Advertise on podcast: Sport's Cutting Edge

Minimis have combined your smart watch and phone, and put it in your sunglasses, to streamline athletic performance. There’s no more cocking your wrist to check your numbers, or taking your eyes off the road to tap on your phone. Ideal for running and biking, it’s a product created by a finance lawyer and a medical engineer. Joseph Guo is a young lawyer who’s worked at ASIC, IAG and Macquarie. He’s also a keen runner and cyclist, who saw a gap in the market. Paul Skevington has spent 25 years working as a medical engineer, creating artificial hearts, and his most recent posting was robotics in China. He’s also a keen runner.  They’ve combined forces to make Minimis Smart Glasses. They’re backed by capital in the US and Asia, and they’ve about to take their product to market.  This is their story.

Tradable Bits run data-backed fan engagement for the Dallas Mavericks, San Antonio Spurs, Buffalo Bills, Live Nation, the AFL, and many more. Mike Morris- after a combined 15 years at Southern Cross Austereo and Cricket Australia- is now running APAC.  Mike tells us about Tradable’s pioneering launch of Agentic AI fan solutions for sports teams and leagues.  With 80% of global young fans feeling disengaged from their teams, this could be the silver bullet to execute tailor-made fan experiences.

Pickleball is exploding—and Australia is just getting started. In this episode of Sport’s Cutting Edge, we sit down with National Pickleball League founder Ron Shell to unpack how pickleball is becoming a cultural and commercial force. From his high-powered sports business career in the USA, to building a start-up league from scratch, the 35 year-old Australian shares why pickleball stood out as a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Shell reveals how accessibility, low infrastructure costs, and a massive untapped audience are driving rapid growth—and why the real strategy isn’t just building a pro league, but growing participation from the ground up. We dive into the challenges of breaking into a crowded sports market, the importance of platforms like Dailymotion for reaching new fans, and how branding, Instagram, and real-world activations are shaping pickleball’sidentity.

GravityFit create a suite of apparel and products to aid core stability, performance and health, and they are the product of choice for NASA, Aussie Golf Superstar Cam Smith, and plenty of ordinary people all over the world. Kirsty Richardson is carrying on a family legacy, started by her mother-in-law Carolyn Richardson- who was the second ever Aussie to attain a PHD in Physiotherapy. Carolyn pioneered the concept of ‘core stability’, and herself was hand-selected by the European Space Agency, to provide them with her ground-breaking theorems andresearch. Kirsty and husband Dave lead this Queensland business that now has a USA headquarters, is expanding rapidly in to Asia, and was recognised last year at the Startup World Cup in San Francisco.

Suzie Betts has just been crowned World Number One sports product start-up, at the ISPO in Munich, Germany. The Melbourne Mum-of-three founded her Boob Protect product in 2018, after sensing a coming crisis- the lack of protection for female athletes, just as female sport was starting to boom. About 60% of Aussie Rules and Rugby League female athletes receive knocks to the breasts. Only 10% of those injuries are reported to medicos. Trauma to the breast tissue can have catastrophic consequences. Suzie is on a mission to make women and girls safe while playing, and raise awareness.

Dailymotion is a French video-sharing platform, owned by multibillion dollar media conglomerate Canal+. Dailymotion are building out their operations in Australia and Asia, creating cost-efficient ways for teams and athletes to reach new audiences, and drive revenue. Parisian Jean-Baptiste Alary moved to Australia 10 years ago, and is leading his company’s charge- empowering sports to seize the moment amidst the hyper shifting-sands of digital media.

Virginia Tech has ranked SWAARM’s halo head protection helmet as the number one halo helmet in the world, reducing up to 98% of head collision impact. Virginia Tech are world-leaders in independent, unvarnished helmet ratings. SWAARM are a South Australian start-up making their mark on the global stage, in the most crucial issue facing sport. Gregg Harris from SWAARM joins us to delve into the concussion crisis- where the CDC reports that each year 5-10% of all athletes will be concussed. Gregg talks about SWAARM’s unique science, and how his company is looking to solve problems for the military, construction, mining, aged care, as well as sport.

