Q&A with Haalo CEO Peter Jaeger
For you to understand more about Haalo we decided to publish some answers to the most frequently asked questions.
PART I
1. Why sports? Why football? And why digitalization and technology in football?
That is easy. I looked at the sports market over three years ago. You could see that this is a global market with huge potential, the market simply has to be digitized. That was the reason why we invested in the market with Microsoft at the time. At some point (one year ago) I decided to leave Microsoft and focus on the SportsTech industry. Together with a few colleagues, we spent a while researching, analyzing and considering what could be built in the SportsTech business. That is how we came to found Haalo.
Why the football market?
Football in Europe alone is a market of over $25 billion. Specifically, this includes our home market Germany, which is still at the beginning of digitization. That means the business potential is enormous.
Why the cooperation with Wattenscheid? That is relatively easy to explain. Many sports companies are usually medium-sized companies and have a degree of fear of digitization. Nobody wants to be the first to digitize their company. During the discussions with the sports clubs, one point kept coming up: Who has done it before? Where can I see how it will be implemented?
We work very closely with the SG Wattenscheid, who have an outstanding past and tradition. A club that will be 110 years old next year and has played for many years in the Bundesliga and in the second division. Unfortunately, Wattenscheid fell down to the sixth league but is back in the regional league today. We found a structure that allowed us to holistically digitize a club. This will be our proof of concept for the classic Bundesliga clubs, which unfortunately still ask: “Hey, how does that work?”.
2. What are the goals that form the cooperation with SG Wattenscheid?
With SG Wattenscheid we will build the most digital and modern club in Europe. In particular we have set ourselves the digital reach to overtake FC Barcelona within five years, which is currently the leader with about 250 million digital contacts. This is how we want to lead SG Wattenscheid back into professional football.
Part II will follow soon. Stay tuned and follow us on our social media channels to not miss out. @HaaloTech
