Marcus Luer is the Group CEO of TSA (Total Sports Asia) Asia’s leading global sports marketing agency and Executive Chairman at SportsFix.
JC: As a leader of many different sports companies, please tell us what your favorite sports is and which sports star is your idol.
Marcus Luer: As a spectator and fan I love watching many different sports, especially the big events globally from the World Cup, Olympics, Grand Slams, etc. My favourite sport would be football and I am huge fan of the German National team off course and my home club FC Cologne. Personally I am a Triathlete and enjoy competitions.
I am not sure I have an idol as a sports star but I do admire great athletes like Michael Jordan and Michael Schumacher. Especially athletes who come from nothing and make it big on the world stage are great inspirations for all of us. Love their type of stories.
JC: You mentioned before, that with your “youthful ignorance” you started your own business, Total Sports Asia (TSA) during the height of the Asian economic crisis (1997–98). After 20 years TSA is one of the leading players in the industry in Asia and in some respect globally. Can you share what takes it to go through so many Asian economic crisis?
Marcus Luer: Over our 20 years, I have seen multiple crisis in Asia and globally from Dot com bust, 9/11, Sars outbreak, Global crisis in 2008, etc. Each time you have to react and find ways to deal with the situation. Sometimes it’s best not to read the news and get too involved in the drama. Like the word “crisis” in Chinese it has both opportunities and threats. History shows that there are always new opportunities coming out of a crisis. I am generally a very positive thinking person so I don’t focus on the problems. My focus is always on the solutions and how we learn from what is happening.
JC: Why do you want Sportsfix, Asean’s leading sports OTT streaming platform, to launch an ICO?
Marcus Luer: We studied for over six months on how to incorporate Blockchain technology into our OTT platform. That was the starting point and we realized that we can create something completely unique and different by bringing both technologies together for an OTT 2.0 fan experience. That was the main motivation and driver behind it. In addition, ICOs are a new and unique way to bring the fans directly into our ecosystem and raise funding for our project beyond the traditional VC route. We see this a win win opportunity for everyone involved and are confident that our Sportsfix ICO will do well and will create the ultimate fan engagement with world class sports content at the heart of it.
Building the next Generation live streaming platform for Sports Fans!The SportsFix Digital Stadium is the ultimate fan experience combining the excitement of live and Video on Demand (VOD) sports content with the power of social media, gamification, predictions, fantasy leagues and e-commerce all driven by the SFT. It allows fans to:
• Pledge and vote for their favourite content
• Control their own experience by only paying for their preferred content
• Engage directly with their favourite clubs
• Simulate live stadium experience by interacting with other fans within the DS
This concept is a unique integration of blockchain (smart contracts) and ‘non-blockchain’ technology (OTT).
SF’s current OTT 1.0 platform includes a sophisticated code/ ticketing system which generates codes to trigger multiple payment models including Telecom post and pre-paid billing, retail and wholesale billing as well as various e-wallet billing mechanisms throughout Southeast Asia. The OTT platform is developed with the Amazon’s AWS technologies including EC2, Lambda, Big Data and Elemental — AWS Video Streaming service.
SF is in the process of launching a prototype of the OTT 2.0 infrastructure offering basic functionalities for fans to engage with our content through smart contracts. In Q3 2018, we will launch our DS concept where fans
have a SFT wallet and dashboard to manage their engagement within their chosen DS. By the end of 2018, SF aims to have the prototype of the full DS economy developed, including voting, community and social features as well as crowd-sourced commentary, gifting and rewarding.
For more information, visit: medium.com