Sam Robertson is an OG sports scientist- his first big success was the Western Bulldogs’ 2016 Premiership-winning campaign. He’s gone on to work with Barcelona, the San Antonio Spurs, and now with the biggest client of all- FIFA. Robertson and colleague Jessica Zendler have founded the Institute of Sports Tech Standards. In an age of AI, compounding chaos, and unbridled tech growth, the Institute is here to set global benchmark standards for safety, integrity and performance. Sam tells us how far efficacy and ethics have fallen, and how he plans to right the ship.

Australian sportstech revenue last financial year was $5.65 billion, and this 10% year-on-year growth has seen our sector surge into the Global Top 6. ASTN Chair Martin Schlegel outlines key international and domestic growth components, and shares ever-present pinch points we need to overcome. ASTN Operations Boss Amy Crosland joins us live from Taiwan, as Aussie sportstech becomes a go-to for tech savvy nations looking to drill down on sport innovation. Martin and Amy discuss industry challenges around tight capital markets, corporate risk aversion, and barriers to entry for female founders.

The NRL, Queensland Government and ASTN have joined forces to supercharge sportstech innovation. Talk All Sport was front and centre in the NRL’s Sportstech Sprint. Founder Charlie Wilkie tells us how his company provides world leading speech-command scoring, empowering referees and umpires like never before, and alleviating the scoring logistics burden. ASTN Queensland Boss Nikita Vogel takes us inside the NRL and Queensland Government’s sportstech push, and shows us the future vision for innovation in this country.

Padraig O’Donovan started Australia’s first ever digital TV streaming, with Network Ten’s ‘10 Play’. He completed a world first at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, creating specific digital media revenue properties within the streaming platform. Padraig’s 30-year tech career has seen him at the vanguard of innovation, and in 2018 he started his own shop, Streamcake. Streamcake is based on revenue-driven, rather than cost driven, solutions across media and information management and execution. They work with the NRL, AFL, A-Leagues, the VRC and across health and retail.

Naveen Velautham and Kenyan javelin World Champion Julius Yego started Invictus as a way to spread to gospel of sport beyond those with financial or geographic fortune. And the International Olympic Committee have just selected Invictus as one of its top 25 global sportstech start-ups. Yego taught himself how to throw a javelin by watching YouTube- the online scroll took him from novice to world’s best. Velautham and Yego are taking this concept broad spec, with online coaching and mentoring videos sent direct to individuals who sign up. There’s also a two-way dialogue that allows for feedback and review. This platform can apply to all sports; and go beyond pure skills- to mental toughness, mental health, injury prevention etc. This kind’ve elite knowledge now falls within reach of those in remote physical locations, and those from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds. It also provides branding opportunities for organisations looking to achieve social good, and additional income streams to athletes.

Everclime is a sustainability activation platform that works with clients to create clear economic and rational structure around their ESG pursuits. Sebastian Gray founded the business in 2022, based on his genuine passion for a sustainable world, and his knowledge that a strong economic case must be built for long-term action to take hold. He previously co-founded the digital media platform, DUGOUT, working in partnership with the biggest soccer clubs in the world, including Arsenal, Manchester Ciy, Barcelona and Real Madrid. James O’Hare came on board as a co-founder in 2023, after a successful global business career with Rio Tinto and Salesforce. Seb and James tell us how sustainability can be made sustainable, with strategic execution that drives ROI.

The Global Institute of Sport (GIS) has bases in London, Miami, Dubai, Toronto and Melbourne, and is a great progenitor of our global sports workforce. Sport is now the 9th largest industry in the world, with revenues exceeding $2.65 trillion.   GIS are equipping the next generation to take the industry further than ever before. They offer in-person and online undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in everything from high performance coaching, to data analytics, and sports marketing.  Ray Boggiano heads up APAC, and is about to launch a Sydney Campus, as Australia’s role in world sport continues its rapid ascension.

The greatest sports team of all time is the US Olympic Team, and Team USA has been epically dominant in the pool. In the land of NASA, the Pentagon, and an America-first mentality, one of the biggest revelations of the Paris Olympics was that Team USA would hire an Australian business to run the sports performance tech in the pool. Iggy Jovanovic’s Gerford AI powered the Americans to another supreme performance, where they topped the medal tally. Off the back of Paris, Gerford is now being head-hunted by big finance and big medicine to incorporate their tech into those critical fields. Gerford also worked hand-in-hand with David Beckham’s esports company Guild in 2024, and helped them rocket up the global rankings. Today we celebrate Aussie sportstech’s global prowess, and the might of Iggy and his team!