2026 NCAA Men’s Final Four Sports Innovation Showcase presented by AT&T and Sports Tech HQ
The Innovation Behind the Showcase
Takeaways from every presenter who took the stage at the March Madness Innovation Showcase, presented by AT&T and Sports Tech HQ.
A first-of-its-kind collaboration between the NCAA, AT&T, and Sports Tech HQ, bringing together the brightest minds in sports innovation during the biggest weekend in college basketball. Seven companies took the stage for live demos and bold ideas reshaping the college sports landscape. Here’s what each presenter shared.
Greg Kirkorsky
ShotTracker is a global leader in player and ball tracking technology, capturing real-time data across live basketball games through sensors on players and balls. Kirkorsky opened the showcase with a live demo of Scout, an AI tool he described as what happens when you combine the power of a large language model with granular basketball data. Coaches can query Scout with natural language questions and get answers in seconds, whether for game prep, opponent scouting, or identifying transfer portal targets and their projected NIL value.
Beyond coaching, ShotTracker’s data is already powering live broadcast graphics. Bleacher Report used it during March Madness on Demand to generate real-time win probability visualizations and automated on-screen stats. For coaching staffs drowning in video, Kirkorsky highlighted the efficiency gains: what used to take eight hours of manual video clipping can now be done in one.
Player Tracking
Broadcast
Coaching Tools
Charlotte Kenny
Kenny delivered a wake-up call to the room: sport has a generational challenge, and it goes deeper than visibility. Gen Alpha and Gen Y are spending 144 minutes per day on Roblox alone, more than TikTok, social media, or broadcast TV combined. If sports organizations aren’t showing up in these environments, they’re invisible to an entire generation.
Feenix Sports connects sports IPs and brands to younger audiences through authentic gaming activations. Their Formula E Roblox game hit over one million organic plays with zero marketing spend. A digital kit launch for Benfica sold out the physical merchandise within two hours. And the first-ever NFL player collaboration on Roblox sold out in 24 hours.
Gen Alpha
Roblox
Gaming
Tony Verutti
With 25,000 ankle injuries occurring every day in the United States, Verutti walked the room through a problem hiding in plain sight: ankle injuries remain one of the most persistent problems in sports. Betterguards worked with the NBA Launchpad to develop an adaptive ankle support system that works like a seatbelt. During normal movement, athletes have full range of motion. At a critical velocity, it activates and blocks, reacting four times faster than the human body.
The results are significant: 40% fewer ankle injuries, 54% faster return to play, 81% fewer knee injuries, and 76% higher mobility compared to traditional braces. Betterguards is now working with thousands of teams and players across the NBA, NFL, MLS, and NCAA Power Four programs, operating in 30 countries with 26 patent families.
Wearable Tech
Injury Prevention
NBA Launchpad
Valtteri Salomaki
Salomaki delivered what might have been the most futuristic presentation of the day. EDGE Sound Research has built the first technology that lets computers understand and perceive the world through sound, and they’re applying it to sports and live media because audio, he argued, is the most underutilized asset class in the industry.
Their system uses player tracking data and arena microphones to generate individual audio feeds for every object on the court: player one, player two, ball, referee, crowd. Each element can be separated and remixed. On top of that, EDGE’s Embodied Sound technology turns physical materials into sound you can hear and feel, creating immersive experiences where you feel like you’re standing on the court itself.
Immersive Media
Broadcast
Sound Innovation
Greg Glass
Glass opened with a stat that should concern every athletic director: less than 1% of fans are contributing to college athletic programs, less than 3% of athletes receive 95% of NIL dollars, and brands still can’t reliably measure ROI from NIL deals. Fanstake is building the platform to fix all three.
The model works like this: fans place no-risk financial support behind players. If the athlete stays, it converts into an endorsement deal funded by the fan base. If they transfer, fans get 100% back and the new school’s fan base picks it up. Fanstake also flips the brand-to-athlete NIL model, giving brands the consumer engagement they actually want alongside the NIL activation.
Fan Engagement
Revenue
Transfer Portal
Bo Boroski
Boroski brought the officiating world into the innovation conversation with RQ+, an end-to-end officiating services company that has quietly become the backbone of college sports operations. Their model covers four pillars: register, educate, assign, and pay. Last year alone, RQ+ managed hundreds of millions of dollars in payments to officials on behalf of conferences, institutions, and national governing bodies.
The scale of what they manage is staggering. They serve 96 of the 98 NCAA conferences and have 33,000 officials registered across 15 sports. Looking ahead, RQ+ is developing AI proof of concepts, though Boroski was candid about the difficulty of getting it right in a space with zero margin for error.
Operations
Data
NCAA
Daniel Trolaro
IC360 is a global sports betting integrity and monitoring company built to protect the ecosystem of sports betting from every angle. Their platform detects suspicious line movements in real time, their ProhiBet solution prevents prohibited bettors from placing wagers, and their education programs put the message directly in front of the people who matter most. IC360 works with over 200 partners globally, including the NCAA, MLB, UFC, and the U.S. Olympic Committee.
In the last two years alone, Trolaro and his team have reached over 50,000 student athletes and coaches, driving home a simple message: if fans found out the sport they were betting on was scripted, they’d stop watching. That’s the threat IC360 exists to prevent.
Sports Betting
Compliance
Education
Feenix, EDGE Sound Research, and RQ+ are three startups in the Sports Tech HQ Collective that are using Indiana’s sports ecosystem and events to grow their business. More than 50 companies are now building the future of sports in Indiana.
STHQ Staff
Apr 29 2026
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