SAN DIEGO, Calif., December 10, 2013 – Hookit, announced today that its Hookit Index received the Most Innovative Product (MIP) Award in the Sport & Active Lifestyle Technologies category at the 2013 CONNECT MIP Awards ceremony on Dec. 6. In its 26th year, the annual MIP awards are a tradition to honor leaders of innovation and groundbreaking new products launched in the last year.

Hookit was selected for its Hookit Index product, a proprietary tracking and ranking engine that quantifies and measures professional athletes’ exposure and fan engagement in social media. The Hookit Index has become an invaluable tool for major brand and media partners to quantify and leverage athletes’ influence in the complex world of social media. Monster Energy, ESPN X Games, Street League Skateboarding, Specialized Bicycles and GoPro have access to real-time dashboards to monitor trends for their brands and top athletes.

“It’s quite an honor to have been selected for this MIP award and being recognized for the efforts our entire team has put into creating and building the Hookit Index product,” said Scott Tilton, CEO, Hookit. “It’s exciting to be building such a powerful tool that can leverage athletes’ untapped influence in the world of social media. We would especially like to thank everyone involved at CONNECT and SDSI for their ongoing efforts to support and grow the local startup and business community here in San Diego.”

Scott Tilton with Jim Claffee of AmericanWest Bank

Initially launched in action sports, Hookit is now ‘indexing’ over 2,000 athletes, 300 teams and 400 brands in over 15 sports categories. Of all athletes Hookit currently tracks, the top 15 are ranked below. The score represents athletes’ total fan interactions on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for just the week of 12/4-12/11/14 (new followers, comments, likes, mentions, etc.). Christiano Ronaldo (Soccer) is #1 with a whopping 17.1M interactions for just the week. Soccer players have the upper hand, but others who made the top 15 include Lebron James #3, Sachin Tendulkar (Cricket) #4, Kobe Bryant #10, Rob Dyrek (skate) #14 and Usain Bolt (Running) #15.

*This top 15 only include athletes currently being tracked by Hookit

About Hookit
Hookit is a digitally connected platform of tools and services created to support athletes, brands and sports. Nearly 1M athletes worldwide use Hookit to track their progression, promote themselves, build their personal brand and earn deals from their favorite brands. Brand partners are provided with powerful tools to discover, manage and reward amateur and professional athletes who actively support their brand.

About CONNECT MIP Program
Held this year at the Hilton La Jolla Torrey Pines Hotel, the annual MIP Awards is CONNECT’s largest and most prestigious event, attracting more than 700 of the region’s top business leaders, researchers and capital providers. 100 San Diego-based companies competed in the rigorous, four-month judging process, with a total of only nine winners awarded in categories including: Aerospace and Security Technologies, Communications and IT, Hardware and General Technology, Life Sciences-Diagnostics and Research Tools, Life Sciences-Medical Products, Mobile Apps, Software, Sport & Active Lifestyle Technologies and Sustainability. For a complete list of winners and additional information on the CONNECT MIP Awards please visit www.connect.org.

The 2013 CONNECT MIP Awards are made possible through generous support from lead sponsors Life Technologies and Qualcomm, and supporting sponsors AmericanWest Bank, Barney & Barney, Cox Business, Cymer, D&K Engineering, Hughes Marino, Kaiser Permanente, Knobbe Martens, KPBS, Merck, PricewaterhouseCoopers, ROTH Capital Partners and Sanford Burnham Medical Research Institute.

About CONNECT
CONNECT is a regional program that catalyzes the creation of innovative technology and life sciences products in San Diego County by creating an environment in which inventors and entrepreneurs have access to the resources they need for success. Since 1985, CONNECT has assisted in the formation and development of more than 3,000 companies and is now widely regarded as one of the world’s most successful organizations linking inventors and entrepreneurs with the resources they need for commercialization of innovative products. As a result, the program has been modeled in more than 50 regions around the world – most recently in New York City, Bogotá, Colombia and Saudi Arabia. To learn more about CONNECT, please visit www.connect.org or call 858.964.1300.