Luka Modrić, captain of the Croatia national football team and superstar midfielder for Real Madrid, is becoming the face of the SofaScore sports application, reports Gol.hr.
“We have agreed on the best Croatian footballer, and negotiations for MMA and cricket are underway. We want every sport represented in the application to represent the best Croatian athlete. For some sports, such as cricket, it is difficult to find prominent Croatians, but we are trying to find the best local representative for each sport,” said Zlatko Hrkać, director and co-founder of Sofa IT, on the show Entrepreneurial Mindset.
The SofaScore app currently has 22 million users worldwide and has become an important tool in the hands of athletes, their coaches and agents, and sports journalists.
“The algorithm processes the data and based on the statistics the players get ratings. What matters to the players is what Sofa says. If they are satisfied, they share our ratings on social media. Since there is a lot of money involved in transfers, Sofa is also important to agents. We have become a relevant source of data for 67 media in 60 countries,” says Hrkać, who founded Sofa IT with Ivan Bešlić.
The application now includes 23 sports. Football is the most popular, but in some countries tennis, basketball, volleyball, and cricket are also followed with great interest.
“Everything is revealed by TV broadcasts. What television broadcasts is popular. We are number 1 in Brazil. We have many users in football nations, we are doing well in Italy, France, and the United Kingdom, but also in Nigeria and Kenya. Americans usually follow one team in one sport. It is different in Europe. Croatians follow football and water polo and skiing. We follow everything we are good in,” Hrkać revealed.
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