London, United Kingdom – AI football application BALLN announce Manchester City and Belgian National Team Midfielder Kevin De Bruyne as an ambassador for the brand.
Arguably the greatest midfielder of all time, De Bruyne’s partnership with BALLN heralds a new era in the accessibility of AI technology in helping young footballers achieve their dreams. A two-time English Premier League Champion (Manchester City), and a two-time English Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year, De Bruyne’s on-field skillset epitomizes the ethos of the BALLN app, which attempts to help its users become more complete players through its gamified AI experience.
Through his partnership, De Bruyne will promote BALLN to his 30M+ social media followers as an effective training tool and connect with other BALLN users through a series of social media challenges.
“I am excited by the potential for AI technology to create engaging gamified experiences that can drive children to be more physically active,” Kevin De Bruyne said. “The BALLN app engages athletes in a fun and playful way, allowing the athlete to achieve performance gains outside of their regular training week.”
The deal was negotiated by Michael Yormark, President of Roc Nation Sports International where De Bruyne is part of a robust roster of football and rugby players.
“I am excited about how the product allows elite athletes like Kevin De Bruyne to connect with their audience through the in-app experience,” Yormark said. “We are looking forward to working with Kevin De Bruyne and BALLN to make the app a household name.”
BALLN uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology to transform any modern mobile phone into a powerful player and ball tracking tool to rate a player’s abilities. The BALLN AI and AR make for a highly engaging and fun experience to rate a player’s shooting, pace, dribbling, agility, first touch, passing, reaction speed and ball control capabilities.
The apps AI ratings are represented on a player card, allowing players to understand their strengths and weaknesses and know what to work on next to become a more complete player. With just a mobile phone, BALLN brings AI to all grassroots players, regardless of their ability or aspirations, to help them improve and complete their game.
BALLN’s approach has already resulted in tens of thousands of footballers being more active at home than they otherwise would have been playing typical sit-down-based computer games. BALLN provides over 350 masterclass videos for any player that wants to improve any of the skills related to the BALLN player card. The application’s mission is to improve the lives of everyday youth footballers aged 8-17.
“BALLN is like having a coach in your pocket, but the coach in this sense is an AI, a fun AI, which can help you understand your strengths and weaknesses in a playful way and what actions you can take to develop a more complete game,” said Andrew Hall, CEO of BALLN. “BALLN uses gamification techniques to drive user engagement and promote a reward for participation, not a pay to progress approach of many computer games. At BALLN, we believe in the engaging power of AI and gamification to help our audience become more active.”
Initially available only on iOS (Apple), BALLN expects to make the app available for download on Android in the first quarter of 2022. To learn more about BALLN, visit the website here. To download the application, download here. The media kit is available here
About ROC NATION SPORTS
Roc Nation Sports, a sub-division of Roc Nation, launched in spring 2013. Founder Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter’s love of sports led to the natural formation of Roc Nation Sports, supporting athletes in the same way Roc Nation has been working alongside and advocating for artists in the music industry for years. Roc Nation Sports focuses on elevating athlete’s careers on a global scale both on and off the field, bringing the organization’s full-service touch to athletes across the NFL, NBA, MLB, global soccer and rugby. Roc Nation Sports conceptualizes and executes marketing and endorsement deals, community outreach, charitable tie-ins, media relations, and brand strategy. Roc Nation Sports roster includes premiere athletes such as Robinson Cano, Skylar Diggins-Smith, LaMelo Ball, Kevin De Bruyne, Romelu Lukaku, Saquon Barkley, Leonard Fournette, Danny Green, Jarie Alexander, and Ronnie Stanley.
ABOUT BALLN
The BALLN app (www.balln.ai) promises to engage youth footballers and make it fun to move and improve with AI in a gamified experience. BALLN creates an engaging experience through the interaction with AI and AR, making it fun to be active and build out a real-life player card. BALLN advances in the field of lightweight AI enable this new at-home experience. After many years of R&D, BALLN has developed AI models that can run on a mobile phone, making it possible to transform any mobile phone into a powerful football analytics tool analyzing player and ball movements. The name BALLN comes from the action of “Ballin”, which many youth footballers use to describe a demonstration of skills in a fun and playful way. BALLN was founded by are Andrew Hall (CEO) and David Budden (CSO).
