2500 years ago a fan walked out of a Greek athletics stadium wanting to share the match he just witnessed. On the way home he bought an urn and painted on it runners, javelin throwers and boxers. He then showed it to his friends and said “That. Just. Happened.” Lost to history, he unknowingly pioneered social shareable sports content. Insta-urn.
As we make our sports tech resolutions for 2016 we should remember that mankind has been watching sports for millennia. Before the Greeks, we probably watched two cavemen run, swim and fight. Let’s resolve to enhance and improve the sports experience without getting carried away in thinking that we can fundamentally transform – let alone replace – the experience.
Resolution #1: Get real about virtual reality
For those of us who grew up watching Aerosmith’s Alicia Silverstone videos, virtual reality is delivering on its promise 20 years too late. But now that it’s here, the sports industry is determined to figure out what it is good for other than some motorcycle nookie.
The physical limitations of VR – like the fatigue-inducing headgear – suit it to micro-experiences rather than continuous narratives. STRIVR is leading the way in VR because they match use cases to limitations: short, discrete scenarios strung together in rapid succession for 3-4 minutes. That sounds exactly like position-specific playbook training, where STRIVR delivers a strong, focused impact.
More importantly, if the fantasies of VR cheerleaders were realized, why bother attending a sporting event? Why surround yourself with tens of thousands of your fellow fans when you can have your perceptions and consciousness manipulated at home? Live sporting events are among the few visceral, social experiences (in the original, non-digital sense) remaining in our society. Which brings us to……
Resolution #2: Use stadiums to develop lasting real experiences
One of the best questions I heard at October’s Hashtag Sportsfest was posed to Barclays Center CMO Elisa Padilla. An attendee whose name I didn’t catch asked Padilla if the sports industry – particularly facilities – is losing the big picture by focusing on being the first to incorporate a new tech-enabled feature or promotion. He noted how a stadium contributes its intrinsic value to the fan experience. This value stems from the building’s idiosyncrasies, location and the visitors’ memories and experiences. He wondered if those are being overlooked or even erased when sightlines, facades and wireless access points are the main design considerations.
Padilla referenced Barclays Center’s integration with the crowd flow from the subway to the arena entrance. But beyond that, it was clear that the questioner challenged the very premises under which the present-day sports marketer views her job. Stadiums have been reduced to technology and events platforms. They are where you place your routers and beacons and millionaires, packaged inside an architectural exercise.
Growing up in a die-hard Buffalo Sabres family, my memories of Sabres games revolve around Buffalo’s old Memorial Auditorium. The Tudor-themed Aud Club, the vertiginous rake of our usual extra-cheap nosebleed seats behind the goal and the smoke-filled ramps during intermissions are my deepest memories. Things that only existed at the Aud and that will never be seen again.
Arenas are the least transient element of the sporting experience (well, except Atlanta). We owe it to the building – let alone building owners, investors and the clubs who inhabit them – to use them to create personal and cultural memories every bit as permanent.
20 years on, how many adults will say to their dad “Remember when they pushed the Left Shark meme to us?” “Of course, son, that was the same year your selfie made the arena Tagboard.”
Resolution #3: More real life interactions for sports tech professionals
After 11 articles and nearly 2 years, I finally met SportTechie CEO Taylor Bloom in October. It was just one of the hundreds of conversations at the inaugural Hashtag Sportsfest where e-mail buddies, tweeps and tele-coworkers greeted each other with “So great to finally meet you in person!” Nearly everyone there met face-to-face someone they had known digitally for some time. You could sense the realization that those in-person conversations outstripped any creativity and rapport that could be developed in even the most advanced digital set-up. And that’s on top of the new connections that were made and the knowledge traded. Whether you’re starting a local Sports+Tech Meetup, attending industry conferences or promoting business-social events, all efforts will be rewarded in attendance and conversation.
Resolution #4: Continued integration between “Big Sport” and startups
One of the coolest stories of 2015 was the inaugural class of the R/GA – LA Dodgers startup accelerator. Contrary to what you may hear from people on either side, “Big Sport” is not the Old Boys Club and sports tech is not a sideshow. In this industry, the line is pretty thin between the people in the trenches and those in the C-suite. Hashtag SportsFest hit a sweet spot with a highly practical agenda for those who focus on day-to-day operations, but still delivered enough higher-level insights to integrate sports industry veterans with startup founders and tech space workers. If a startup wants to scale and succeed they need the incumbent sports majors as much as those players need the startup to stay a step ahead.
Resolution #5: Figure out digital media sharing rights
One question this crowd needs to solve in 2016 is developing a new model for digital media sharing rights. Neither fans nor industry watchers will look kindly if 2016 brings a reprise of the Deadspin-NFL-Twitter spat. In the non-technical terms that will matter to lawyers and media sellers, what is a gif and how is it different than a Vine?
If you’re selling sponsorship or media, and you create and sell different inventory for 6-second Vines and 15-second Instagram videos, what will you do when your client wants exclusively branded 60-second Flipagrams? And if you flip a Flipagram fast enough, is it too close to being a gif? If we only view these questions in terms of platform and durations, we will continue to chase our tails every time a new platform with a new timeline emerges (which will probably be tomorrow).