Tomer Yehudayan: Why Israel is the Sports-Tech Nation? (Full Transcript)
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Full Transcript:
Ronen Ainbinder
Today's Halftime snack features a lecturer and an entrepreneur from Israel promoting the sports tech community through Israeli technologies.
He was a basketball player for Hapoel Jerusalem, and he's been a referee of professional leagues, including wheelchair basketball, for the last eleven years.
Currently, he is the Country Manager & Head of Knowledge at Colosseum Sports Innovation.
There, he leads the group's education activities, assists startups in the field, organizes sports events, and delivers education programs to sports executives and professional players.
He is also the head of the sports tech management program in Wingate — which is Israel's leading sports institution — and a lecturer of the sports entrepreneurship course at Ben-Gurion University.
It is an honor & a pleasure to host him on today's halftime snacks, ladies & gentlemen. Tomer Yehudayan!
Tomer Yehudayan
Hello, hello.
Ronen Ainbinder
Hey, man, welcome to the show.
Tomer Yehudayan
Thank you. Thank you. Happy to be here.
Ronen Ainbinder
It's great to have you on the Halftime Snacks Tomer! I want to start by talking about how you got to where you are. What are some of the critical moments that made you realize that there's a huge area of opportunity in sports technology?
Tomer Yehudayan
So I'm going to share with you two stories. The first was 2014. And I wasn't the word got on Brazil. And I had to take it for Brazil against Colombia in Fortaleza. And I have a ticket for the bus; there were the shuttles. And we wait for the shot demo, and it was a huge mess. And then you many people start to walk through the stadium, and we walk there. It was a lot of it. But funny, and many people in the middle serve Cerveza, so it was an amazing atmosphere. But when you think about this mega event and transportation, you understand there is a pain in every place you have pain; you also have solutions. And the second story was two years ago, I officiated a basketball referee, as you mentioned, and there was like less than a second on the clock. It was a very tight game. One player shot a free throw, and the player from the same team, jump for the rebound, take the rebound to the basket. And it's supposed to be overtime. So I talked with the other referee ask him; do you think you jump on time? I don't know. And it's not top division. We don't have the Var. We don't have a camera. So you go with your intuition. So the general plan is to go with the attack, and we approve the basket. That same team wins in overtime. And later, when we look at the video, we saw that it was an illegal basket. But it's exactly kind of the place when technology can help humans to have better decisions.
Ronen Ainbinder
I'm sure that you weren't able to sleep for a few nights after you gave the victory to the wrong team. But I agree with you, man. I think that when it comes to pain, pain also equals an opportunity. And it's great that you were able to see it that way. And I want to know your take about Israel as one of the leading countries in sports technology and technology itself. On the startup nation. The sports tech nation is also known as I want to know what do you think about it? Why are the reasons why Israel is one of the leading countries in all of these areas?
Tomer Yehudayan
So there are many variables like why Israel has such a strong high tech industry. One of them, of course, is that we have luck. When we didn't have water, we found a new technology, taking the water from the sea, and seeing it in every different sector. Take, for example, the automotive. So in Israel, like 40 years ago, there was one car called ToSita, it was a very, very bad car, there was a joke, and the comments in the desert will eat the car. And still today, we are one of the strongest countries in the automotive. We have WAZE, Moovit, Mobileye. Why? Because we understand that even if we don't have the best cars or the best sport, we still can leverage it by our technologies. And in Israel. Amazing brains and people from all other worldwide, and huge corporations that decided to put their R&D centers here, you can see the sports you can see Nike, and this morning, the sponsor and of course, in other sectors. And the reason that the people here are very warm, it's easy here to talk with the CEO. And to connect things and see the Co-working space, I worked in one of those before the COVID. And things moving so fast, something in the country's DNA, and the values of the tech words are similar, and investing in tech in general. And in sports tech. Until a few years ago, it was one company here and there. But I have the honor to be part of one of the most active sports community sports group that promotes many activities in the past three years. And our plan is the sports tech nation. Because of the sport in Israel, we have only nine medals. We had only two players in the NBA. But we want to see more measures you want to see more players want to see better stay in for the national team. And we believe that through technology, we can improve our sport and the sport in general.
