On the Sports Loft podcast, we talk to the founders and CEOs of the most exciting tech companies that can be applied to the sports industry. We discuss the companies they are building, the problems they are solving and their vision for the future of sports & media.
Electric Twin: Using synthetic audiences to understand your fanbase
Host Charlie speaks with Ben Warner, co-founder of Electric Twin, about leveraging synthetic audiences for deeper fan understanding and strategic testing in sports.
16 Apr 2026
The Realest: Turning memorabilia into recurring revenue
Charlie is joined by Scott (DJ Skee) Keeney, CEO and Co-Founder of The Realest, to talk about the untapped revenue stream sitting inside every sports organisation - Memorabilia.
Using its on-site authentication technology, The Realest has transformed sports memorabilia from a market previously plagued by fraud into a structured, high-value marketplace. Their platform handles every step of the process: from authentication to fulfilment, photography, and sales. Beyond primary sales revenue, The Realest gives teams and leagues a new way to engage fans and access to a secondary market that generates perpetual royalties on every resale. Since presenting at last year's Sports Loft Summit, The Realest has closed a $12 million Series A backed by OneTeam Partners, PGA of America, and Elysian Park, and has worked with clients including FIFA, the Philadelphia Eagles, and the Ryder Cup.
In this episode, Charlie and Skee discuss:
• How witness-based authentication and tamper-proof markings are eliminating fraud for fans and teams
• How memorabilia can generate multiple revenue streams from a single item with minimal operational lift on the club's side
• What the $12M raise means for The Realest's international expansion plans into Europe and Asia
• Why physical, authenticated items are becoming more valuable in an AI-dominated world
28 Mar 2026TRANSCRIPT
Badge: Building fan experiences in Apple & Google Wallet
“Every company now has a TikTok strategy… yet more people now use mobile wallets than TikTok, so why don’t you have a wallet strategy?”
Eric Senn, CEO and co-founder of Badge, joins Charlie on the Sports Loft podcast to discuss why the mobile wallet is quickly becoming the most powerful interface for fan engagement. With mobile wallet usage now outpacing platforms like TikTok, Badge has built the infrastructure to enable sports organisations to meet fans where they already live. Eric explains how sports organisations can move beyond using wallets for simple digital ticketing and create a branded experience that is pre-installed on every fan’s device. Coming off the back of their recent $13.8m Series A funding, we hear about the rapid growth Badge has seen since we heard from Eric at last year’s Sports Loft Summit.
Some of the topics we discuss include:
How the pre-installed mobile wallet provides a 'lighter weight' entry point for fans compared to the high-friction journey of downloading a traditional team app
How Badge enables sports organisations to trigger notifications and relevant sponsor offers precisely when a fan reaches the stadium gate through geofencing.
Why developing across Apple, Google, and Samsung wallets is a massive engineering task and how Badge simplifies this into a single API.
Integrating wallet passes with stadium POS systems to track real-time ROI and fan spending habits.
Inside a recent episode
Electric Twin: Using synthetic audiences to understand your fanbase
Published 22 Jul 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] But what's the big benefit for using synthetic audiences in this case versus traditional research? Well, I think the really interesting thing is if you look at physics, If you look at engineering, they have the ability to model and simulate. You can test things before you put it out into the real world. […]
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