Up until now, the Magic City Cup has been a 2-day soccer event that celebrates cultures from around the world with a World Cup-like tournament that awarded a $10,000 grand cash prize for soccer tournament winners. Attendees were invited to ‘experience a taste of diverse cultures from around the world while cheering on your favorite team.’ 2021 was a tad different.
Reese Whitely, Magic City Cup Organizer
With all the buzz round South Florida’s tech, startup, and innovation ecosystem, Tech Hub South Florida approached Reese Whitely, Magic City Cup organizer and Certified Athletic Trainer/Strength Coach at Complex Health & Wellness in Miami, about highlighting sportstech and startups within the region. . . and he agreed!
He brought in partners such as Tech Hub South Florida, CIC Miami, The Shrimp Society, Boca Code, Soccercito Miami and other local sponsors and organizations to help put on an event that would attract soccer fans, technologists, startup founders, and investors.
“Sports tech needed to be highlighted and brought in full, knowing that the future is now. We as humans constantly evolve maneuver and create avenues to continue to pursue greatness. In the realm of sports, innovation is key to success. The more data, the more you can analyze, the more you can analyze the better off you are in implementing what’s needed to become better,” said Whitely
PANEL DISCUSSION
This year’s event consisted of an elite sportstech panel discussion about advancements in technology throughout the sports world and featured panelists Matthew Jafarian, VP of Business Strategy at Miami Heat; Nolan Caroll, NFL Star and Founder of the Nolan Carroll Foundation which supports STEM education opportunities, job skill training and promotes and encourages physical activities for underprivileged and at-risk youths. The panel was moderated by Asriele Stubbs, Operations Manager at Mana Tech.
“PITCH ON THE PITCH”
Five local sportstech startups did a 10-min pitch + Q/A on the main stage to a panel of high-profile professionals and venture capital investor judges such as Jeff Ransdell, Managing Director and Founding Partner at Fuel Venture Capital Partners, Michael Burtov, Author of The Evergreen Startup, the leading book on alternative startup fundraising, and Brian Chappon, scrappy social entrepreneur and Founder & CEO at CENTRED. The startups included were FitFones, Gemini Sports Analytics, Spectal, TicketRev and Kemtai.
One of the major highlights of the event was local startup and coding school, Boca Code. They had a booth with VR headset and leaderboard where the competition got tough at times. But, that wasn’t the best part. Boca Code students built the event app themselves and one of them, Jarue Johnson, had the chance to tell the audience a little about his experience. I’m sure Founder and Lead Instructor, Todd Albert, was quite proud.
Todd Albert, Founder @ Boca Code
“The Magic City Cup was an incredible opportunity for Boca Code as a young company to connect with a huge community of athletes, artists, and people interested in technology, many of whom hadn’t been aware of what we offer. The exposure we got from this event wouldn’t have been possible without the help of Tech Hub,” said Albert.
Kicked off with a keynote by Mayor Francis Suarez himself and closed out with the #MiamiTechHappy Hour, sponsored by Hunt Club, the event was a success full of soccer, technology, startups, food and music, and, of course, highlighting the beautiful culture and people of South Florida!
📷 Want to see some photos from the event? Click here.