Tuesday, May 28, 2019 – A roundup of some of the key sports technology stories you need to know, including SportTechie’s own content and stories from around the web
- The English Premier League Awards Sub-Saharan TV Rights to Infront: Swiss sports media and marketing company Infront has acquired the sub-Saharan TV rights to the English Premier League in a three year deal. Staring with the 2019-20 season, Infront will own rights to EPL content in 40 African countries, including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya. More than one billion people live in the region, and soccer is the continent’s most popular sport. The agreement will allow one free-to-air EPL match to be broadcast live every Saturday, as well as weekly preview, magazine, and highlights programs.
- Major League Baseball Memorial Day Games Hit by Statcast Outage: All MLB games last night were played without the use of Statcast tracking technology due to an apparent glitch. According to Levi Weaver of The Athletic, the radar gun at T-Mobile park in Seattle was not working last night and neither was MLB’s At-Bat mobile app. All MLB ballparks installed Statcast beginning in 2015 to track metrics such as launch angle and exit velocity. An MLB spokesman confirmed to SportTechie that the league was reviewing the matter. Earlier this month, SportTechie confirmed that MLB is planning to change Statcast’s ball-tracking technology provider from TrackMan to Hawk-Eye as soon as the 2020 season.
- NextVR to Stream Free, On-Demand VR Highlights of NBA Finals: NextVR will offer free, on-demand virtual reality highlights of the 2019 NBA finals for the third consecutive year. Fans will be able to access highlights in the NBA Finals channel within the NextVR app the day following each game. NextVR is also producing virtual highlights for the NHL Stanley Cup Final, which started Monday. Game 1 of the NBA Finals is Thursday. “This year with NBA Finals highlights centered on a unique viewpoint, from the stanchion, NextVR is putting fans closer to NBA Finals action than ever before,” said Danny Keens, NextVR CEO, in a press release.
- The National Hockey League Signs a 10-Year Extension With Ticketmaster: The NHL announced a 10-year partnership extension with Ticketmaster, the official ticket marketplace of the NHL. Starting next season, all NHL arenas will be equipped with SafeTix, an encrypted ticketing platform intended to protect against fraud. SafeTix mobile tickets contain an encrypted barcode that automatically refreshes every few seconds to prevent screen shots of the tickets being captured and shared. Ticketmaster announced earlier this month that SafeTix will debut across NFL stadiums this upcoming season.
- NHL and GameOn Launch Chatbot for the Stanley Cup Finals: GameOn, a company that builds custom chatbots, has partnered with the NHL to launch a chatbot for the Stanley Cup Finals. fFans can message the NHL chatbot through Facebook Messenger to receive news updates, game previews, score alerts, schedules, standings, as well as GIFs and in-game video highlights throughout the final games of this season. GameOn has also built chatbots for EPL club Arsenal F.C. and video game developer Riot Games.