The NBL, Australia and New Zealand’s pre-eminent professional men’s basketball league is back for 2020/21, the League releasing the first part of it’s rolling schedule.
A total of 39 games will be played over the first 37 days of the season in front of fans across Australia.
With fixtures increasingly subject to change, sporting leagues across the globe are implementing rolling fixtures. ECAL’s dynamic calendar solution provides the NBL and its fans certainty when it comes to the season schedule.
Fans of the nine-team competition are treated to a live and dynamic feed of game details, delivered straight to their digital calendar of choice.
Basketball lovers will never miss a moment with match entries automatically updated with TV broadcast information, official game hashtags and direct access to Buy Memberships, Online Shop and more, just a click away.
The 2020-21 Hungry Jack’s NBL Season tips off on January 10 with the Throwdown between Melbourne United and South East Melbourne Phoenix headlining a nine game opening round.
Follow your team throughout the 20/21 Season and join thousands of basketball fans who rely on ECAL to stay up-to-date and connected to the NBL via their calendar!
The Stable
October 7th, 2020
Australians have been waiting for spring with anticipation unrivalled for decades. We’re all longing to burst out of the box. Even Aussie sport had to hibernate throughout winter due to the restrictions that Covid placed on everyone’s lives. So this year’s spring racing and sporting calendar promises to be quite a gala.
While it is synonymous with the Spring Racing Carnival, this year, spring is loaded with NRL and AFL Finals, NBA Playoffs, a new NFL season, the MLB World Series, French Open Tennis, Masters Golf – and the State of Origin Game 1 the day after the Melbourne Cup in November.
To help racing and sports fans navigate a hectic calendar, TAB is inviting Aussies to Make a Date with Play. The M&C Saatchi campaign aims to excite Australian sports fans and connect them fully through technology and new product offerings, so they never miss a moment.
At the heart of the campaign is TAB’s spring calendar creator, a utility that syncs user’s calendars to any racing and sport event, linking them to venues and set reminders. There’s also a new way to connect with friends and family through the TAB Locker Room, a social utility using Twilio that allows users to stream in virtual rooms with each other, watch live racing as well as live content normally found in a TAB venue.
Setting the spring excitement in motion is a film by Revolver Will/O’Rourke’s Matt Devine, in which classic flip-down stadium seats come to life across the country like giant keyboards to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, inviting Aussies to grab a seat wherever they are. The “seat theme” continues with TAB Hot Seats in social channels, a weekly show that dives into the sporting calendar co-hosted by comedian, Sam Simmons, and Fox Sports presenter and sporting enthusiast, Andrew Barnett. Hot Seats brings entertainment, banter, history and information to sports hungry sports fans in a fresh new way for TAB.
“We’ve had a lot of fun building a campaign for what is to be an epic Spring, one that helps get bums on seats via tech as much as it celebrates pulling up a pew in film and content. The Calendar Creator is going to sort out a few headaches as racing and sport collide like never before. We’re proud of that, it’s the kind of UX that truly adds value to sports nuts,” stated Cam Blackley, chief creative officer, M&C Saatchi.
Luke Waldren, executive general manager marketing, customer & product, TAB, added, “Regardless of whether fans can attend racing and sporting events this Spring, we want to make sure we continue to bring Australians together in whatever way we can and ensure they enjoy every moment. That may be at the track or stadium, visiting their local TAB (in States where that’s possible) or on the couch watching live vision and chatting to their mates in the TAB Locker Room. This will be a spring like no other and we can’t wait to see it all unfold.”
The hero film is supported by product films promoting Venue Mode and Live Vision and activity around TAB venues throughout spring.
Article first published on The Stable, 7th October 2020
ECAL, the world’s leading calendar marketing solution, is proud to announce its partnership with the Delhi Capitals. ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature providing DC fans across the globe with the world’s best digital calendar service.
For ECAL, this is yet another significant partnership with a major global sporting franchise. With an enormous audience, particularly within the Indian subcontinent, this partnership takes the ECAL service to millions of new users.
CEO and Founder Patrick Barrett is thrilled with the partnership.
“The IPL is the most popular domestic T20 competition in the world. Over 200 million people tuned in to the opening match of the competition. The 2019 tournament saw a 12% increase in viewership with a whopping 462 million viewers watching on the Star Network over the 8 weeks of the competition.
