definitely seeing
Speaker 1: a pick up in terms of conversations in sales. You know,
Speaker 1: kind of we're put in hold while people waited for
Speaker 1: some level of certainty. Is a conversation, So it's conversations,
Speaker 1: maybe not actual sales, but your people are talking about
Speaker 1: it more. Yeah. I think, you know, we had a
Speaker 1: period where it was kind of, you know, our existing
Speaker 1: clients stayed with us because they knew exactly what you know,
Speaker 1: they had and how they were using it. But new
Speaker 1: clients I think just kind of said, look, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all just gonna wait everything back in play, and
Speaker 1: those those those potential clients are now coming back and saying, okay,
Speaker 1: we're ready to talk. Um. It also took a little
Speaker 1: bit of time, I think for the industry as a
Speaker 1: whole to accept that, you know, you didn't have to
Speaker 1: be in person to have a conversation about, you know,
Speaker 1: a new technology. I think everybody's now is starting to
Speaker 1: get to this point of yeah, I can understand that,
Speaker 1: you know, we could do this via a video conferencing. UM,
Speaker 1: so we're definitely seen a bit optimism and and that's
Speaker 1: been very fortunate for us. Well that's good. Okay, So
Speaker 1: where do you guys go from here? And I'm curious
Speaker 1: about what we were talking about the wearable markets and
Speaker 1: I'm thinking about you know, so many I've talked to
Speaker 1: a lot of CEOs and they just said there were
Speaker 1: certain plan strategies that we had in place, but they
Speaker 1: got accelerated because we hadn't moved much more quickly on
Speaker 1: them because of the pandemic. There are other strategies that
Speaker 1: we're not going to pursue anymore because we can just
Speaker 1: see the world is changing. Um. How has this world
Speaker 1: and this year maybe impacted some of the strategies that
Speaker 1: you guys are doing at your company? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: for for the most part, I think one of the
Speaker 1: core strategy that we have is to actually centralize a
Speaker 1: lot of the data points that you know, these teams
Speaker 1: and athletes are having access. So UM, that really hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: And so you know, technology has become really prolific in sports. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, they measured just about everything at this stage,
Speaker 1: whether that's nutrition or sleep or performance in the field
Speaker 1: and training and the video and trying to connect all
Speaker 1: of those things and actually make cohesive sense of it
Speaker 1: is really that's in the industry and that's been core
Speaker 1: of our strategy or a catapult. UM. So luckily for us,
Speaker 1: I think that that continues. What I would say, you
Speaker 1: know that that the element that really is changing for
Speaker 1: us is the expectation of that technology is accessible and
Speaker 1: available everywhere. UM. And so you know, sort of the
Speaker 1: connectivity component of I could do this in the training session, UM,
Speaker 1: I could look at my laptop, but I also may
Speaker 1: want to look at my phone now with the pandemic
Speaker 1: is you know, I realized I could do a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff from home. I could do a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff when I'm on the road. UM. And so the
Speaker 1: ability to kind of have those uh you know, access
Speaker 1: at any at any point, UM is something that I
Speaker 1: think is accelerating for us. We knew it was coming, UM,
Speaker 1: but I think now it's really accelerated for us. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'd say the third thing, UM that maybe this
Speaker 1: is I think you know, perhaps with with everybody being home, UM,
Speaker 1: the one thing that is changing a little bit is
Speaker 1: that you know the line between sfessional and amateur athletes
Speaker 1: starting to blo um. And so I think you're seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of the amateur athletes you know who were
Speaker 1: at home who now have been you know, maybe have
Speaker 1: a pent up designer to exercise and go out and
Speaker 1: work out. They're all looking out and saying, you know,
Speaker 1: what are the technologies that are out there too? Not
Speaker 1: just get me back in shape or you know, getting
Speaker 1: to improve my technique, but really improve you know, my
Speaker 1: physique and how do I do that from a professional standpoint?
Speaker 1: And and a lot of the products we have, I
Speaker 1: think are you know, eventually will be simplified enough that
Speaker 1: you know, anyone whether they're a high school student, you know,
Speaker 1: a you know, early college entry or a professional athlete
Speaker 1: could use Wow, that sounds like a kind of a
Speaker 1: potential tremendous revenue stream for you guys eventually. Right, that's
Speaker 1: a big mass market there, really is. I think that
Speaker 1: you know that that we we've we've been very lucky
Speaker 1: because we're the leaders in the professional side of the
Speaker 1: house and there's about fifteen thousand professional teams across the
Speaker 1: globe and we do very well there. But you know,
Speaker 1: when you think about you know, sort of semi professionals
Speaker 1: or non professional teams. Just in the US there's about
Speaker 1: three hundred and fifty thousand high school teams, and when
Speaker 1: you get below of that, there's you know, millions of
Speaker 1: amateur athletes and they all have the same desires. How
Speaker 1: do I improve, how do I stay healthy? How do
Speaker 1: I avoid injury? Um? And how do I get feel
Speaker 1: that I'm doing better and then I'm not just doing
Speaker 1: the same thing? And and the fact that we have
Speaker 1: access to these professional data, how we could use that
Speaker 1: data and turn it into a you know, an AI
Speaker 1: type of engine that really helps high school and youth
Speaker 1: academies and then consumers, um, you know, sort of improving
Speaker 1: their performance. I think is is a mass market, uh
Speaker 1: for sure to be continued. Let us know how things
Speaker 1: are going, especially when we get on the other side
Speaker 1: of this. UM. Well, good to check in with you
Speaker 1: willop see CEO of Catapult joining us on the phone
Speaker 1: from New York City on this Wednesday. Really interesting to
Speaker 1: hear again a very similar story that we've heard that
Speaker 1: I think initially folks were you know, really irbis certainly
Speaker 1: obviously when the pandemic first hit. But then you know,
Speaker 1: as things start to unwine and we figured out how
Speaker 1: to kind of get through even the sports industry, um,
Speaker 1: you know, able to maintain at least some level of demand.
Speaker 1: They are so really fascinating,