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Ignite Startups: Building SportsVisio and the Future of AI Sports Tech with Jason Syversen | Ep211
Manage episode 518935106 series 3515266
Jason Syversen is the founder & CEO of SportsVisio and a former DARPA program manager turned repeat entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He went from hacking Wi-Fi cameras for Special Forces demos to running nine-figure government R&D portfolios—then into startups and sports, with a mission to democratize analytics for everyday athletes.
With deep roots in cyber/defense and a chip-on-the-shoulder upbringing, Jason brings a builder’s pragmatism to AI: recruit elite researchers, solve occlusion-heavy, real-world computer-vision problems, and ship products that work in messy gyms—not just pristine arenas. He’s hardware-agnostic (your phone is the camera), plays the long game on technical moats, and believes unit economics beat hype every time.
In this episode, he talks about the moment a rec-league stat dispute sparked SportsVisio, why leagues (not lone parents) are the right customer, how they turned thousands of labeled games into a compounding advantage, and where this all leads—AI scoreboards, “robo-ref” assist, and near-real-time highlights.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:01 From DARPA to the Driveway
03:10 Growing Up with Grit
06:45 Hacking for the Pentagon
11:36 The Spark: A Rec-League Argument
13:34 Building an AI Sports Platform
15:34 The Timing Advantage
18:40 Go-to-Market That Works
20:38 Cameras, Courts, and Chaos
22:20 Scaling Beyond Basketball
24:00 The A-Team Behind the Tech
26:18 The Hardest Problem in Vision
31:26 Learning from Thousands of Games
34:40 The Future: AI Scoreboards and Robo-Refs
37:10 Speed, Cost, and Scale
40:05 Lessons from Building Deep Tech Startups
45:15 What’s Next for SportsVisio
47:40 Closing Reflections
Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ignite-conversations-on-startups-venture-capital-tech/id1709248824
Follow Jason Syversen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsyversen/
Follow Jason Syversen on X: https://x.com/jsyversen
Follow Brian on X: https://x.com/brianrbell
Follow Brian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblinkedin/
Visit Our Website: https://www.teamignite.ventures
Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://insights.teamignite.ventures/
👂🎧 Watch, listen, and follow on your favorite platform: https://tr.ee/S2ayrbx_fL
🙏 Join the conversation on your favorite social network: https://linktr.ee/theignitepodcast
209 episodes
Ignite Startups: Building SportsVisio and the Future of AI Sports Tech with Jason Syversen | Ep211
Ignite: Conversations on Startups, Venture Capital, Tech, Future, and Society
Manage episode 518935106 series 3515266
Jason Syversen is the founder & CEO of SportsVisio and a former DARPA program manager turned repeat entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. He went from hacking Wi-Fi cameras for Special Forces demos to running nine-figure government R&D portfolios—then into startups and sports, with a mission to democratize analytics for everyday athletes.
With deep roots in cyber/defense and a chip-on-the-shoulder upbringing, Jason brings a builder’s pragmatism to AI: recruit elite researchers, solve occlusion-heavy, real-world computer-vision problems, and ship products that work in messy gyms—not just pristine arenas. He’s hardware-agnostic (your phone is the camera), plays the long game on technical moats, and believes unit economics beat hype every time.
In this episode, he talks about the moment a rec-league stat dispute sparked SportsVisio, why leagues (not lone parents) are the right customer, how they turned thousands of labeled games into a compounding advantage, and where this all leads—AI scoreboards, “robo-ref” assist, and near-real-time highlights.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:01 From DARPA to the Driveway
03:10 Growing Up with Grit
06:45 Hacking for the Pentagon
11:36 The Spark: A Rec-League Argument
13:34 Building an AI Sports Platform
15:34 The Timing Advantage
18:40 Go-to-Market That Works
20:38 Cameras, Courts, and Chaos
22:20 Scaling Beyond Basketball
24:00 The A-Team Behind the Tech
26:18 The Hardest Problem in Vision
31:26 Learning from Thousands of Games
34:40 The Future: AI Scoreboards and Robo-Refs
37:10 Speed, Cost, and Scale
40:05 Lessons from Building Deep Tech Startups
45:15 What’s Next for SportsVisio
47:40 Closing Reflections
Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Ga6v0YUsHotLhjap67uu5
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ignite-conversations-on-startups-venture-capital-tech/id1709248824
Follow Jason Syversen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsyversen/
Follow Jason Syversen on X: https://x.com/jsyversen
Follow Brian on X: https://x.com/brianrbell
Follow Brian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblinkedin/
Visit Our Website: https://www.teamignite.ventures
Subscribe to Our Newsletter: https://insights.teamignite.ventures/
👂🎧 Watch, listen, and follow on your favorite platform: https://tr.ee/S2ayrbx_fL
🙏 Join the conversation on your favorite social network: https://linktr.ee/theignitepodcast
209 episodes
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