On Monday afternoon the shares of sports analytics company Catapult Group International Ltd (ASX: CAT) were given a lift after the announcement of another new partnership.
The fast-growing company announced that it had signed a binding memorandum of understanding for a league-wide deal with Australia's National Basketball League (NBL). The deal will see Catapult's technology used to track NBL players across all clubs during both practice and game-day.
As well as the tracking, management advised that the agreement also includes a partnership that means a range of next generation applications such as live game-day data will be delivered to NBL fans across multiple media platforms.
Catapult's vastly experienced Head of League & Data Partnerships, Karl Hogan, had this to say on the agreement:
"We're delighted to have been appointed as the NBL's official wearable data partner. The NBL enjoys strong grassroots support in Australia and we see considerable potential for the NBL to leverage this latent support to drive growth in the sport. Creating compelling content for fans is key part of that. We look forward to working with the NBL to make next-generation analytics available to fans, and to securing new brand partners for the league."
This is yet another huge step forward for the exciting company in my opinion. The equipment and software subscriptions are clearly the two key revenue streams at present, but the monetisation of the data its technology gathers could prove even more lucrative in the future.
Overall I've been very impressed with the progress the company has made in recent months and firmly believe it is a great long-term investment option for patient investors.
Its shares may not come cheap, but I do believe the company's enormous potential more than justifies paying over the odds to own it. Right now I would put it up there with Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) and Altium Limited (ASX: ALU) as one of the most exciting tech shares on the Australian Stock Exchange.