Ronen Ainbinder
Man, I love that. I want to ask you since everyone goes to the army when you are 18 years old in Israel. Do you think that the army is one reason why Israelis have developed a mindset of coming up with solutions coming up with technology coming up with things that will fix, as you mentioned, the automotive industry? There are also innovations in agriculture in security. There are so many things that have come out of that. So I want to know if you think that the army's why Israel can lead in these areas of innovation?
Tomer Yehudayan
The army generates two things: technologies and brilliant brains. And you see some of the startups in the sports industry that come from army technology. You can see, for example, a cognitive training application that today, they train with kind of a simulator that starts in the army for pilots. And now it's in for soccer players intelligent, and you see in many other places. And yes, the fact that young people 18, 19, 20 in Israel are in a way thrown to the deep pool, and then they may have a lot of responsibility, and very intense three years. It generates everything. And then we go for probably to a trip to South America, some people to the east. And you see the ward and your beck and us What is my place? And if the same people ask what their place after they see the misery, the pain, and the head depression, and you see the people who combine it with sports, I think that's what all will unite us. They go and do it. And they already have the connection. They already know they're capable. We have liked it really in the country that a lot of possibilities are already here.
Ronen Ainbinder
Yeah, man. I think that's a pretty unique characteristic about Israel. And that's why people there think about innovation the way they do. And I love that. And I want to switch over now a little bit to talk about how you've become this educator of up and coming talent in the sports technology space. I want to ask you specifically what the main goals of creating an education program are? Or how do you strategically think about educating the emerging and talent that will lead Israel's sports industry in the next 20, 30, 40 years?
Tomer Yehudayan
When you look at the future of sports, you must have leaders who manage the sport. The emerging technologies 50, 30, 10 years ago, the manager, the coach mainly had his stomach; he said: go right, go left, this player is down, this goes to the bench. But nowadays, the big difference is the data. And when you have the data, you have the tools, all the tools, and all the tools. Everything that drives the decision making for those sports theater has changed. So the future managers and coaches need to understand that they have new tools and new technologies that can help them. I don't want to insult anyone but have those dinosaurs who are still thinking with an old mentality. They have a lot of maps of interest that they don't want to change a thing. And this is the pleasant innovation stack. And when you have a new and new generation of managers that speak the language of text, speak the language of intrapreneurship. Things were happening, and some people thought, okay, but I'm not Real Madrid and Barcelona and do not have the prize to use the stack. But now look, for example, on Hapoel Katamon, I'm from Jerusalem born and raised, and is a no, it's called upon Jerusalem, and small company from the Second Division, one of their manager was very open to innovation. And he helped for wanting to partner to start to put his data company over there. Now with zone seven, and they help teams in the state in the LaLiga, to reduce the number of injuries through very smart models. So it's not to be the technical guide is not to be the engineer is to understand the language to understand the need, what what is the challenge? What is the technology, give to us. And through that, and connect those people, because you speak about the programs. Now we're going to launch an executive sports program. We took people like the head of innovation from Under Armour, from the IOC, even a Lyon player, who have those challenges. And if you do something right, in Italy or Spain, it's always good to share, always good to know what's happening in other places, and how you can create this mutual value.
Ronen Ainbinder
Man, that's awesome. I can hear your passion. I know you're very passionate about sports and technology. And I love that. And I want to know, how are you guys in Coliseum, which is one of the leading if not the most important company leading innovation in sports? How are you guys building the future of sports? What is the strategy? What is the mindset?
