SportsHero teams up with La Liga to kick off 2018/19 virtual football season

SportsHero (ASX: SHO) has scored a world-first partnership deal with Spain’s top professional football division ‘La Liga’, which will see it become the official Indonesian partner within the sports prediction category of its Sportshero gaming and marketing platform.

The exclusive partnership is a major win for SportsHero, which launched into the Indonesian market earlier this year with a customised version of its app in English and the local Bahasa language in a bid to engage with the nation’s strong football fan base.

The partnership will commence during the 2018/19 football season with an option to extend into 2019/20.

Fans of the real-time fantasy app will be able to get closer to the on field action by connecting with La Liga on their iOS or android devices via expert prediction, unique e-store offerings and “money can’t buy” prizes including VIP tickets to watch La Liga games in Spain with a private stadium tour, access to team training sessions, as well as branded and signed merchandise.

SportsHero will also run monthly La Liga competitions for users to win the in-app “La Liga Hero of the Month” and “Golden Boot” awards.

La Liga has agreed to promote SportsHero on its Facebook page, geo-targeted to 3.19 million active followers in Indonesia, across an agreed number of posts per season and via editorial on the LaLiga website.

Additionally, SportsHero has secured full partnership support and rights to La Liga’s intellectual property.

Prediction platform

SportsHero is a robust prediction platform which taps into the knowledge of sports fans by recognising and celebrating their skills in predicting the winners of football and cricket matches.

Users with exceptional prediction skills can go on to become virtual “sports heroes” and feature on the leaderboard function to generate followers on the app.

Users who predict the right outcomes in sports games can win in-app coins which can be redeemed at SportsHero’s e-store on merchandise, entertainment products and money- can’t-buy experiences.

SportsHero’s partnership with La Liga – home to some of the world’s most successful football clubs and players – is a landmark transaction for the Australian company which taps into one of the league’s key strategic markets.

A major win

Chief executive officer Tom Lapping said the deal is a major win for SportsHero and for La Liga’s legion of fans in Indonesia.

“La Liga is one of the most-followed football leagues in the world and the global reach the league has makes this partnership the most significant partnership one for us since our launch,” he said.

“It will enable [our] business to quickly ramp up momentum just two months after we launched into the Indonesian market.”

The La Liga transaction follows SportsHero’s recent Indonesian World Cup campaign, which saw the launch of the “FootballHero 2018 Challenge” offering users a fully-localised experience in conjunction with key Indonesian commercial partners.

Capital raised

In a related move, SportsHero today announced the finalisation of a $1 million capital raising exercise pursuant to the placement of 5 million shares at an issue price of $0.20 per share to professional investors in Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia.

The funds will be used in the development of Version 3 of its sports prediction platform, the inclusion of a cycling app, achieving market growth via new partnerships and for working capital.

At midday, shares in SportsHero were down 9.52% to $0.190.