Sharp kicks off EURO 2012 with its FanLabs

Raw emotions, sweat on the forehead, racing heartbeat and a pulse rate that’s going through the roof — no one gets more excitement than true football fans when their team heads off in hot pursuit of the round leather ball. But what sort of feelings do they experience during the 90 minutes of a match, and how well do fans really know their team? Are Italians and Spaniards really as emotional, and are Germans really as rational as it’s always claimed? Would English fans do more than the Dutch, Polish or Croatians to ensure their favourite eleven succeed? And — if a team makes it through to the final stages of a tournament — where do the most “fair weather fans live? Sharp is seeking the answer to these and many more questions and has launched a unique study into European football and fan culture.   

“We want to understand fans more and grasp their enthusiasm and passion. Therefore we created Sharp FanLabs. They’re our contribution to European football culture and unite Sharp and football perfectly; FanLabs are where sport is combined with science, and science with passion. Sharp FanLabs will deliver us undiscovered knowledge and unrivalled insights into football fans across Europe. About their hopes, their rivalries, their match predictions, their banter and their emotions,” says Paul Molyneux, CEO of Sharp Electronics Europe.

Football labs on wheels for fans to tour across Europe

The project’s centrepiece is the FanLab truck, a mobile laboratory that will offer a unique way to gauge fans’ emotions. Inside, a total of 16 places are available for the use of experts deploying biometric analysis to obtain insights into the range of emotions fans are experiencing while watching a match. The FanLab truck will be on tour until June 2012 before arriving at “fan zone” parks located in Poland and Ukraine to coincide with the finals of the UEFA Euro 2012.
       
“We’re investigating fans’ passions with the help of neuroscientific technologies and biometry, along with playful surveys in an experiment we’re describing as the ‘fan passion score’. The experiment is made up of several components and delivers completely new impressions of and information about the dedication and the differing mentalities of European fans,” explains Molyneux.

The FanLabs website www.sharpfanlabs.com offers football fans around the world the chance to get actively involved in the fan experiment, creating their own fan profile. Fans can find out their own personal passion score with the help of just a few questions and then share their results with friends before using surveys on the website or mobile applications for smartphones to further refine their score. Together with the knowledge gained from the biometric analysis, the surveys offer unprecedented opportunities and never seen before insights to compare European football fans.