Tomer Yehudayan
We try to make it easy. We want it will be easy for you. If you're a coach or manager to find the right technology, we want to help you implement your organization's technology. We want to make it easy for you to find the right people that can help you with the project we want to find for our students and in general for all, especially for the sports industry, and to find the jobs and create those jobs for them. And if I break it for like three main verticals of Coliseum. So, first of all, we are a community. We had a wonderful event two months ago, and we had more than 2000 attendees, Lance Armstrong, the head of sponsorship of Coca Cola, and much more. And we also do small, small events from delta-V marathon demo days and much more. We have annual reports, and we want to share the knowledge that people that want to learn more return be easy for them, and you don't need to go when checking a 10,000 article. And then we have our three verticals. The first one is the data. We develop a winterize. It's a data platform that you can find more than 3000 Sports tech startups, and you can find community events and much more. And then we have a consulting and regret the startups in a further organization and also connect them. And the third thing, my department is education, and in the education, and as you mentioned before, we did an amazing program between 880 hours a month sports, tech management, eSports, smart study method development, how to build your startup. And so that's for the student, we believe that the athletes in the center, and one of the saddest things about the industry, that after 30, 35, they finish the sports career, and then they became coaches or something. So we develop this special program for players that can bring them closer to the tech world to the media world. And we do them too. And a lot of tours on the startups, we have a part about the financial and how they can build their brand. And I'm happy to say that two of the main goalkeepers started to promote the project with inter sports, and about future activity that how the way that we're going to watch games in two to three years and effect by those players that are on the field. It can help Intel, and Intel can help them to develop their career. So for us, sometimes it's really clear, but no one did this thing before. So to connect the things to share the knowledge to help the people and create this value that we hope will also in the national level help Israel and it will take 50 to 100 years, but maybe to be a sports nation without the tech in the middle. That sounds ambitious. And I hope that we will see that in our lifetime.
Ronen Ainbinder
I want to ask you, what is the segment of sports technology that you are most excited about, that you're most interested in, and what do you look forward to the most?
Tomer Yehudayan
So, of course, everything today, the human being to see how you can create this super ultra human being is super interesting. And but now, we know after the COVID most of the sports like the acid development company, like telling me Look, no one cares about us. People only care about the fan; people only care about the money. And the professional sides for this time, it's a bit more problematic. But I just had a really interesting conversation with a friend of mine, which helped the national e-sports team in Israel improve their food to improve all the order process data. And now even Garmin having new awards for gamers. So I think everything regarding the brain, and now we hack the brain for the sports. A is the area there is a lot to learn and understand.
Ronen Ainbinder
That's awesome, man. I'm also looking forward to that. And, since we're running out of time, I want to ask you a more personal question. And that is who is one person you admire in the sports technology space and why?
Tomer Yehudayan
So first of all, huge respect to Oren Simanian, the founder; he used to be a soccer referee and established the and Innovation Center in Tel Aviv University. And he's the one that founded the coalition sport. But if I look at one specific person here in Israel, I think one of the brilliant minds is Micky Tamir. Micky Tamir is the co-founder of Pixelart, trek 160, a TV activity, and other companies. And this guy knows to recognize the opportunity and to build a huge company. And so, they hope to see you more people like him that change the squat in general, not only in Israel.
Ronen Ainbinder
Micky Tamir, if you're listening to this, we want you on the halftime snacks. It would be great to host such an icon. And that was a great conversation. Tomer, where can people find you?
Tomer Yehudayan
You can find us on LinkedIn, Coliseum sports. I also have a Facebook group is sports tech lovers. And it's mostly in Israel right now. But of course, in general, then we have all from Instagram to Twitter. And I recommend that you check around the executive sports program. It's going to be soon, and it's for sports executives, a great place to know people and also understand the industry.
Ronen Ainbinder
Awesome man. I think that's a great place to wrap today's conversation. I recommend you guys check out the executive sports program and that you connect with Tomer. He is a great guy. I want to thank you, Tomer, for your time and your insights on sports technology, the Israeli market, technology, and Coliseum in general. It was great to host you, and I hope to meet up soon in real life. But for now, thank you so much for coming to the Halftime Snacks.