It’s great to have the Capitals onboard, delivering dynamic match content into the calendars of fans, complete with handy reminders, broadcast information, and direct access to the Match Centre, Shop, DC TV Latest News, Social Media and lots more.
We hope this is the first step in becoming a must have feature for not only Indian sporting teams, but across multiple industries, given the great versatility of our software”.
Delhi Capitals fans, it’s here! The 20/21 IPL season is underway, and to make sure you don’t miss a minute of the action, sync the Capitals fixture to your calendar now.
English Rugby Union side Harlequin’s has launched its new digital calendar offering for fans across the globe.
The Gallagher Cup, England’s premier Rugby Union competition is officially releasing its 20/21 season fixtures on Tuesday.
Fans connecting their calendar ahead of time using ECAL, will be the first to receive the new season Quins fixtures straight to their personal calendar of choice.
Calendars will be kept up-to-date delivering every Harlequins match into the calendar, including Gallagher Cup and Champions Cup. If match times change, so will your calendar. How good is that!
Fans can also get ready for the upcoming Women’s and Academy seasons.
ECAL is proud to be the official calendar provider of one of England’s oldest and most famous Rugby teams.
Harlequins fans, get prepared and sync here!
AZ Alkmaar fans, it’s here! The 2020/21 Eredivsie season is underway, and to make sure you don’t miss a minute of the action, sync the official AZ schedule to your calendar, thanks to ECAL.
ECAL’s ‘Sync to Calendar’ feature provides fans of the Dutch professional club with the world’s best digital calendar service. Match details are updated dynamically throughout the season, complete with direct access to the Match Centre, Latest News, Social Media and lots more.
The teams promotional campaign ‘always up to date with all competitions’ campaign engaged fans across social platforms Twitter and Facebook, and across the AZ website with splash page, feature news story and ‘Sync to Calendar’ banner on the Fixtures & Results page.
Support AZ Almkmaar throughout the 2020/21 Season and beyond with ECAL. Sync the AZ fixture to your calendar now.
By BULLPEN
Calendar communications and marketing platform ECAL has had a fresh injection of capital and has signposted their intention to maintain their global ambitions with key senior appointments.
The company’s technology has been widely used by hundreds of clients in major sporting leagues and federations. Key to their solution is the ability to deliver hyper personalised content to users, such as localised broadcasting information for games and events, across each region in dozens of languages.
To get an insight into where the company is at right now we spoke to their CEO Patrick Barrett.
Well done on the very recent injection of capital into ECAL, how will it be used?
Patrick Barrett: “Thank you, it’s been a good time in the works and really nice to see it come to fruition as part of an add on to the business sale.
“So the business sale was obviously much more comprehensive than that. But certainly having a million dollars in the bank to fuel growth is excellent.
“That money will be deployed in investing in the sales success side of the business. We’re at a point where we have our product at a terrific stage with wonderful technical leadership from our CTO and have previously invested in the product team so we’re really happy with our technology. It’s now time to fuel growth and invest in the sales and success side. We’ve made a few key appointments and we’ll make more, we’ve recruited a chief revenue officer to help that department in Alex Peebles.
“We’re largely investing in people but also in marketing, advertising and PR capitalise on the success we’re having and the areas of opportunity that is presented to our business right now.”
The appointment of Alex is noteworthy, he’s come from Perform and DAZN into an emerging tech company and that indicates to me that you’re targeting Asia, what is he going to drive in the region?
PB: “Market entry into Southeast Asia from our base in Singapore is really important to us because I feel that Asian sports are at the beginning of their digital marketing, CRM journey.
“So our products are an easy solution to understand, it engages with the digital audience incredibly well and it actively drives sales and engagement. So we were looking to capitalise on early interest in the region particularly in sports, ticketing, media and entertainment type organisations. So having Alex based in Singapore from where he can build out a team and unlock that potentials is certainly a high priority.
“Also, his remit is to oversee a lot of the major global deals as well. So it’s not just a Asian focus, there’s a lot of growth throughout the business in the UK, right across Europe is in incredible demand. We’ve grown quite considerably over the last 24 months.”
What emerging verticals can you apply your solutions to? Things like finance, billing, perhaps digital events.
