A New Zealand startup called DROPIT has an interesting sports engagement app designed to keep fans involved in games during breaks, instead of staring at their phones.
It’s a reverse auction application that’s tied to scoreboards and other digital signs around sports venues, with fans encouraged by the big screens to bid for luxury items like sports cars and motorbikes in 60-second auctions with countdown clocks. Fans bid off their phones.
The company has a distribution deal with Daktronics and in the US, has a three-year deal with the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.
DROPIT, run by two brothers, just got a big $1 million funding round and is looking beyond sports venues to shopping malls and their many screens, large and small, as another home for their application.
Dave Haynes is the founder and editor of Sixteen:Nine, an online publication that has followed the digital signage industry for more than 13 years. Dave does strategic advisory consulting work for many end-users and vendors, and also writes for many of them. He’s based near Halifax, Nova Scotia.
