The Gold Coast Titans have followed in the footsteps of the NFL by linking with talent activation platform VLAST and the company’s CEO James Begley says they’re now looking to brand partnerships as they prepare for expansion.

The advanced AI platform will now be used by the Titans to access a range of real-time data, insights, key metrics and generate custom reports specific to the club, that better measure talent activation impact. 

VLAST will also allow the club to automate scheduling and booking for talent activations while providing streamlined communication.

Co-founder and formal AFL players James Begley and Matthew Pavlich, created VLAST after encountering the inefficient ways that talent appearances were being managed during their sporting careers, with clubs too reliant on archaic spreadsheets and human input.

In an exclusive interview with the Ministry Of Sport, co-founder and CEO, James Begley said: “What we found is that an extreme example, like the NFL, has about 12 to 14,000 talent appearances that they have to organise every year, and they literally use spreadsheets.”

“What our technology does is effectively bring that to life and make that a far more automated, and streamlined experience for the talent and the administrator.

“To be honest, there are none (talent activation platforms) that are this specific”, he told Ministry Of Sport.

Through the Vlast app, Begley said players and the club have all the information they need “sitting in the palm of their hands”, taking the stress out of player appearances by providing essential information in one accessible place. 

Begley said: “Your experiences will typically involve receiving text messages, Whatsapps from the club, emails, and sometimes agents getting involved.”

“And you know, that ranges from what do I wear? Where do I have to be? Who’s going to be there? What do I have to speak about?” Begley said.

The system also uses machine learning to capture passion points for the talent, such as charities or interests, helping the Titans to best match their talent to the most suitable brand activation. 

The Gold Coast Titans now join the NFL, who utilise VLAST for their entire player roster, in their switch to automation. 

A Titans spokesperson said the club is relying on its players more than ever to be involved in creating engaging partner content, guest appearances, and joint promotions and it’s important they manage the player’s efforts appropriately and ensure they are well briefed and confident in their off-field contributions.

“VLAST allows the team to fully maximize the value of our players away from the field and helps us to build better, more efficient, and more authentic activations. 

“(VLAST) Greatly reduces the amount of resource we need to provide to our activations through a streamlined and intelligent platform that integrates fully with our pre-existing internal systems,” the Titans said. 

With the Titans partnership sealed, The Ministry Of Sport asked the CEO where the future was headed for the company.

Begley replied: “We are now actively working with brands.”

“An organization like Nike or Red Bull has 1000s of contracted talent, and each of those talents has to fulfil certain things, whether it’s Instagram, tweeting, or appearing somewhere. 

“We have not found a brand in the world yet that actually has software, or a platform to give them a view on how that is going. 

“We’ve (also) got our eyes on the government, there are opportunities for us.

“Also, global expansion, even into the modelling world where there’s a whole lot of appearances that models have to do in terms of casting photoshoots and that’s organized currently in a fairly archaic way still.” 

Begley highlighted that a key factor to the success of the technology was that it was built by individuals in the sporting landscape.

“We are athlete founded, athlete invested, and athlete run, and we are really proud of that.” Begley concluded.