The AI football training application, BALLN has roped in Manchester City and Belgium midfielder, Kevin De Bruyne as its brand ambassador. The deal was arranged by Roc Nation, and the midfielder announced his association with BALLN through a Twitter and Instagram post.
BALLN in the press release stated, “Arguably the greatest midfielder of all time, De Bruyne’s partnership with BALLN heralds a new era in the accessibility of AI technology in helping young footballers achieve their dreams. A two-time English Premier League Champion (Manchester City), and a two-time English Professional Footballers’ Association Player of the Year, De Bruyne’s on-field skillset epitomizes the ethos of the BALLN app, which attempts to help its users become more complete players through its gamified AI experience.”
Through this partnership, BALLN aims to leverage Kevin De Bruyne’s huge social media following to promote the brand. While doing so, it will be holding a series of various social media challenges.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Augmented Reality (AR) technology have been used by BALLN that converts any modern mobile phone into a reliable powerful player and ball tracking tool. It also further provides a rating of a player’s shooting, pace, dribbling, agility, first touch, passing, reaction speed, and ball control capabilities.
Speaking on the occasion, Kevin De Bruyne, said: “I am excited by the potential for AI technology to create engaging gamified experiences that can drive children to be more physically active. The BALLN app engages athletes in a fun and playful way, allowing the athlete to achieve performance gains outside of their regular training week.”
Adding to it, Andrew Hall, CEO of BALLN, said: “BALLN is like having a coach in your pocket, but the coach in this sense is an AI, a fun AI, which can help you understand your strengths and weaknesses in a playful way and what actions you can take to develop a more complete game. BALLN uses gamification techniques to drive user engagement and promote a reward for participation, not a pay to progress approach of many computer games. At BALLN, we believe in the engaging power of AI and gamification to help our audience become more active.”
The ratings provided by the training application is presented on a player card that helps a player to understand his/her strengths and weakness. Adding to it, BALLN provides over 350 videos for any player who wants to further improve their skills, and the targeted audience for the app is players aged between 8-17.