Viewers of the 2025 MLS All-Star soccer showcase will have noticed a lot of things. The star-studded rosters of the MLS (US and Canada) and Liga MX (Mexican) sides, the variety of concepts at play in the skills challenge, the presence of social media influencers such as streamer IShowSpeed across the weekend, and more.
One element of the event that may have gone unnoticed to the untrained eye, however, was the myriad of technical advancements that the league tested out as part of the ‘Future of the Game Showcase’ project.
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These advancements spanned a variety of fields, from broadcast enhancements and ticketing affordances to AI-powered wearable data trackers and accessibility technology for disabled attendees.
Although it is most prominent during the All-Star event, the groundwork for the Future of the Game Showcase was being laid almost a year in advance, when MLS put together the latest cohort of businesses that are now taking part in its Innovation Lab project.
Established two years ago, the Innovation Lab is a program where emerging sports- and broadcast-centric technology startups can collaborate with the league to develop their solutions.
Running seasonally, the Innovation Lab program begins in the latter half of the year and runs through the next year’s MLS All-Star showcase, which this year took place across July 22 and 23 in Houston, Texas.
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By GlobalDataIn the competitive sports media landscape, where a massive number of properties are competing for a limited amount of attention from viewers, could the use of emerging technologies prove the crucial differentiator in attracting audiences?
If so, then perhaps the league’s controversial Apple TV deal could serve as the vehicle for such innovation.
When speaking on the GlobalData Sport podcast earlier in 2025, Wasserman global soccer chief Rich Motzkin called the league “innovative”, adding that, as a first mover on the digital broadcast front, courtesy of the league’s Apple TV broadcast partnership.
This is a sentiment echoed by MLS senior vice president of emerging ventures Chris Schlosser, who spoke to Sportcal ahead of the MLS All-Star showcase.
Schlosser began: “Fundamentally, we have a core belief that technology is an unlock that will continue to drive the future of the league, and we think MLS is at the very forefront globally for our use of technology.”
“On the venture side, [we] think about technology in three areas. One, how do we make better players on the field? Two, how do we build better and more interesting fan engagement? And three, [how do we improve] our global media partnership with Apple.”
This multi-pronged approach is best illustrated by the eight-strong list of Future of the Game Showcase participants. This list is made up of: Audio infrastructure firm EDGE Sound Research, ticketing facial authentication solution Wicket, automated data tracking business Sportec Solutions, AI wearable technology providers Soccerment, Lubu Technologies, and Oliver Sports, AI-powered audio dubbing and translation service Camb.AI, and disability-assistance hardware provider OneCourt.
“We get to help develop these technologies over a period of time,” Schlosser continued, “because often there are really brilliant founders with really interesting technologies, but they're not yet ready for prime time, or they don’t yet fit for purpose for a first division soccer league. And so we can really roll up our sleeves and work with them to create interesting new products.”
Moving into a wider talk about the Innovation Lab and MLS, Schlosser spoke about a variety of topics surrounding the league’s technological focus.
How does technology help MLS bridge the gap and convert surface-level fan engagement into revenue-driving opportunities?
Schlosser: “The reason we do this is because we believe that technology really can have an impact, and by leaning in and working with young companies, we get to help shape what the future of sport looks like. We get to help develop these technologies over a period of time.
“A perfect example of that, is Camb.AI. Camb.AI was a member of our first Innovation Lab program, and we helped work with them and gave them hundreds of hours of footage so they could train their AI translation models so that if you or I were speaking in English, and we ran it through the Camb.AI program, it would sound like you or I, but now we could be speaking [one of over] 100 different languages in real time.
“And the vision there is long-term. Apple is available in [over 100] countries around the world and we're not going to have broadcast teams in 108 different language, so if we could offer the fans the choice, and I think it would be a [language] choice at some point, that's a really interesting use case, and one that both us and Apple are have been working to explore.
“And at the Future of the Game Showcase, we'll be having commentary in multiple languages for the visitors to the Showcase through the Camb.Ai program."
Does the league’s digital-first distribution deal via Apple aid your ability to institute these new technologies?
“It is certainly really helpful that we have a centralized production enterprise. And so if I want to implement a new technology, I have to call one guy who's our head of tech for production, and then we can work together to figure out where the right place to test something is. And oftentimes we test at a youth level or a (developmental tier) MLS Next Pro before we implement at [top level], because there's lower stakes if we're in one of those broadcasts.
“But it's very, very helpful to have that centralized production enterprise. And look, Apple are very innovative and are always gung-ho to think about not just where we are today, but what's coming. So that's always helpful as well.”
Conversely, with the swathe of cord-cutting from cable TV packages across the US, will new technology that brings personalization to broadcasts help attract and maintain MLS Season Pass customers?
