David Olim explains how FootAR is reinventing the live sports experience through augmented reality

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Even when you’re right there in the stadium, it can be challenging to keep up to speed with everything going on in a football match as a spectator.

Was that yellow card justified? How close was that shot on goal? Should that have been a penalty? These are all questions football fans will most likely have shouted out at one time or another.

But what if there was a way to get right into the action, as if you were standing on the football pitch itself, from the comfort of your own living room? 

That’s where FootAR comes in. This free app, available on iOS and Google Play, overlays real-time data such as player statistics and game analytics onto a digital recreation of the football pitch using augmented reality.

Fans can analyse the most significant moments in a live game from multiple angles and enjoy an accompanying audio commentary. It’s a social experience too, with users able to vote in polls and share their favourite match moments.

Since its launch last year, the app has seen considerable success and a healthy number of downloads. Two notable Portuguese media organisations, GMG (Jornal de Notícias) and SportsMultimedia (VSports), have even gone so far as to integrate it into their broadcast coverage.

The app, which has been developed with co-funding from Portugal’s Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), was also recently recognised with the “Best Application of the Year” award at the VRAR Expo in China, highlighting FootAR’s appeal to audiences worldwide.

David Olim, CEO of FootAR – which is part of the eGames Lab consortium, a unique cluster of over 22 Portuguese companies and organisations focused on games development and the creative industries – recently chatted to PocketGamer.biz about where the inspirations for FootAR came from, what the award win meant to them, and plans for the future. 

Pocketgamer.biz: What did winning “Best Application of the Year” at VRAR Expo China mean to you?

David Olim: Being recognised in the XR space is a strong endorsement of what we’ve built with FootAR. It reminded us that we’ve not just created something amazing, we’ve added value for fans and brought something fresh to the table. Quite literally, I’d argue, because we use the camera to place virtual objects.

Getting this recognition from a competitive and tech-savvy market like China has also been a tremendous validation. It opens doors and shows that our product has global potential, helping us build key partnerships, attract local interest and better understand user behaviour in one of the world’s most advanced mobile ecosystems.

What helped FootAR stand out is how it naturally blends into the live sports viewing experience. We set out not to distract from the game but to enhance it.

Mixing real-time stats, interactive elements and personalised views over a live match created a unique synergy between viewer and content that has caught audiences’ attention commercially and professionally.

How has your membership as part of the eGames Lab consortium contributed to the success of FootAR?

Our affiliation with eGames Lab granted us access to some of the most brilliant minds in gaming and technology. Their expertise has helped us fine-tune our platform’s engagement mechanics, enabling us to create familiar yet innovative experiences for mobile users.

 It has also opened up collaboration opportunities that would otherwise have been unavailable. As leaders in the immersive reality vertical at eGames Lab, we must remain at the forefront of this technology, as this demonstrates that we are on the right path as a consortium.

What inspired you and your team to create FootAR?

We were inspired by how people consume sports today, especially younger audiences who expect more control, interaction and personalisation. We saw a gap between traditional broadcasting and modern fan behaviour, and designed FootAR to make watching sports more dynamic and participatory. 

For example, imagine you’re at the bar with your friends or have responsibilities that mean you can’t watch the match on TV for whatever reason.

When a team scores, FootAR sends a notification straight to your phone. When clicked, you get a visual representation of the player movements, ball trajectory, and more. With our AR feature, you can even reproject that moment from the match right in front of you.

What were some of your team’s biggest technical or design challenges while building FootAR?

One of the main challenges was designing a user interface that delivers rich, real-time data without cluttering or overwhelming the user’s environment.

We had to devise ways to make live sports more exciting without taking people’s eyes off the action, while also considering that every user has different tastes. For example, we decided to include some humorous options to appeal to younger users, like the ability to substitute player avatars for panda-like characters. 

Casual fans use FootAR for quick and easy insights that make watching better without needing to do anything complicated.

But hardcore fans go way deeper. They often look at detailed stats, personalised views and interactive elements to analyse the game as it’s happening. Historical data is also vital for them as they use it for multiple purposes, including generating informed live bets. 

Ensuring consistent performance across different devices and network conditions was also important. But above all, we wanted to ensure that we created an exciting and intuitive experience with which fans of all ages want to engage.

Did you take any pointers from mobile games while designing FootAR? 

Implementing gamification features so the user feels part of the action instead of being passive is central to the FootAR experience.

Examples of this gamified environment can be found on the XR version of our platform, where minigames pop up at specific times, with the purpose of fans finding specific objects in the 3D environment that award points for a leaderboard. Those kinds of activations are crucial to engagement.

What are the wider opportunities for FootAR’s technology, like licensing it to sports organisations, media companies, or game developers?

FootAR’s technology has much potential, and not just for live sports broadcasts. In the media, for example, the fact that FootAR generates the environment based on data rather than relying directly on a broadcast means they can offer views from any live event without the need to acquire multi-million-dollar licences.

Also, integrating these interactions into the iGaming environment can help create an emotional connection with people who might not otherwise engage with certain events.

Considering the rapid evolution of AR/VR, what are the biggest commercial challenges and opportunities you anticipate in the next few years?

AR and VR are moving fast, which is great, but also a challenge because we need to ensure the tech is easy to use and appeals to everyone.

There are also fantastic opportunities to team up with different industries and develop fresh and thrilling ways for users to have new experiences.

 We’re passionate about creating solutions that can evolve and adapt as this fast-changing market keeps shifting and being improved by the ever-evolving hardware. It’s an exciting time to be in this space.

Finally, what’s next for FootAR ?

For one, we’re launching a special edition of FootAR tailored for the 2025 FIFA Club World Cup.

We’ll collaborate with the biggest media in Portugal to enhance this tournament by generating a live 3D replica of the events available on the clients’ ecosystem, including online media and TV. We’re pretty excited to grow this interaction from specific tournaments to make this a new sports standard. 

We’re also exploring how FootAR can cover multiple sports alongside football. This is being made possible thanks to not only the environment we create as a business but also to the partnerships we have in place.

These include collaborating with the number one sports data platform provider, which guarantees we can deliver data safely and reliably to our user base.