The Los Angeles Dodgers broke new ground in the sports and entertainment industry last year when it partnered with New York-based advertising agency R/GA to launch its own startup accelerator. Since then, more professional teams like the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings have followed suit. The Dodgers, meanwhile, just graduated its second accelerator cohort last week. You can expect more and more franchises to do the same, according to Dodgers CFO Tucker Kain, who helps run the team’s accelerator and is also managing director of Guggenheim Baseball Management, the firm that owns the Dodgers. He told GeekWire that over… Read More
Cassius Marsh is a big, fast, heavily tattooed defensive end for the Seattle Seahawks. And he’s a self-professed nerd, who is mourning a bit this week after someone stole his valuable collection of Magic: The Gathering cards. Marsh told The Seattle Times that his girlfriend went to a nightclub in downtown Seattle on Tuesday and someone smashed his car window and snatched two backpacks from the backseat. One contained his team-issued iPad and the other was full of the fantasy trading cards, which Marsh said were valued at around $20-25,000. Marsh said he has been playing for years and he… Read More
The Segway may still be a particularly curious-looking transportation mode when spotted zipping around the campus of any given technology company, but on Monday night at CenturyLink Field in Seattle, the devices and those using them proved especially heroic. Twelve combat veterans injured in either Operation Iraqi Freedom or Operation Enduring Freedom were awarded with Segways and ALLY chairs during halftime of the Seahawks and Buffalo Bills game. The gift came from the Seahawks and Segs4Vets, a nonprofit organization that helps increase mobility for men and women of the United States military who have sustained severe injuries. Wearing Seahawks “Salute to Service”… Read More
Intel continues to bet big on sports. The tech giant today announced its acquisition of Voke, a virtual reality technology company that specializes in live streams of sports and music events. Founded in 2004 and based out of Santa Clara, Calif., Voke had previously raised money from Intel Capital, along with the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, which invested an undisclosed amount in the company. Using a stereoscopic, panoramic camera system, Voke creates a 3D live stream of events that can be broadcast to any VR device. It also offers 2D video streams for mobile devices, tablets, and TV. The company’s VR live stream offers multiple viewpoints so fans can choose… Read More
Baseball fans probably don’t think too much about cloud computing. But they are certainly being exposed to Amazon Web Services during this year’s World Series. If you’ve been tuning into this year’s Fall Classic between the Cubs and Indians — Game 7 is tonight in Cleveland — you may have noticed some branding for AWS, Amazon’s cloud computing arm. That’s because AWS powers the back-end of Statcast, a high-tech player tracking system used by MLB that measures every single play during a baseball game with radar equipment and HD optical cameras at each stadium. It produces new stats like pitching velocity, launch angles of… Read More