PB: “We’ve seen a number of opportunities that have arisen through COVID. Certainly major sports are at the big end of town, so major leagues and federations continue to invest in digital communications but they’re also investing into esports tournaments. I don’t see that disappearing, they’re going to be running those in parallel with traditional live events.
“We’ve seen conferences quickly go digital, like digital series and virtual conferences. That’s an area of which we have a good client base and growing. We also see the media landscape changing as well where I think our solution can play a great role in acquiring customers and converting to pay subscriptions, but also reducing churn. That’s the biggest obstacle for a lot of these streaming companies particularly in the sports arena.
“Aside from sports, entertainment, media and ticketing you’re right that payments and finance is a big focus for us. We’re creating some pretty innovative products in the payment space to be able to process real-time instant payments from the calendar off the back of specific offers presented to users, and allowing them to transact quickly. Then in the traditional banking and finance space our solution is used to deliver payment reminders to customers which works very well to increase on time payments by up to 12 per cent over more legacy-based solutions like SMS.”
The opportunity to partner up and integrate with other companies to mutually grow across in your targeted verticals is an interesting opportunity going forward as well.
PB: “That’s a great point, from the very beginning of COVID we’ve seen a number of significant partnerships and integrations fast-tracked for us and we still see that continuing. Stack Sports, for one, is a wonderful partner of ours in which our technology is integrated right across their platform. But we collaborate on opportunities all the time. We’ve also recently announced a partnership with PayDock, a payments orchestration platform, which again gives us amazing access to another channel of business, but also helps us build out our product set to enable these smart payment features I was talking about before.”
Why is calendar management. digital communications to push the calendars preferable over direct messaging, emails, even a chatbot. Why is this solution a far more salient one for clients and clubs?
PB: “I don’t think it’s an either/or type decision, it is the fact that there’s a large audience there that manage their life via their digital calendar. Our research suggests that over 70 per cent of adults aged between 18 and 65 rely on their digital calendar to manage their life. There’s an incredibly valuable audience there that prefer to manage important life events within their calendar.
“That type of dependency on the calendar translates very well across many territories. This includes traditional western economies and countries like Australia, US and UK and throughout Europe, but also in emerging markets throughout Asia and India. There’s a growing sophistication of smart phones in some of these emerging markets and the calendar is increasingly used as a management tool.”
Validating in sports and expanding to other verticals, why has that been a purposeful strategy to grow the company?
PB: “You’ve got to remember that calendar marketing or calendar communications is an entirely new segment of marketing. It’s been important to invest the time and resources to build that segment and certainly sports was a very obvious place to start. It’s a very straight forward and compelling use case.
“You have highly passionate fans that want to know when the two teams are playing next, fundamentally. So we’ve built up a strong reputation in that sector but it leads to all sorts of other opportunities in and around that sector, the media and programming space dovetails into the ticketing space, and so on. All these opportunities have come from our success in sports and as a business we’re really interested in moving ECAL up the value chain of business – sports has led to media, has led to ticketing has led to more corporate functions like conferencing, and then even further up the value chain our solution is being used by banks and financial institutions.
“I think it would have been tricky to go to a bank straight off but certainly once the use cases start to pile up then it became easier to make that foray into a sector like banking.”
What potential headwinds that you may face in the short to mid-term, you certainly have to be mindful of utilising your capital effectively? I know that Asia is a huge market and opportunity in itself, you’ve got a global focus but any potential headwinds to battle?
PB: “I don’t think anyone can predict with a degree of certainty what’s going to happen. So we’ll invest smartly and we’ll invest in people and invest in real market opportunities where we know there is growth.
“I think sports and live events, the longer the pandemic goes on will come under greater pressure. So we certainly work hand in hand with our clients to offer any assistance that they need to get through the trough. Having a great relationship with your clients is where it starts.
“COVID is going to present a number of hurdles for the next 12 months and beyond but out of that comes opportunities and we’ll adapt to those to best position our product.”
Article first published on the Bullpen website, Wednesday 9 September 2020
COVID-19 Has Given Sports New Audiences
By Joshua Hudson
In an exclusive interview with Ministry of Sport, ECAL CEO, Patrick Barrett, said COVID-19 has created a new audience for a lot of traditional sports with the acceleration of esports, and that audience won’t go away.
