Technology takes football beyond the game

Audi and FC Bayern together in Asia: The Audi Summer Tour 2017 showcases new technologies, fanbases and ideas changing how we experience football

Audi and FC Bayern together in Asia

As with new exercise techniques, stadium redesigns and kit updates, much of the innovation around football technology tends to happen off the pitch. In fact, as most fans will attest, the fanaticism for football goes far beyond 90 minutes, spreading from the game to the broadcast, to social media platforms, helping fans connect, share and enjoy their passion for the game.

Social media is almost certainly a contributor to football’s growing popularity beyond Europe and the Americas.

“Football is growing all over the world,” says Joerg Wacker, Executive Board Member for Internationalisation and Strategy at FC Bayern. “It’s getting more important within society, it’s not just what’s happening on the pitch."In July 2017, FC Bayern proved this in some measure, returning to Asia for the Audi Summer Tour 2017, a perfect showcase for the evolution and innovations happening beyond the game and exploring how fans will experience and engage with football in the not-so-distant future.

The Audi Summer Tour saw Carlo Ancelotti’s men travel to Shanghai, Shenzhen and Singapore –  “visiting friends”, to follow their motto – to go head-to-head in four friendlies against European clubs Arsenal, AC Milan, Chelsea and Inter Milan. “There are no borders anymore,” says Wacker. “I think that the internet changed it all.”

FC Bayern’s presence in Asia was no coincidence. A population of 1.4 billion people is staggering enough, but when 200 million people show an active interest in football – 135 million of which identify as FC Bayern fans – heads start turning all around the world.

This, and the pursuit of growing their footprint in the country, led FC Bayern to opening an office in Shanghai. “If you’re in the market, and you speak with the people, you get a better feel of what they want to have and to connect with them,” explains Stefan Mennerich, head of media, digital and communication at FC Bayern. “There are other platforms which are available here, so we try to customise our content for these platforms.”

With Asia’s community using mobile communication and social media more than anyone on the planet, it’s no wonder football has caught on so fast there, even in the off-season. Naturally, when the Audi Summer Tour 2017 arrived with FC Bayern in July, the technological offerings for fans were particularly remarkable.

With FC Bayern’s Audi Summer Tour 2017, content was constantly available on various platforms, including chat app WeChat, video platform YouKou and Tencent Weibo, a microblogging service, with millions of conversations across evolving fanbases.

If that wasn’t enough, Audi and FC Bayern constructed fan park zones at stadiums – a “great example of the real life and the digital world combining,” says Mennerich – in which fans could experience penalty shoot-outs, holographic technologies, the Audi Player Index and match experiences in VR, using dedicated Sony headsets.

Unsurprisingly, there were selfies too – with FC Bayern’s Giovane Élber, Miroslav Klose, Hasan Salihamidžić meeting excited fans in the zone, ahead of the team kicking off at 10-year-old Shanghai Stadium, which seats over 56,000 fans.

“It was football on a different level,” says Thomas Glas, head of sports marketing at Audi, discussing the fever pitch at VR platforms the fan park. “It was great to see.”

“There are many, many trends on the globe of digitalisation”, says Wacker, referencing what’s to come in the world of fan interaction. “Everything has to be video. Everything has to be shareable – it will have more augmented reality and virtual reality.” It’s an exciting time for the world’s favourite sport – avid fan or no. “There will be more and more developments, which we can’t even see today”.

Perhaps the most avid fans will be able to play a full VR football match, with each player being on a different continent; or be able to test and hone their skills against one of the club’s most impressive new signings; or even discuss and execute tactics and training tools to defeat intelligent computerised opponents.

One thing is for certain, though: football is spreading beyond the game – and it’s not looking back.