The semifinals are underway! In front of a packed conference room at the Embassy Suites in Portland, University of Oregon’s Interactive Fan Team presented their 15-minute presentation followed by a 20-minute Question & Answer session.
The presentation began with, “Lisa is PUMPED!”
The team used a fictional person, Lisa, to help the judges fully understand its concept. Lisa, a Scion marketing executive, is pumped because of a great opportunity for her to connect with fans at sporting events. The Interactive Fan enables sponsors to directly connect with people attending sporting events via their mobile phones.
The UO team developed a sponsored interactive game that allows fans in attendance to sporting events compete by answering trivia questions and participating in a fantasy game. According to the team, The Interactive Fan, is a win for both the sponsors and the fans because the game creates a more interactive sports experience for the fans and allows sponsor to compile valuable consumer information.
The UO team, comprised of Tom Czarnowski, Dan Pivirotto, Jim Sever, Jeff Sharma, and Jesse Thomas, shared the presenting duties each focusing on different areas of expertise. They discussed the product, the marketing potential, and the numbers.
The Interactive Fan appears to have amazing potential calculating a 33X return on investment. The team is putting up $100,000 of their own money and believes they will be able to raise another $200,000 from family and friends. The team has put in extra hours preparing to test The Interactive Fan at the PAC 10 Track & Field Championships in May at Hayward Field at the University of Oregon.
NVC judges question team members of The Interactive Fan team to learn more about the venture.
The team spent 15 minutes pitching their venture, leaving 20 minutes for question from the judges, Erik Benson, Bob DeKoning, Jeff Stewart, Jonathan Widney and Jim Young. I thought the team did well answering the questions and came back with strong well-articulated answers.
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