A few weeks ago, we received an inquiry from Interzero, a company that is one of the leaders in the circular economy and has therefore set itself the goal of making raw material cycles efficient and promoting a resource-saving circular economy. Interzero is the main sponsor of ALBA BERLIN, one of Germany’s top basketball teams, and was looking for an internal betting game for employees that could ideally be integrated into the existing SharePoint and Teams environment.
Max Beer, Marketing Manager Sponsoring and Events at Interzero, came across our vGoal solution, a betting game for SharePoint and Teams. We developed vGoal as an HR team-building tool that allows company employees to easily bet on European Championship and World Cup soccer matches via an application.
Max Beer, Marketing Manager Sponsoring & Events at Interzero: “With VIALUTIONS, we have found a partner who was able to realize our specific wish: An internal betting game via Microsoft Teams. As the main sponsor of ALBA BERLIN, we can let our employees participate in the partnership with the betting game. We are therefore looking forward to following an exciting season on and off the pitch as a company.”
The question now arose as to whether we could adapt our soccer prediction game for Interzero so that it could be used to predict ALBA BERLIN’s games in the Basketball Bundesliga. We were very keen to implement the project, but we first had to be clear about what adjustments this would mean on the technical side.
The structures in soccer and basketball are very different, not only – obviously – in terms of the sport itself. The challenges for us were as follows:
In a European Championship or World Cup, there are first group stages, which then lead to knockout rounds. In basketball, there is a first and second round of the Bundesliga. This meant that the basic structure of the betting game had to be adapted first.
In the original vGoal, there were three ways to score points: if the result of the match was accurate, if the correct goal difference was predicted or if at least the trend was correct. In basketball, it makes no sense to bet on a specific result simply because of the high number of baskets, or in other words: it is very unlikely to guess the correct final result. Scoring the correct “goal ratio” also makes little sense here.
Together with Interzero, we therefore decided to simplify the structure of the application so that bets can only be placed on victory or defeat. Although we were able to use the basic structure of vGoal, we had to make some changes to the logic.
In addition, some adjustments to the design were requested and implemented. The expansion to include the Euroleague was still under discussion, but this wish was initially postponed due to a lack of time.
In the course of adapting our soccer betting game for SharePoint and Teams, we came up with a few ideas about what a future solution could look like.
For example, a team license is currently required to be able to play at all. This fact makes the integration of external parties such as customers, suppliers, etc. considerably more difficult. It would be conceivable to develop an MS 365 solution. However, the current architecture does not allow for this and the solution would have to be redeveloped. We can well imagine setting up such a betting game and thus making it usable not only for internal HR purposes but also for customer loyalty.
The European Football Championship will take place in Germany in 2024 and there will be a new version of vGoal for this event. Interested parties are welcome to contact us immediately.
If you are interested in a betting game for SharePoint and teams from another sports sector and have a similar app in mind for your employees and colleagues, please do not hesitate to contact us, we will be happy to customize this app for you.