Friday, Aug. 9, 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.
- WNBA teams and players will be featured for the first time in the NBA 2K video game series when NBA 2K 2020 is released on Sept. 6. All 12 WNBA teams and more than 140 WNBA players can be accessed in the game’s Play Now and Season modes. “We’ve been working with the WNBA and their top players to recreate a hyper-realistic version of their league with pinpoint accuracy,” said Jeff Thomas, SVP of development, visual concepts for NBA 2K. Warriors Gaming pro Chiquita Evans became the first woman to play in the NBA 2K League this past season. She played her entire first season controlling a male virtual character.
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- ESPN and ABC have decided not to air its planned broadcast of the X Games Apex Legends EXP Invitational following the most recent mass shootings in El Paso, Tex. and Dayton, Ohio (among others). The tournament was played last weekend but was scheduled to air on ESPN2 this Sunday. The network instead plans to air a rerun of the E:60 “Forever Broncos” program according to esports journalist Rod Breslau. Apex Legends is a first-person shooting game published by Electronic Arts. (Can video games trigger violence? The AP reports that no such link exists.)
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- ATP Media has partnered with the content engagement platform GameOn to develop the Tennis TV chatbot, which will deliver video highlights, GIFs, stats, and tournament schedules to fans. GameOn’s chatbot application can be integrated into platforms such as Facebook Messenger, Slack, Skype, Telegram, kik, Discord, Line and Viber. “GameOn enables us to effectively drive tune-in and subscriptions to Tennis TV, to watch the live streams and full match replays of over 2,000 tennis matches each year,” Stuart Taylor, director of consumer services at ATP Media, said in a press release. GameOn has also built chatbots for the NHL, Riot Games, and Arsenal F.C.
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- The NFL has extended its Way to Play initiative to the high school level in partnership with Hudl, the sports video analysis platform. The NFL Way to Play high school award will honor one player weekly for demonstrating exceptional in-game technique. As part of the program, several NFL players and coaches have leveraged Hudl’s video tools to edit and share training content with high school coaches and players.
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