“I think the first thing that drives unbelievable subscriber growth over the last couple of years for us is that the league just getting more and more exciting. The games are incredible. The crowds are amazing. And the more we continue to invest in unbelievable players on the field [and] beautiful stadiums, that's going to drive the top line interest.
“I think personalization, once you're in, is going to make that experience better. So you want to watch longer, you want to watch more. You want to watch a game that perhaps you wouldn't have otherwise watched. Maybe you stick around longer, you don't churn in a subscription fashion the way you might otherwise. I think that's where you're going to see that real benefit, versus just top-line growth.”
“And [we’re on] a digital platform, so you can create those really unique experiences that just wouldn't be possible if you had games on seven different broadcasters with different tech stacks and different systems.
“Pictures are better, the graphics are better, but fundamentally, it's the same [broadcast] experience that you've had for the last two decades. And I think over these next three to five years, because we're on a streaming platform, because it's all digital, we're going to be able to create more and more interactivity in and around that, whether it's multi-game views, stats overlays, or betting integration. And then AI is going to layer on top of that to bring personalization, so that you are getting an experience, because it knows who your favorite players are, or what other teams you're interested in, or where you have money on bets, and it can provide you updates tailored to exactly to your interests.
“That's where I think we're headed, and that's, that's where I think Apple will have an unbelievable advantage, because every match is there on one platform.”
How does the All-Star Showcase serve as a platform for these technological developments?
“Oh, it's an incredible moment in time. It's great because we know where it's going to be months ahead of time, so we can build out tech and do all the things that we need to do to get the stadium ready.
“And then it's amazing because the entire soccer community is in one place, and so over the two nights of the showcase, everyone can come through and get a firsthand look at what's happening, where the world is going. And that saves us having to do trips all over the place to showcase what's possible.”
What sort of role is AI playing in the future of sports technology through the lens of MLS?
“What I would say broadly is we are starting to now see real use cases for AI in our business. And not just the ‘Hey, can I ask chat GPT a question and get an answer’ style.
“Whether that's in the creation of highlights with a company like WSC Sports, whether that's in the work we're doing with Edge Sound to see if we can process AI sound differently and create a better sound mix, whether that's in Camb.AI on the language that we talked about, whether that's in Soccerment, which is a young Italian company that's auto creating AI generated video using nothing but stats as the input, we're starting to see real use cases, and that's what's so fascinating to us.
"Now, [the total uptake] won't happen tomorrow. There's a lot of engineering that has to go into that, but that's certainly the goal and the vision and where we're headed.”
In many territories, fans are engaging more and more with stats as a means of discussion. Have you found that your target demos are demanding this and are the likes of Soccerment a means of giving it to them?
“What I'd say, at least stereotypically, is that the US sports consumer has probably been more stats-driven than a global sports consumer for a long time, just given the heritage of baseball, basketball, [American] football in the States – these have been more stats heavy for a long time.
“We have been early pioneers and have been really investing in stats, whether it was deals we had going back decades with Opta, whether it's the investments we've made with sport tech now on next generation optical tracking and AI generated advanced statistics, we continue to really invest into that space, because we think it makes a better broadcast. If we can help fans understand in new ways what's happening on the field of play, that's really interesting to us. The goal is to make the game come alive and give our broadcasters more tools to explain just what's happening on the field, and help our fans understand that in more depth.
“Overall, we have the youngest fans in American pro sports. And so we just have a very digitally native population of fans. And one of the things that they do when they're on digital channels is dive into the stats. So that's an area we'll continue to make investments in, giving them access to those things.”
There is also a number of wearable technology firms represented in this year’s Innovation Lab crop. Is that a growing trend?
“Our interest is in two levels there, one at the senior team, whether it's heart rate monitors and GPS trackers and 4k optical cameras tracking the movement of every player, and two, it gives our coaching staff a way to more objectively evaluate player performance and development in this massive population of really hig- quality young players.
“Our challenge is, if you think about MLS Next Pro, how do we use technology to create data from those fields of play where you don't have 4k cameras, you don't have crazy systems all over the place, and that's where, whether it's Oliver Sports or Soccerment these, these wearables are really interesting because it gives us a lightweight way to create data from the youth fields of America to help players understand their own progression and benchmark where they are versus where the pros are.
“And so that's what that's our thesis. How do we find new ways of helping the youth population develop and develop faster. And I think you'll, you'll continue to see lots of investments in that youth space for us in and around video tools, highlight tools, data creation all in the aim of development.”
Where do you draw inspiration from in terms of advancing technological innovation?
“Where I say we get a lot of inspiration, frankly, is less from other sports leagues and more from the world of Video games, where young people spend so much time. And often, a lot of those video game experiences are quite heavy with information and metrics, and data flying around. And so that's an interesting thing for us as we think about what a broadcast may look like in the future. We think there are more ways you can deliver data and information to fans.