“I think they were doing it anyway, they were all largely dipping their toes into the water with a good degree of success, but it certainly wasn’t their core business,” Barrett told Ministry of Sport, discussing how traditional sports integrated esports events during the suspension of live sport due to COVID-19.
“The changes you will see is that COVID-19 has fast-tracked the development of a significant new audience for a lot of those traditional sports, and esports has quickly become a very valid events program and one they will continue to run in parallel more frequently than they otherwise would have.
“If you think about what consumers are doing in these lockdown periods, they’re on the internet.
“The rise in gaming is huge, it was already happening, but this has certainly fast-tracked a new generation of sports participants and fans that are highly engaged in esports content, I don’t think that audience will go away.
“I think pairing with other esports offerings is going to be a key driver going into the future, the media landscape and rights are going to change dramatically, there’s a lot of brands that pay a lot of money for sports rights and I think that dynamic is going to change,” he said, when asked how the sports industry will look in the post-COVID-19 world.
“I think the way people consume content on media and streaming will change.
“It will become much more personalised and much more bite-sized.
“I think you will see a lot more hyper-personalisation and in-moment transactions for rights holders.
“I don’t think COVID-19 and what’s happened will disappear anytime soon, the businesses have been really quick to prepare themselves for COVID and the return to sport under different conditions.
“You’ve seen the concept of virtual fans from the likes of the NBA which is really interesting, that could develop further and have ticketing elements added to it and have all different sorts of interactivity added to it,” Barrett said.
When COVID-19 forced the majority of sporting competitions around the world to close their doors, suspend, or cancel their seasons, ECAL, the global calendar communications and marketing platform, saw an even greater success in the use of its platform, helping the English Premier League, Formula E, and the NBA launch their esports tournaments.
In Australia, the AFL and NRL in particular have used ECAL’s platform to handle constant interruptions and rescheduling since their returns to actions, something Barrett said might not have been successful with traditional communication methods.
“ECAL makes it a whole lot easier, the danger with rapidly changing schedules like we’ve seen since sport has come back is keeping consumers up to date,” Barrett said.
“By having that direct line of communication with the calendar, that event may have been rescheduled but will pop up at the exact time a consumer needs to know so they can engage and plan for that event.
“The danger with other communications is it can be a hit or miss, 80% of the people you send an email out to might not open it.
“ECAL provides publishers with a direct line of communication to their users that is the most suitable for event-based communications.
“70% of adults rely on their digital calendar most to manage their lives.
“When you’re trying to market and communicate your events, they logically live within a calendar, so to publish and communicate those, and at the right time to the right people, they certainly have a greater cut-through and a greater deal of business success from those communications.
“It is very applicable for the sports industry.
“It’s got to a point for a lot of sports organisations where its seen to be a must-have feature, the demand from the consumer side is that this feature is expected for the sheer convenience of having their favourite events synced into personal calendars.
“The calendar communications are quite different to email communications in that the sense of control sits with the consumer.
“As the consumer you have the control to choose exactly what content you want to have from the publisher and sync that with your personal digital calendar.
“The control risk with the consumer, is you don’t have a public calendar address the publisher can sort of spam and use more of a scatter gun approach to communications, you get 100% relevancy of communications and I think that’s really key,” he said.
The digital calendar is evidently adding even more personalisation value for sport consumers, but also adding more flexibility for rights holders, something undoubtedly appreciated by everyone in the new digital age of the sport industry.
Article first published on the Ministry of Sport website
Strategic acquisition and funding sets ECAL for Success
By Marc Roufeil, Head of APAC & EMEA, Sports Tech World Series
Melbourne-based tech company ECAL has secured $1 million in additional capital as a part of a strategic acquisition by Singapore based startup HyperKu.
The unique structure of the deal was developed over the last 12 months, and is designed to create a clean vessel from which the calendar communications and marketing platform company can capitalise on their recent growth, and better leverage the funding, and expertise of their new investors.
“Business has been on the upward trend for the last 3 years, anywhere from 30-50% growth year-on-year, so this capital growth is capitalising on that, and supercharging it.” Said ECAL CEO and co-founder of HyperKu, Patrick Barrett.
In addition to funding and expertise, the new deal has also provided ECAL with access to their investor’s existing portfolio of companies. This was part of the broader strategy and will enable ECAL to create new strategic partnerships and platform integrations; the first of which, an integration with PayDock, has already been announced and means ECAL will be able to create their own payment gateway and facilitate real-time sales within users calendars.
