Sport is an indispensable pursuit in human life. It is also a great help for people, whether it’s psychological or physical. Though it might be hard to get into it at the beginning, with the powerful assistance from technology, it is no longer a difficult task.
According to the latest statistics, Plunkett Research indicates that the estimated size of the global sports industry is about 1.3 trillion US dollars a year. This strongly proved that people are paying more attention to their health and posture nowadays. The sports industry trend survey from the ACSM(American College of Sports Medicine) indicated that due to COVID-19, ‘Virtual Training’ has become a defined trend in 2020 and growing fast in 2021. We can clearly see that ‘Smart Sports’ is becoming an unstoppable trend.
The industry with high development potential, AcXport was born with great ambition. ‘AcXport’ is an App that connects coaches and consumers online in all types of sports. Coaches, venues, and sports services can gain exposure through the platform while consumers find various types resources in sports. The team pointed out that more than 80% of people exercise regularly in Taiwan, yet they still have two pain points. The first one is the lack of diversity in sports which the public can get access to, besides sports such as basketball or baseball. The truth is that there are many more interesting sports awaiting to be discovered by the public. The second issue is that many athletes can’t live by coaching after they retire. If no one guides them during their transition to coaching, most athletes are left to choose a job that has nothing to do with their sports. In this case, ‘AcXport’, the matching platform for sports lovers, has perfectly tackled these pain points
The App was released in March 2021. To warm up the market, the ‘AcXport’ team presented a movement festival. The event incorporated the sports league market, leisure experience, and different types of challenges for national athletes. They converted sports into on-site game-type experience activities. Besides the basic physical fitness testing, there were some fun activities to participate such as TANITA body fat tester or the billiard game that allows parents and children to interact with each other. On top of the professional activities, they also presented other sports experience in an intriguing way. The archery art area is exclusively coordinated by Taiwan’s premier archery bow field. Participants had a lot of fun designing bags by shooting arrows on a canvas.
The ‘AcXport’ team believes that “People must have an interest before they develop a habit, and they must have a habit before cultivating a healthy body.” Most professional athletes were exposed to various sports when they were young, and this is exactly what the nation lacks. To improve the social climate, the ‘AcXport’ team will continue to develop more family sports and age-friendly courses. Proving that sports are not difficult to access, obscure sports can also become close to people at any time or at any place in the future.
Posted on IEIT: https://startup.sme.gov.tw/NewsContent/369
Edited by Vivi Liu