Quique Alcantara holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and in 2020 coursed a Master in Sports Big Data. He has an experience of more than 30 years in sports innovation. His main lines of research and interest include human factors and emotional design in sports, which in last years combines with Big Data, NLP and ML. Since 2022, he is founding member and R&D&I responsible of the sports innovation hub in Valencia (Spain). He also works as innovation manager for Igoid-sportec, spin-off from the University of Castilla La Mancha (Spain)

Metaverse, hype or not, has helped in the popularization and development of new technologies of interaction between humans and computers/ internet. Virtual, augmented, mixed and other realities, 3dwebs, NFT’s, chatbots, exergaming, … with intensive us of big data and AI in the backstage, seem to be here to change the way people interact with sports, sports entities and events. They are shaping the future way we consume sports, we shop, we interact with sports club and persons, etc. This contribution aims at making a reflection on these technologies and possible applications in sports.