ECAL was established with the simple goal of creating a platform that enables rights holders to communicate information about events, or fixtures, directly to their fans, members, or audience. What has made ECAL unique is their ability to continue to innovate and develop their solution; ultimately creating a truly dynamic platform that enables rights holders to not only create events that are delivered directly to the users calendar, but also make real-time changes to the events, at the same time as collecting valuable user information throughout the process.
It’s these dynamic capabilities that have been a game-changer for rights holders in the sports industry, and is why ECAL now works with global sporting giants such as the ECB, Premier League, Formula E and more. ECAL’s innovation enables sports rights holders to successfully navigate the questions, and challenges that surround the IP ownership of fixtures, learn more about their audience, and ultimately create deeper engagement with their fans.
“In the eyes of the courts once a fixture is published it is deemed to be free in the public domain. ECAL allows publishers to retain control, and ownership of that data… they can provide information that is exclusively in their control straight to the consumers, offering them additional products or services, and collecting key consumer data” Mr Barrett said.
This dynamic nature has also meant that in a year that has been so turbulent for the sports industry, ECAL has been able to provide a reliable, and adaptable platform to help organisations pivot quickly to digital formats, and keep their audiences informed in real-time of new events, and ever-changing schedules.
Mr Barrett said as the pandemic hit, ECAL quickly became the channel of choice for the delivery of new digital events schedules for the likes of the NBA with their 2K Players Tournament and Formula E’s Race at Home Challenge.
“ECAL has also been vital for the rescheduling of sport as it returned, and ensuring fans were updated with the latest information. For example, in Australia the return of the AFL and NRL has included weekly schedule updates, and changes, all of which are managed and communicated through ECAL.” He added.
On the back of this year-on-year growth, a unique solution during the pandemic, and the recently announced acquisition and capital injection, ECAL is perfectly positioned to grow rapidly. Mr Barrett said the short-term focus will be on strategic regional growth, with a particular focus on Asia. This is evident in their recent appointment of former DAZN SVP, Alex Peebles as Chief Revenue Officer who will be based in Singapore and lead ECAL’s Asia expansion.
“They (Asian region) are at the beginning in terms of digitising their sport marketing and communications, and ECAL has a great opportunity there.” Said Barrett.
Long term, the sky is the limit as ECAL looks to reach into more verticals including conferences, esports, and streaming providers and platforms. However, it’s the payment sector that excites Barrett the most; “when we look beyond the 12 months, I think the payments, billing and banking side of things will become more and more interesting, and a more integral part of the business as well.” He said.
In a world that is moving at a rapid pace, ECAL is a great example of a young Australian company that started out by simply focusing on solving one core problem. In doing so, they were able to develop a targeted, but dynamic solution, that has been able to adapt to rapid change across multiple industries. Their success and growth, despite the challenges of 2020, should be a lesson to all that at the heart of any successful business should be a focus on a solving one core problem.
Article first published on the Sports Tech World Series website
HyperKu acquires ECAL and fuels global growth
At a time that is proving difficult for most Australian businesses, ECAL’s global calendar communications and marketing platform is thriving, having been acquired by Singapore start-up HyperKu, and securing $1M in additional capital to fuel growth.
ECAL’s calendar communications and marketing platform enables any event-based organisation to deliver rich, dynamic content, straight to their audience, via their personal digital calendar.
With the onset of COVID, their clients were quick to develop new and interesting ways to keep fans engaged using ECAL’s adaptive technology. The National Basketball Association (NBA) and English Premier League (EPL) both launched highly successful eSports tournaments, whilst Formula E organised a 9-week ‘Race at Home Challenge’ simulator series, featuring professional drivers up against the best Sim racers and celebrities.
Closer to home, the Australian Football League (AFL) and National Rugby League (NRL) season restarts have faced huge challenges, with constant interruptions and continual rescheduling due to the unpredictable nature of the COVID outbreak.
Performing Arts organisations are also turning to ECAL for solutions, such as The Australian Ballet with the launch of their ‘Digital Season’.
The importance of the ECAL platform in engaging and activating fans is what made them attractive to cofounders, Patrick Barrett and Remon Gazal at HyperKu.
