Over the past several years, we’ve spoken with hundreds of practitioners and executives across professional sports about how they discover, evaluate and ultimately select new technologies.
One thing has become very clear: Technology scouting in professional sports is still far more difficult and time-consuming than it should be.
Practitioners spend hours researching vendors, comparing products in spreadsheets, looking for scientific studies, calling peers for feedback, sitting through demos and trying to separate credible evidence from marketing claims.
Meanwhile, the market keeps moving.
New companies emerge. Products evolve. Pricing changes. New studies are published. And AI is creating entirely new categories of technology.
Choosing the wrong technology can also be expensive, leading to poor adoption, sunk costs, unclear ROI and long-term contracts for products that ultimately don’t solve the team’s problem.
That’s one of the main reasons we built the Upside AI Assistant.
Today, we’re excited to introduce our newly redesigned Upside Global platform and an improved version of the Upside AI Assistant.
Check out our new Upside Global website and AI Assistant by clicking on the button below:
🧠 Built on our continuously evolving sports-tech database
What makes the Upside AI Assistant different is the knowledge behind it.
The platform is built around our continuously evolving proprietary database covering 500 of the leading performance technology companies and products.
We’ve mapped the major categories used across elite sports, including:
→ GPS & athlete tracking
→ Athlete Management Systems (AMS)
→ Velocity-Based Training (VBT)
→ Hydration assessment
→ Resistance training
→ Recovery technologies
→ Motion capture & biomechanics
→ Women’s health and performance technologies
→ Athlete monitoring
→ And many other categories
Within each category, we’ve researched the major vendors and products and collected information including:
Customers → Pricing → Product capabilities → Published studies → Company information → Use cases → Competitive positioning
The database continues to evolve as new technologies emerge, vendors release new products, teams adopt technologies and new research is published.
The goal is to combine AI with a highly specialized sports-tech knowledge base rather than simply relying on information available across the open web.
🔎 Ask questions. Get answers in seconds.
Teams can ask the Upside AI Assistant questions such as:
“What can you tell me about Orreco?”
“My goal is to reduce injuries, which modalities should I use"?”
“Compare the AMS vendors into a table.”
“Which professional teams in the NBA are using this VBT product?”
“Which hydration assessment companies offer pilots?”
”My tech budget is $50,000, I want to buy 40 GPS units, 2 flywheels, 2 hydration assessment devices, what do you recommend”?
”Tell me about the latest studies in the NBA focusing on soft tissue injuries”
Instead of searching across websites, research papers, spreadsheets and other sources, practitioners can access relevant information through one conversational interface.
🎥 Now search Upside’s podcast and video library
One of the new capabilities we’re particularly excited about is the ability to search our growing library of hundreds of Upside interviews, podcasts and videos with practitioners and industry experts.
For example, simply ask:
“What have MLS performance staff said about hydration in the heat?”
The Assistant can help surface relevant content without requiring users to manually search through years of interviews.
This effectively turns our content library into another searchable knowledge base for professional sports organizations.
📰 A new Upside news feed
We’ve also integrated a news feed from the Upside newsletter directly on the Upside Global site.
Users can now stay on top of the latest developments we’re covering across sports technology, AI, performance, research, startups, investment and the broader sports industry without having to leave the platform.
The idea is to bring together technology intelligence + scientific research + practitioner insights + industry news + Upside’s content library in one place.
🏟️ Already being used across professional sports
Some of the top teams across the NBA, NHL, MLB, NWSL, NFL, MLS, pro rugby, and European soccer—including organizations in Ligue 1, Premier League, and Serie A—are already using the Upside AI Assistant to:
→ Scout emerging technologies
→ Compare vendors and products
→ Vet technology claims
→ Research pricing and capabilities
→ Find relevant scientific studies
→ Understand which teams are using specific technologies
→ Access practitioner feedback
→ Discover relevant Upside interviews and videos
🤖 And we’re just getting started.
Over the coming months, we plan to introduce several new AI capabilities designed to take the platform beyond information retrieval.
Our longer-term vision is to build an AI-powered platform that can assist sports organizations throughout the entire technology scouting and due-diligence process:
Identify a problem → discover potential solutions → compare vendors → review evidence → understand pricing → learn from other teams → make a better-informed decision.
We’ll be sharing more about those new AI capabilities soon as we are gathering feedback from teams on what we should build next.
💰 One seat—or the whole staff.
👤 Single Seat — 1 user
Annual: $3,500/year
or $349/month with a 12-month commitment
👥 Team — up to 10 users — BEST VALUE
Annual: $6,000/year
or $599/month with a 12-month commitment
Both plans include access to the full vendor database, sourced answers, and conversation history. The only difference is how many people on your staff can sign in.
The annual plans offer the best value, while the monthly payment option gives teams greater flexibility to spread the cost across the year.
Ultimately, we believe technology scouting shouldn’t slow teams down.
The sports-tech market is simply moving too quickly for traditional due diligence alone to keep up.
Our goal with the newly redesigned Upside Global platform is to combine AI + proprietary sports-tech intelligence + scientific research + practitioner insights + our industry content to give teams a faster and more intelligent way to navigate the technology landscape.
And ultimately, help them make better technology decisions.
🚀 The newly redesigned Upside Global platform and improved Upside AI Assistant are now live.
We’d love to hear your feedback, and we’re excited to show you what we’re building next.
If you are a team, startup, or VC and want to learn more about our Upside AI assistant feel free to contact me at julien@upsideglobal.co
Best,
