Barça Innovation Hub (BIHUB)

Overview

FC Barcelona (non-profit organización) was founded in 1899 and it is democratically managed by its members (more than153.000 members). It is one of the most widely supported teams in the world and the club has one of the largest social media followers in the world among sports teams (more than 300 million followers). The active departments of FCB are: Football (men and woman), Football B (men and woman), Football U-19 (men), Beach soccer, Basketball, Basketball B, Wheelchair basketball, Handball, Roller hockey, Ice hockey, Rugby union, Rugby league, Futsal and Volleyball indoor (men and women). Espai Barça is the sports complex of FCB. The Espai has integrated harmoniously with the Les Corts neighbourhood, with a stadium that will fit around 105,000 spectators. It has a flexible and modern Palau Blaugrana with a capacity of 12,500 fans. It is intended to be an example of energy efficiency and environmental sustainability. Currently the Espai Barça has numerous sports facilities, such as the Camp Nou Stadium (owned by the club), Ciutat Esportiva Joan Gamper en San Juan Despí, La Masía, Mini Estadi, Palau Blaugrana, Palau Blaugrana 2, Palau de Gel and the Espacio Memorial Fútbol Club Barcelona.

The Fundación Fútbol Club Barcelona is the social, humanitarian, cultural and sports organization. It was created in 1994 with the aim of promoting and providing support to all those humanitarian entities. It also focuses on vulnerable children and adult communities. Initially the activities carried out by the foundation were materialized through donations from members, supporters and business entities of the country, being composed by members of honour, collaborators and protective members. In 2006 the Fundación Fútbol Club Barcelona took a new impulse, receiving that year, 0.7% of the ordinary profits of the club (2.2 million euros in 2008). It also adhered to the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Plan, and for the first time the FCB included UNICEF advertising on their football kit. As part of its social management, the Fundaciò has collaborated with other governmental and social entities to promote children's education, sport, culture and health. Its main allies include UNICEF, UNESCO, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), among others.

BIHUB: The worldwide centre for sports knowledge and innovation is located physically at the same place as FCB , having access to all the installations, resources and services from the sport complex ESPAI BARÇA (medical centres, training facilities, control & management facilities, commercial facilities, etc.), which also includes the multidisciplinary team of experts from FCB, which includes, but are not limited to: doctors, industrial engineers, architects, athletes and coaches, among many others.

BIHUB is a platform open to society, a disruptive area where the sport industry can collaborate with all relevant stakeholders in the sport sector. All the facilities, spaces and innovations of the FCB are harmoniously integrated in a digitally way in the FCB’s HUB.

BIHUB is based on the fact that all the knowledge that the Club has generated over the years, on various subjects associated to sport, and not just football, can be shared, aiming to be the worldwide number one sports industry centre for knowledge and innovation, with the idea of creating value both for the Club and society in general.

BIHUB enables the Club to innovate, generate, attract, manage and share both its own and external knowledge, through the development of new products, services and experiences of value, and not just for the FCB, but also to other sports clubs, markets, and sectors. This platform also seeks to offer a laboratory for new ideas and projects, providing the perfect environment for prototyping and testing by FCB partners.

BIHUB forms an ecosystem to foster knowledge and innovation. This ecosystem is based on a model that promotes a culture of excellence, transparency, and openness and collaboration with prestigious brands, universities, research centres, start-ups, entrepreneurs, students, athletes, investors, and visionaries. Some examples of collaborations are:

• Gatorade (American manufacturer of sports-themed beverage and food products): Gatorade, together with the FCB, prepares the commercial launch of its personalized hydration kit for athletes, which includes smart bottle, app, connected weight, wearables and soluble formulas adapted to each users’ needs (more information here).

• Toshiba (Japanese company dedicated to the manufacture of electrical and electronic equipment): FC Barcelona appoints Toshiba Medical Systems as his Official Medical Systems Partner (more information here).

The five knowledge areas of BIHUB are:

1. Team sports: Conceptualisation and study of the complexities of different sports disciplines, analysing the collective dynamics of team sports to improve an understanding of play. • Automation of tactical analysis.

2. Performance: Study and application of new techniques, methods, and technologies to improve training based on its model of play. • Personalized training: Monitoring load to improve performance, injury prevention & rehabilitation. • Monitoring functional training at gym. • New training methods to improve performance: hypoxic training. • Better fatigue control.

3. Medical services and nutrition: Application of medical research to the fields of injury prevention and recovery, nutrition, and hydration. • Better monitoring to prevent muscle and tendon injuries. • Improve injuries diagnose and prognosis with new medical image techniques. • Design the perfect snack for elite athletes. • Personalized rehabilitation. • Personalized hydration. • Use genetics profiles to personalize training.

4. Technology: Implementation of digital change and its impact on different areas of the Club, with a major focus on big data and performance tracking. • Ball tracking: indoor & outdoor. • Positional data tracking improvement. • Integration of tactical, performance and personal data (COR 2.0). • Brain training: cognitive abilities performance improvement. • Emotional data.

5. Social sciences: Study of all aspects of everyday sports management activities not purely related to the practice of high-performance sport. • Smart Infrastructure: New Wi-Fi services in the Stadium. New forms of energy generation. Collect significant user’s data in the facilities (IoT). New forms of security solutions. Generate, analyse and visualize operational data in a 3D integrated system. Life Style. Design new Innovation Spaces within sport facilities. • Fan Engagement:Enhance user experiences with VR solutions. Data Collection & Management to customize the fan experience. Develop a new eSports game that fits FCB values. Design new Social Networks applications that enables leveraging. • Social Impact: Sports for development initiatives that have an impact in children and youth populations.

The main sponsor of the FCB is RAKUTEN, an expert company in the digital sector, which provides synergies for BIHUB. Through BIHUB, the FCB has created a public-private investment maximizing ecosystem that allows investing in companies related to the sports/medicine/nutrition/technology/etc. sectors, developing products and services of internal applicability to the Club and comparably to the rest of the sector and the related ones. Digital technologies.