Barcelona has once again demonstrated that it is a benchmark city in innovation applied to sport. The 2nd Barcelona Sports Hub Members Meeting (BSH), held this Wednesday at the Auditori del Campus Ciutadella of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, brought together more than 300 professionals from the sportstech sector and the sports industry in Catalonia, and served to present two key milestones that will shape the immediate future of the ecosystem: the consolidation of a community that now exceeds 600 members and the launch of the new website of the Barcelona Sports Hub, a platform that connects talent, investment, and business opportunities within a single digital space.
The Barcelona Sports Hub, driven by INDESCAT and the Ajuntament de Barcelona, aims to position the city at the forefront of the technological transformation of the sports world. In just three years, the Hub has built a network of emerging companies, corporations, investors, universities, entities, and institutions that work in a coordinated manner to project Barcelona to the world as a global capital of sport and technology, capable of attracting talent and driving high value–added solutions.
During the institutional welcome, Anna Pruna, president of INDESCAT, highlighted that “the Hub is the natural evolution of what Barcelona already was: a city that innovates through sport. And by extension, this also consolidates Catalonia internationally as a benchmark in the field of sport. The BSH is a community and, as we always say at INDESCAT, when we join forces, we grow together and help the sector grow.” A message shared by Susana Closa, manager of the Institut Barcelona Esports, who emphasized the municipal commitment to continue “facilitating that the talent born and developed in Barcelona has the best conditions to thrive.”
In this regard, David Escudé, regidor d’Esports of the Ajuntament de Barcelona, stated: “Now that sport is trending and the number of people who engage in physical activity regularly is increasing, we have an excellent opportunity with the Barcelona Sports Hub to amplify this trend by seeking innovative formulas, processes, and tools that not only help us retain them, but also add extra quality and satisfaction to their activities.”
One of the day’s most relevant announcements was the launch of the new Barcelona Sports Hub website, a digital platform that will offer greater visibility and more business opportunities to the organizations that are part of it. The website features new functionalities such as a job board specializing in sportstech profiles, a space for members to publish news and projects, and a matchmaking tool designed to facilitate strategic collaborations with investors, corporations, and other entities or institutions, among other features.
With this digital leap, the BSH reinforces its role as a talent–connecting platform, capable of generating new flows of innovation and accelerating business growth within the sports sector.
Another major highlight of the event was the Barcelona Innova Lab Sports, presented by Martí Niubó, director d’Innovació of the Institut Barcelona Esports, and Michael Donaldson, director of BIT Habitat. This pioneering program turns Barcelona into a real testbed for companies and tech startups linked to sport, enabling projects to be tested in municipal facilities and public spaces across the city as part of its urban transformation. With this tool, the city aligns with European sandbox, test bed, and living lab models, reinforcing Barcelona’s position as an international benchmark in innovation applied to sport.
The growth of the Barcelona Sports Hub is closely linked to the visibility of key figures who have successfully transformed their sporting achievements into impactful business ventures, and the participation of Fernando “Bela” Belasteguín, former world number 1 in padel, was a perfect example. With a career that includes over 230 titles and 16 consecutive years as world leader, his trajectory has expanded into a consolidated entrepreneurial role, promoting initiatives that contribute to the global expansion of the padel industry.
Belasteguín reflected on the evolution of padel as an international industry, from its amateur origins to its current reality, marked by professionalization, investment, and technological innovation. His talk highlighted how high performance and strategic personal branding today are essential factors for developing new business opportunities in the sports world.
To conclude, he stressed that his main source of motivation in becoming the world’s number 1 padel player has always been his family: “Un Belasteguín nunca se rinde.”
The event also featured a round table focused on the current state and future outlook of the Catalan sports industry, highlighting the role of data, technological transfer, and public–private cooperation as drivers of global competitiveness. Likewise, the session dedicated to artificial intelligence applied to the sector made it possible to delve into the impact of this technology on performance improvement, facility management, and user experience.
In line with the promotion of emerging talent, innovative projects that are part of the Barcelona Sports Hub ecosystem were presented, showcasing solutions with direct application in the sports environment at both local and international levels. One–minute pitches allowed startups and organizations to present new proposals to investors, corporations, and institutions. Additionally, the experiential showroom set up in the Sala d’Exposicions allowed attendees to discover first-hand products and services in the validation phase, reinforcing Barcelona’s role as a business acceleration platform.
With this gathering, the Barcelona Sports Hub reinforces its commitment to continue creating opportunities for the sports industry and to boost the transfer of innovation to the city’s business ecosystem. The results achieved, both in community growth and in the development of projects and digital tools, consolidate Barcelona as an essential player on the European map of sports technology and open a new stage of expansion and collaboration among the stakeholders of this constantly evolving ecosystem.
_20231003113532.png){kind=logo}
