• HBL GmbH and PASS Consulting Group develop and launch the world's first handball fantasy manager game
• START7 expands digital fan experience for the second half of the LIQUI MOLY HBL season
• Innovative "Handball Performance Index" (HPI) forms the basis for awarding points
• Free basic subscription offers easy access for handball and game fans

START7 is all about proving your competitive and strategic skills. The fantasy game offers handball and sports fans, as well as gaming fans, the opportunity to assert themselves in the "strongest league in the world" with their own dream team. The more than 400 licensed players who are actually under contract in the 18 LIQUI MOLY HBL teams are available for this purpose.

Download in the App Store
To the download in the Google Play Store

With this additional offer, HBL GmbH wants to reach existing fans as well as a target group with an affinity for sports and games in order to bring them closer to the fascination of handball during the second half of the Bundesliga season and one year before the European Championship at home with an additional digital offer during and between match days.

Frank Leibmann, Managing Director Digital & Daten HBL GmbH: "With the launch of START7, we are not only fulfilling a great wish of the handball community, but also want to inspire further target groups for our Handball Bundesliga. We are now offering another facet to bring our sport and the performance of our players to life. As the next step in our digital strategy, we have joined forces with the PASS Consulting Group to launch a digital offering on the market that has never existed before in this form and quality for handball."

Gerhard Rienecker, CEO and founder of PASS: "After many weeks of fine-tuning the app in partnership, we are delighted that things are now getting underway and that we are making a big digital leap forward together with the HBL. Our thanks go to the project team for their uncomplicated and constructive collaboration. We wish all handball managers a lot of fun and, of course, a good hand with the line-up. The last few days of the World Cup have impressively shown that Germany is passionate about handball."

Aim of the game: Put together your dream team and collect the most points in a season! You also have to act skilfully on the START7 transfer market and demonstrate your expertise, nerves and timing. The players have to keep an eye on the daily market price developments in order to make the right decisions at the right time.

This is how START7 works: Managers compete in leagues they have put together themselves by digitally assembling the strongest possible teams from real-life Bundesliga professionals with a set budget. The aim is to put together a personal starting seven from their own professional team that promises the most points before the match day.

Direct link to the real match day: If one of the digitally assembled professionals plays in the LIQUI MOLY HBL on the match day in question, all relevant match actions are analysed and converted into points for the START7 managers. The basis for calculating the points to be scored by individual players is the Handball Performance Index (HPI), which was developed together with Deutsche Kreditbank (DKB) and with the involvement of numerous prominent handball players.

After downloading the START7 app, every player enjoys the benefit of a 30-day free premium trial subscription. Afterwards, they can choose between a basic and a premium membership. With the free basic subscription, every user has access to a league as well as access to player profiles, squads, their own team line-up and the overall table. Points are calculated at the end of each match day.

The paid premium account (€1.99 per month / €17.99 per year) offers additional incentives and added value: for example, you can play in up to ten leagues. In addition, the "live points" can be used to follow how the players are performing during the LIQUI MOLY HBL matches. The premium account also provides insights into additional statistics and the line-ups of competing players. Points are also calculated immediately after the end of the game.

Further information and links can be found at www.start7.de/en 

The PASS Consulting Group: The PASS Consulting Group, headquartered in Aschaffenburg, is a software, cloud service and consulting company. Founded in 1981, the company now employs more than 600 people at its nine German and two international locations. Its core competence is the digitalisation of companies. The basis for this is a library of IT components, the Digital Business Platform, from which PASS configures corporate applications. Individual solutions are created using modelling and generation technologies. Cross-platform technologies such as automated software migration are also used. With the resulting Software Factory, PASS is the market leader in development productivity. The vision is to provide customised software solutions at the touch of a button: Solutions@fingertips. Customers come from the digital economy, the financial industry, the insurance industry, the travel industry, telecommunications, public administration and sport, among others.