Irish businesses are preparing to take advantage of the influx of US visitors this weekend for the annual Aer Lingus College Football Classic to make connections and do deals.
Tens of thousands of people are travelling from America for the game between Georgia Tech and Florida State.
Enterprise Ireland is set to host an inward US buyer delegation including representatives from the Atlanta Hawks, Pittsburgh Steelers and other US sports tech investors.
The group is to visit the Sport Ireland campus and meet with Sport Ireland, which is working with Enterprise Ireland to drive development of tech in Irish sport.
“It’s more than a game – it presents an important opportunity to promote the strength of the Irish-US business relationship and showcase Ireland’s dynamic business environment and innovators to the US visitors,” said Leo Clancy, chief executive of Enterprise Ireland.
“The USA is the second largest export country for Enterprise Ireland clients, achieving exports of €5.9bn in 2023, up 5% on 2022.”
Two Irish sports tech companies, Output Sports and Orecco, are already working with Georgia Tech University.
Output Sports is working with the college’s athletes to optimise their athletes’ training sessions and to achieve specific fitness goals.
While for the last two years, Orecco has been working with the Georgia Tech women’s swim team.
Elsewhere, Irish sports streaming business, Wiistream, has struck an alliance with US Youth Soccer (USYS) that will see Wiistream explore streaming and content solutions for USYS.
The company started life streaming GAA matches for fans during Covid-19.
It has since set up its US headquarters in Indianapolis and secured significant international breakthrough deals, including contracts with The Big3 and the World Baseball Softball Confederation.
“Across our 6 offices in the USA, we are focused on supporting Irish companies to achieve even greater scale in this market,” said Mr Clancy.
“On the sports tech front, this sector is achieving phenomenal global success, with major national and international sports leagues, athletes and brands turning to Ireland to drive performance.”
Also today, it was announced that the Irish Rugby Football Union and Enterprise Ireland have agreed to continue their Technology Innovation Programme for another season.
The visiting US sports delegation will be learning more about the programme, which provides Irish sports tech companies an opportunity to test, trial and potentially scale their products in a professional rugby environment.