The Tigre ball as a “love project”

I assume you were classmates at Corvinus. 

Péter Kővári: We were classmates at the Bachelor of Commerce and Marketing. It was a very good time; we had a lot of good experiences. It is not surprising that – especially in the first period – we mostly enjoyed the community programmes. We had very similar values and interests and because of that we became friends quite quickly and have remained friends ever since. 

Gergő Jakab: Yes, even back then we had a lot of things in common, we did a lot of group tasks together. We worked well together both on and off campus. Peti focused more on work experience after finishing his bachelor’s degree, and I did a master’s degree in marketing and a master’s degree in communication at the same time. 

You mentioned that for the time being the Tigre and working with it is just a hobby. What is your main job? Is there a goal that you will sooner or later focus exclusively on selling and promoting the Tigre?  

JG: I would probably call Tigre more of a love project, where the main focus is on creation, to shape culture. It takes time and patience, and we can only afford that if we are not financially dependent on this project. I’ve been in branding for over 10 years, and I’m currently responsible for B2B marketing activities for a company with a turnover of nearly HUF 500 billion. Peti is the pre-academic manager at MTK, one of the most professional football teams with a youth development system. 

KP: Yes, that’s where the idea for Tigre came from, as it’s in the middle of our two fields of manoeuvre. Sometime in 2021, I realised that it was particularly difficult for the academy to buy good quality balls for this 6–8-year-old age group that were really for them. So, I started looking around to see if it was possible to make one. Fortunately, I found a manufacturer who could be experimented with with a smaller minimum order quantity. And as the ball evolved, I contacted Gergő to see if he could see any potential in the project, and we started to develop the brand. 

The most important accessory in football  

JG: Yes, an important realisation here was that despite the fact that football is now one of the biggest businesses in the world and that the price of players has risen to unimaginable levels, there are still hardly any football balls designed for the youngest age groups. Yet this is the most important accessory in the sport.  

Why did the brand become the name?  

KP: In this U6-U8 age group, we are only teaching children the basics of the game, and mainly through roles. There is a whole literature for this, as ideally sports education is done with the children’s cognitive developmental stage in mind. In just one such training session in a type of game, I named the player giving the pressure the Tiger, and hence the ball at the Tiger is the Tiger ball.  

JG: Here from the training sessions, it was clear that this story resonated well with the kids and and that was important in choosing the brand name. But also, thinking longer term, we wanted to choose a brand name that would stand up on the international stage, but at the same time not cause problems with pronunciation at home and abroad. 

Why is a rag ball a good tool for preschoolers and school children? How does it improve their playing skills? I am particularly curious how this new ball helps children’s analytical skills on the field, for example, can they assess situations more effectively and make better decisions? 

KP: At the age of 5-8, children can’t understand and deal with the bouncing pendulum. They automatically lock their legs, typically bouncing the ball away from them. This often leads to a chaotic play pattern where children chase the ball from one side of the court to the other in groups. By contrast, the Tigre’s age-appropriate weight and sponge-like cover allow it to settle to the ground after one bounce – the principle behind its rag ball-like action. By keeping the ball at the foot, it provides an opportunity for continuous play and also for children to raise their heads and better understand the positioning of their peers and the game itself. The difference in the game picture is immediately visible, it becomes more orderly and active playing time is significantly increased.  

JG: Another important aspect is that the size 3, 4 soccer balls that are commonly used in training sessions are 2-5 cm in diameter. This makes it much harder for children to step over and it feels like an adult playing football with a fitness ball. Although there is a common perception that children fall and fall because they are small and clumsy, they are really just trying to play with the wrong equipment.  

KP: In short, if the ball doesn’t bounce and stays at the foot and is sized to the player, children are less concerned with taming the ball and can look up earlier to see what’s happening with the on the pitch and how they can interact with their peers. And in the short term, this is already develop their cognitive skills on the pitch. 

What are the mental skills that football develops best, and how does Tigre help?  

KP: It would be difficult to give a short answer, because there is a library of literature on this, with many different developmental objectives. Just to name a few, spatial awareness, the relationship with peers on and off the pitch, or even the relationship with the equipment they use. All of these are facilitated by Tigre in a way that the children’s focus is not on a stimulus that is meaningless to them, the bounce. More importantly, a good deal of this technical information is easily accessible to anyone, and we are dedicated to getting it to the right people. After all, our main target group will be coaches who are progressive, who want to learn and improve.  

Shaping culture is the goal 

JG: That’s right, at Tigre we have been committed from the start to a strategy of creating value for coaches, trainers, teachers and that’s how we start to build brand awareness. This is called inbound marketing, permission marketing, or just a few years ago content marketing. From time to time, it is given a new, catchy name, but the point is really to provide relevant, professional, welcome content and to help develop the professionalism of youth training. After all, that’s what the Tigre ball itself is meant to do, and it gives the brand real content and value. This also relates to our earlier statement that our aim is to shape culture, and it also means that we are thinking in the longer term.  

What is the current status of selling and promoting the Tigre in our country, and perhaps abroad? What is your goal in this respect?  

JG: At the moment, our main market is the association sales, and we are mainly focusing on Hungary. In this sense, we are thinking about a top-down strategy, where it is important that the professional users understand the added value of Tigre first. This is not an easy task, because there are glass ceilings that we need to break through in the traditional coach thinking, but we are making good progress. Currently, we have 20-30 clubs using our balls and have sold 400-500. We have also had enquiries from abroad, from Spain, the UK and we have also sold balls in Germany. But for the time being, our focus is here in Hungary, mainly because of capacity. 

KP: Indeed, these sales figures are considered good at this stage of construction. As Gergő said, we are not driven by short-term goals. However, as a professional, it is a bit difficult to live with the fact that an innovation like this is not spreading faster, especially when the price of the Tigre is still much lower compared to the same quality balls. But we are nevertheless committed to progress, even if not at a fast pace. For now, we are working mainly with smaller workshops where the management is more progressive and flexible and therefore a little more open to innovation. We plan to move slowly towards larger talent centres and academies and, in parallel, towards foreign markets. But perhaps our most important vision is to contribute here in Hungary to having more and more home-grown players who are also internationally renowned, and to bring Hungarian football culture back to the level it was 50-70 years ago.  

What does being Corvinus alumni mean to you? 

KP: We are definitely grateful to the university for the many experiences, opportunities, contacts and knowledge we have gained there. I didn’t come from an economic background and it’s still a small part of my job, but the approach I developed there is still a big part of my life. Whether it’s managing people or managing the economics of an organisation, they help enormously.  

JG: I spent seven years at Corvinus, so I can safely say that the university has played a very defining role in my life. In addition, because of the two faculties, I have friends from many different places, and I have worked with a lot of them over the last 10 years. And, as Peti said, the approach that I developed there is still very much the same today. There are a lot of things that you don’t really understand at university, or that you see as difficult or even meaningless, but later you find out how important they are in your way of thinking. In marketing strategy class we learned about the long-term view and the importance of building, in marketing research class the importance of understanding and getting to know the market, and in consumer behaviour class the relationship between commerce and psychology. Many, many subjects and people could be listed, but perhaps we should thank everyone here for what they have received, so as not to leave anyone out by accident.   

The photo of the pair shows Péter Kővári on the left and Gergő Jakab on the right.  

Katalin Török