FanForesight App-solutely Gifts Sports Fans More Than ‘A Dollar and a Dream’

By Kami-Leigh Agard

For over a century, “A dollar and a dream,” is a phrase strongly associated with the NYS Lottery, whether you’re a veteran gambler, scratcher or even the one-timer—thinking, “Hey, why not?” However, what if you’re just chillaxin’ with your crew at local sports bar, Pilot House Bar & Grill, indulging in a few bevies, while watching five matches of last Saturday, May 10’s Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 315? Get this—with FanForesight—you don’t have to spend a dollar, but just scan a QR code, answering questions about who you “bet” the winner of each match will be, random trivia about what continent they’re from and more. Plus, with the added incentive of winning first prize: a bucket of beer, and second prize: one of Pilot House’s fan favorite appetizers. Thus, comes in Rockaway native, Christian Martinez, the brainchild behind FanForesight. You don’t need a dollar, just the simple acumen to use your smartphone to scan a QR code, and monitor your odds of winning on the Leaderboard, like watching the horses race at Aqueduct Racetrack. By the way, at UFC 315’s main event, Palestinian-American Belal Muhammad‘s short welterweight title reign was brought to an end after a five-round war with Aussie—Jack Della Maddalena.

Thirty-year-old Martinez grew up in Rockaway Park. Even while commuting to high school at Bronx Science, he’s proud of his Rockaway roots, where most of his equally gifted peers attended Scholars’ Academy. “Though I had a crazy commute to Bronx Science, taking two trains and a bus, I had so many friends attending Scholars’. So, while I wasn’t going to school here, I looked forward to hanging out with my friends, playing handball on the courts in the Beach 90s,” he shared.

Martinez received his Bachelor of Science (B.S.) in biology at University of Albany, and Master of Science (M.S.) in cognitive neuroscience at City University of New York Graduate Center, where he shared that his thesis was on infants with high risk for autism. He said, “Infants that have an older sibling, also with an autism diagnosis are 20% more likely to themselves be diagnosed as autistic. So, I ran a whole study taking infants that were both high and low risk, and I did experiments, using fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy), and different brain imaging techniques to see if there were any differences between the two from a neurological standpoint.”

As for his passion to create FanForesight, Martinez shared that the entire idea stemmed from his dual passions for family and community. “The whole concept behind FanForesight started out with my own family. I have family all over the country, and I wanted an opportunity to bring them together, even if not physically. And I thought, ‘What better way than through sports?’

“So, for last year’s Super Bowl, the idea was to create a fun list of accessible questions that everybody could enjoy, from my 95-year-old great grandfather to my 10-year-old cousin. I really was just thinking about community engagement and how I could bring my family together. And with the competition we hosted, even with small prizes and a little bit of family energy, made it such a fantastic time. And so, what started out with FanForesight’s Super Bowl trivia with my family, culminated to UFC 315 at Pilot House,” Martinez said.

And last Saturday’s FanForesight UFC 315 pilot game at Pilot House, amounted to solid participation, whether they were UFC followers or not.

Martinez said, “It was my first time testing FanForesight at a local bar, and we got over 33 people to participate, resulting with two winners. So, the first-place winner/scorer won a bucket of beers. The second place won an appetizer of their choice, both provided by Pilot House. And we had a bunch of people playing during the UFC match. We were just all having fun watching and rooting for the win. It was a really good time.”

The top scorer was Gustavo Guillen from Howard Beach. Like the NYS Lottery, he just had to be in it to win it, yet he didn’t need to spend a dollar for a dream. When asked if he was an avid follower of UFC, Guillen admitted, no, but shared that he just happened to be at Pilot House because he loves the beachy vibe of the sports bar.

“I like watching UFC fights, but not a huge fan. And Saturday night with Christian’s FanForesight, I got lucky,” Guillen said. “I won the first prize and funnily enough, my friend won the second prize.”

As for “betting” on Saturday’s UFC 315 matches through FanForesight, Guillen said, “The process and the questions were pretty easy, honestly. You really didn’t have to know much about UFC to answer. And throughout the night, you got to see on the Leaderboard your rankings with others. You didn’t even need to be present for all five fights to play. All you had to do was monitor the Leaderboard scores on your phone. Each fight had its own question, and that’s what made it exciting, waiting to see if you got it right or wrong. We had a group of seven people, and we all played. Plus, while waiting, we drank, ate, ultimately supporting the bar. Imagine the next NY Knicks game? Now, that’s going to be amazing!”

For Pilot House co-owner, Amy Tichenor, hosting Martinez’s FanForesight pilot was a no-brainer, and she’s looking forward to more on the horizon. “Christian came in casually with a five-minute elevator pitch. I said, ‘Let’s do it with the UFC match, and see how it goes.’ This was not even a huge UFC fight. The people fighting weren’t headliners.

“Pilot House is one of the only sports bars out here, and when Christian came in presenting FanForesight, over 33 people not just participated, but loved it. Even if they weren’t present for all five matches, they were still able to join in, just with scanning the QR code, answering the trivia questions and monitoring the Leaderboard throughout the night. Customers were texting us at the bar, saying, ‘Look, I’m on top.’

“It’s a free way to ‘bet,’ without losing any money while getting credit from your friends that you do know the most about whatever sport, fighter or player. We had such great feedback with customers, asking, ‘Are you going to do it again? Can we do it for the NBA, golf and more for an all-day event?’”

For Martinez, FanForesight’s pilot at Pilot House is just the beginning. “I’d like to present this to other venues in Rockaway. I do all the coding on the backend, and love seeing how people become engaged,” he said.

Whether you’re a local dining or event venue, NY Knicks fan, aficionado of other sports or just looking to have fun with friends and family without betting a dime, for more info and updates about FanForesight, follow: fan_foresight on Instagram or email: fanforesight@gmail.com