When you have the opportunity to pick the brains of smart people, you do it. Additional insights from some of our Fan Experience technology power players highlight how they’ve helped shape the fan journey so far and where that path will take us next. — Ethan Joyce
Earlier this week, SBJ announced our list for power players: Fan Experience technologywhich features 41 people across 26 organizations who define the fan/team relationship and how people consume the sports they love.
I asked them three questions to better understand where the fan experience is heading:
- What technology-related topic are you studying/learning the most at the moment, either based on how it might affect your work or simply because it interests you?
- What is a common question that potential partners/clients ask you, and how do you answer it?
- Over the next year, what technology do you think will have the biggest impact on how sports fans watch their teams/leagues/etc? favorites?
Within a week, almost half (12 out of 26 to be exact) of the companies on our Power Players list responded. Some of their answers were short. Others were incredibly thorough. I appreciated them all – and wish we had the space to highlight the nearly 4,000 words I received – to understand the directions our Power Players are looking for today and in the future:
Not surprisingly, AI stood out among respondents. Six of the 12 mentioned AI in their responses to the topic they are studying or most interested in right now. “The biggest and most obvious one is AI,” said James Giglio, founder and CEO of Interactive MVP. With generative AI now widespread, he sees an opportunity to improve software development as companies strive to deliver the next cutting-edge experience for fans.
Frankly, the range of AI responses shows just how much influence AI will have on the daily fan experience. Alex Beckman is the founder and CEO of ON, formerly known as GameOn Technology. He mentioned that his company’s rebranding was a result of its expansion into retail and the use of AI to improve customer experience. “It will be amazing to see how this impacts the efficiency and effectiveness of transactions and customer journeys within the retail space, especially during the busy holiday season,” Beckman said.
Jeff Geels, the NBA Executive Vice President and Head of Direct-to-Consumer Business, brought a diffusion-focused approach to his thoughts on AI. Geels mentioned the NBA’s early explorations of AI in an effort to keep fans plugged in, but that work only scratched the surface of what’s possible: “With some of the developments I’ve seen in generative AI, it is possible to imagine a completely unique game. commentary created for each viewer based on their preferences. It’s fascinating to imagine what the consumption experience will look like as we move towards scalable content tailored to each fan.
Added Infinite Athlete Charlie Ebersol, co-founder and CEO, whose products FusionFeed and Match View “Most of the population’s interaction with AI has been too It’s a fascination, but little by little we see customers and partners turning to AI as a tool,” Ebersol said. “The user is becoming more and more sophisticated and the technology is most certainly ready to respond.”
Vasanth Williams, MLB Executive Vice President/Engineering and Chief Product Officer, considers future viewing experiences at an even more granular level. AI has been essential to the development of MLB’s developments and its previous stops (Amazon and Microsoft), and innovation will only continue as understanding grows.
“Generation AI as a category now has the potential to be transformative by creating new experiences for fans that were never possible before.” Williams said. “It will also significantly affect the way we work as technologists. That said, it is still in its formative phase, which makes it all the more exciting to see it evolve and work on it.”
Finally, Darshan Kaler, co-founder of Tradeable Bits, explained his interest in natural language AI, which he described as transforming data into natural language using AI and machine learning. “The process transforms data, which is essentially just a series of numbers, into text or speech that humans can understand,” Kaler said. “Imagine computers interacting using human languages. In this model, conversation becomes the interface between humans and computers. Humans could ask a computer a question, and the computer would use AI and ML to understand what the human is asking. This would be akin to a conversation, in which the human provides contextual information to the computer in order to refine the computer’s response.
Another objective emerged in the Power Players’ responses: the search for new and authentic visual experiences. And based on some of their interests in extended reality, it doesn’t seem like a stretch to see a potential connection forming between XR and the ever-elusive young viewer.
Michael Markovich, Chief Commercial Officer of Sony’s Sports Businesses and Managing Director of Pulselive, mentioned that the spending habits of the hardest-to-reach demographics have changed dramatically, with event data key to better understanding these people. These results can help develop successful future experiments. “The next question for me then is how to make these new and alternative content experiences sticky… avoiding a gimmick or a one-time engagement that’s only worth a few seconds or minutes of a fan’s time,” Markovich said .
XR presents itself as one of these tracks, especially with the latest innovations. Emmanuelle Roger, co-founder and CEO of Immersive, said that the introduction of Apple Vision Pro is currently the key topic of his company. A common question Roger hears often is about appeal to younger audiences, and Immersiv typically answers this question with more interactive and immersive experiences. This helps describe the future Roger sees coming.
“Our vision is that there will be live 3D representations of matches, allowing fans to watch matches from any angle and be in the players’ shoes on the pitch,” Roger said. “AI will also be a key driver of evolving live information/stats during matches, which could truly change our perception of a sport and player performance.”
Brooks Deaton, NASCAR‘s general manager/research and insights said his organization was also grappling with the conundrum of young fans. And he sees a vision similar to Roger’s on the horizon: “We will continue to see the emergence of a more immersive fan experience. The digital environment will drive innovation and personalization at the fan level, providing greater augmented reality and virtual reality opportunities for sports to create a more interactive environment.
Jeff Jonas, president of Quintar, brings a ton of television experience through his point of view. During 17 years at Sportvision, he saw a constant lesson across television: there must be enough content to support the hardware. Even with so much innovation, this remains true today. This was the main reason for creating Quintar: to provide this content in XR spaces.
“We’re going to start seeing experiences created for XR headsets,” Jonas said. “I’ve already felt the potential impact this will have on sports fans, and I can’t wait for the general public to experience it as well.”
With technology constantly evolving, a few other topics have also resonated with Power Players. Here are some other interesting angles SBJ will be watching and reporting on.
FanCompass CEO Jamie Pardi on the upcoming departure of third-party cookies, which will no longer be supported by Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Apple Safari in the future: “I’m very interested in how the phasing out of third-party cookies will affect the digital advertising and sponsorship landscape in the sports industry. For over 20 years, third-party cookies have been at the forefront of digital advertising, and as they phase out by the end of 2024, it will be very interesting to see what kind of technology and/or process will perform multiple functions. a hundred billion dollar opportunity as digital marketers invest in their ad spend.
Flow code Zach Rogow, head of sports partnerships and legal, who observes the struggles of regional sports networks and the creative shifts of some teams from that model: “I’m very excited about the new direct-to-fan streaming models that the leagues and the teams are deployed and how fans will be able to directly interact with content like never before.
- In this week’s magazine, Details about SBJ’s Bret McCormick how Delaware North rebuilt its data analytics unit after the pandemic — and gave it a more focused mission.
- Beverly Hills Aerials provided drone footage for Fox’s coverage of the World Series, and in this week’s magazine, SBJ’s Erik Bacharach spoke to the driver who controlled the remotes for the Fall Classic.
- Logitix unveiled Logitix One, the industry’s first all-in-one technology platform for live event ticketing, McCormick note from SBJ. It largely consolidates Logitix’s existing services and software into a single platform for the company’s customers.
