Tim Leiweke knows that Seattle is one of the nation’s most tech-savvy cities and his ideas for renovating Key Arena certainly reflect that. GeekWire on Thursday sat down with Leiweke, a sports business veteran who is CEO of Oak View Group (OVG), one of two companies that are submitting proposals to the City of Seattle for a potential Key Arena renovation. Leiweke is the former CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, which owns the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, the NBA’s Toronto Raptors, and MLS’ Toronto FC, as well as Toronto-based arenas. Before that, he ran AEG, which owns the Los… Read More
If Major League Baseball decides to put together an all-star team called the Internet Trolls, social media folks from the Seattle Mariners and Oakland Athletics could land spots on the squad. In a division rivalry that spilled onto Twitter, the two teams traded jabs with one another on Wednesday after the Mariners debuted their slate of commercials for 2017. It’s usually a joyful time in the Pacific Northwest, with the prospect of another “Light Bat”-style ad shining throughout the summer months. But the A’s came out swinging in an attempt to rain out a “Happy Felix Day” Tweet from the M’s, which showed of a new… Read More
Twitter today announced a two-year live streaming partnership with the National Lacrosse League (NLL), expanding its growing catalog of live streaming sports content. The company will stream one NLL game per week for the remainder of the 2017 season and the entire 2018 season, as well as part of the playoffs (division finals and best-of-three Champion’s Cup) each year. Twitter will also stream league-wide highlights on its platform and sell sponsorships for the stream, but it’s not clear how ad revenue will be split. The content is available to logged-in and logged-out users. “This is a historic broadcast relationship that will… Read More
We’re getting ready for our second annual GeekWire Sports Tech Summit that will take place on June 22 at CenturyLink Field in Seattle. Last year’s inaugural event featured leaders like Steve Ballmer and Doug Baldwin talking about the intersection of sports and tech, and we’re expecting an even better Sports Tech Summit this summer. This week we’re offering an early way to snag a free ticket — a test of your NCAA basketball knowledge. GeekWire is hosting a March Madness pool, and the top-finisher will win a ticket to the GeekWire Sports Tech Summit this June. The annual NCAA men’s basketball tournament kicks off… Read More
Can Villanova repeat as national champs? Is this finally Gonzaga’s year? How far will Northwestern go? Don’t ask us. If you really want help with your NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship bracket, go ask Bing. The folks at the Microsoft search engine say they use “intelligent machine-learning technology to analyze social and search signals” in making their March Madness bracket a better bet than the one filled out by your kid. After not watching a single college basketball game this season (guilty — Syracuse fan!) I’m a little apprehensive about filling out a bracket in the next several hours. But Bing sure… Read More