“The ECAL acquisition makes perfect sense for us at this time. Some of the biggest event brands in the world are turning to ECAL to manage customer communications through this period of great disruption”, said Remon Gazal, former APAC President at Brightstar.
HyperKu’s capital partners for the ECAL acquisition include a Singapore-based Family Office who invest in highgrowth technology platforms, some of which have already signed partnership agreements with ECAL.
“We have entered a new era of digital engagement and entertainment, with a blending of exciting new digital events, and traditional live events. Uncertainty and change are the main constants, and the power of ECAL’s smart, dynamic communications for events is proving to be critically valuable – in sports, entertainment, media and beyond,”, says Patrick Barrett, who is also the CEO of ECAL.
During this COVID period, ECAL has won new business in eSports, virtual conferencing, and streaming services. Payments are also a major focus, with the recent announcement of a partnership with payments orchestration company PayDock, and impending announcements with two other key strategic partners in the marketing and events space.
“The new ownership structure for ECAL will provide the capacity for continued growth into new industries and territories, as well as a support network of people, portfolio business and capital to help make it all happen”, says Barrett. “This is an exciting time for us. Already, we have announced the appointment of sports media executive Alex Peebles as Chief Revenue Officer, who will lead our Asia expansion and help us go deeper into media. We expect to share more exciting news in the coming weeks.”
For further information, please visit https://ecal.com
About ECAL:
ECAL is world-leading calendar communications, marketing and data platform, used by 300+ major brands globally across sports, entertainment, media, ticketing and payments. Headquartered in Melbourne, with a presence in London, Los Angeles, Manila, Delhi and Singapore, ECAL’s smart ‘sync to calendar’ technology enables rich, dynamic, event-based communications straight to calendar, for better business outcomes.
About HyperKu:
HyperKu is a Singapore based start-up, co-founded by Patrick Barrett and Remon Gazal, and the owner of ECAL. They are currently seeking similar post-revenue enterprise platform businesses that have proven use cases, clear product differentiation and robust technology, and are ready to scale.
For all media enquiries, interviews, and imagery please contact:
Olivia Novello
Public Relations Specialist
OM Digital
+61 431377114
olivia@omdigital.com.au
Sports Media Veteran Joins ECAL to Lead Revenue and Territory Charge
Melbourne, Australia / Singapore: ECAL, the leading provider of smart calendar communications and marketing, has announced the appointment of Alex Peebles as its Chief Revenue Officer. Based at ECAL’s new Singapore office, Peebles is a key pillar in the company’s global expansion strategy.
Before joining ECAL, Peebles was SVP Southeast Asia at sports streaming service DAZN, and prior to this held various senior executive roles at Perform Group in Australia and the UK, including Managing Director of the Perform NFL Partnership.
“At this time of unprecedented change and unpredictability, the power of ECAL’s smart, dynamic communications solution for events-based content is proving to be critically valuable – in sports, entertainment, media and beyond,” says ECAL CEO, Patrick Barrett. “It has also fast-tracked growth in relatively fresh areas such as streaming, conferencing and payments. So we are thrilled to have someone of Alex’s experience and talent join us, to support our global expansion.”
At ECAL, Peebles will be responsible for all revenue generating operations, with a focus on scoring transformative strategic partnerships, growing enterprise licensing, and productising ECAL’s data and insights business.
“ECAL is already a fantastic business and I’m delighted to come on board” says Peebles. “There is now a significant opportunity to both develop the solutions we offer and develop the breadth of our partner set. Further announcements will soon follow!”
Peebles has a proven track record of new product and territory growth, together with a strong commercial acumen, invaluable industry experience and a welcome, partner-based approach to business relations.
Peebles joins ECAL following recent announcements of strategic partnerships with SportsTG (Stack Sports) and fast-growing payments orchestration platform PayDock. The opening of the Singapore office further highlights the company’s global ambitions.
ECAL is a world-leading calendar communications, marketing and data platform, used by 300+ major brands globally across sports, entertainment, media, ticketing and payments. ECAL’s smart ‘sync to calendar’ technology enables rich, dynamic, event-based communications straight to calendar, for better business outcomes.
For more information, please contact:
ECAL
Patrick Barrett, Founder & CEO
Phone: +61 411 650 445
Email: patrick@ecal.com
Website: https://ecal.com
