february 28 …...work rules even if the nfl players association disbands, according to sources...

Fox and Turner are taking an early look at the NHL’s cable TV package, raising the likelihood that the league will have a competitive bidding process — with as many as four networks — as it negotiates new TV deals this year.

Versus’ exclusive negotiating window ended in late January, leading the league to send out feelers to several networks to gauge interest in the NHL’s TV rights. The league reached out to ESPN, which held the NHL’s TV rights from 1992 to 2004, and is still engaged in talks with Versus, its current rights holder.

For the past several months, ESPN has been open about its interest in kicking the tires on the NHL’s cable pack-age and was considered Versus’ main competition for the rights. Many NHL executives have favored a move back to ESPN. And with the NBA facing the possibility of canceling games next season, ESPN could be in the

With the NFL collective-bargaining agreement sched-uled to expire at midnight Thursday, the league is pur-suing a strategy to lock out players rather than impose work rules even if the NFL Players Association disbands, according to sources familiar with the situation.

Conventional wisdom within football circles is if the union disbands in order to file an antitrust lawsuit, the league would impose work rules and play the coming season, similar to the sequence of events that unfolded in 1989. That year started a stormy and litigious four-year phase between the league and players that culminated with the current CBA, struck in 1993. But no games were lost between 1989 and 1993 because, while there was no union, the teams still signed the players.

Several key sources said the NFL believes allowing the players on the field would essentially fund a new

Open SpOrtSclOSeS dOwnSportsLine.com founder Mike Levy’s digital venture shuttered after three years.

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what I lIke:jOhn rOwadyrEvolution CEO has a recipe for ribs, practical use for time travel.

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GatOrade tOpS fOr nfl SpOnSOrS Why the brand continues to be the league’s most recognizable partner.

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naScar lOOSenS up wIth lIquOrSeries will relax restrictions on spirits sponsor when it signs next deal.

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Fox, Turner show interest in NHL

NFL wants to keep players off field if union decertifies

www.sPortsbusinessjournal.comFebruary 28-March 6, 2011voluMe 13 issue 43 • $6.95

In any collective-bargaining scenar-io, management is reluctant to put a rosy face on its business performance for fear of labor using that information to its advantage. Nonetheless, at a time when NBA corporate sponsorship rev-enue and activation are at all-time highs and during an All-Star Weekend that included the resuscitation of a slam-dunk contest that had become tired and TV ratings that were the best in years,

senior NBA executives were quietly affirming that the league’s business is booming.

“The game is in great shape; it’s never

been better,” said Commissioner David Stern, at his annual state of the NBA press conference in the bowels of the Staples Center.

There were separate agendas being negotiated when the NBA and its players association met on Feb. 18 at the Beverly Hills Hilton. One was the CBA itself; the other was what kind of face to put on the talks, which are aimed to avoid a lockout when the cur-rent agreement ends June 30. Stern avowed optimism, noting the National

see NBA Page 30 see Labor Page 32

see NHL Page 6

by john lombardo and terry lefton staFF Writers

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NBA talks lockout in boom timesTickets, merch, ratings all at historic highs amid buzz in Los Angeles

Sources: 1989 standoff shapes league strategy as deadline nears

Virtual tech summit, Pages 16-23talking trends with cIOs/ctOs, Pages 20-22

Information technology moves from the back office to a seat at the table. Hear how the industry’s top leaders are driving strategic change.

by daniel kaPlan and liz mullen staFF Writers

by john ourand and terry lefton staFF Writers

Recognizing the lack of sufficient wireless capacity for fans inside their arenas, the NBA is taking a more active role in helping its teams meet growing demand.

The league is currently refining a proposal from AT&T in which the telecommunications giant would give its facility owners the option for the company to build in both Wi-Fi and mobile networks within their buildings.

The proposal with AT&T calls for the company to build the roughly $2 million Wi-Fi and mobile networks in are-nas at no charge to facility owners. AT&T customers in those venues would automatically get access to the network while non-AT&T customers would have to register to get free in-arena access, giving the company the opportunity to gather valuable consumer data while attracting more subscribers. The proposal is not tied to an NBA leaguewide sponsorship or technology partnership deal and the option

NBA studies AT&T proposal as part of wireless push

see Wireless Page 6

by john lombardo and eric fisher staFF Writers

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1 6 ❘ February28-March6, 2011 www.sportsbusinessjournal.com❘Street & Smith’sSportsBusinessJournal

In-DepthIn-Depth Information Technology in Sports

As technology continues to rapidly evolve, chief information officers and chief technology officers are

being called upon to plot revenue strate-gies and to develop ways to build deeper relationships with consumers. To better understand the changing attitudes to-ward technology and where the industry may be headed, SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, in conjunction with Cisco, convened the Virtual Technol-ogy Leaders Summit on Feb. 9 using Cisco’s TelePresence video conferencing system. The following are highlights of how partici-pants approach technology, evaluate oppor-tunities, and keep pace with an increasingly demanding consumer base.

■ What role does information technology, or technology in general, play within your organization, and the culture of your organi-zation? Is it growing in stature?

DenIse Taylor, aeG: We’re getting called

upon for much more than just core systems and services. They’re coming to us for rev-enue generation, products that will enhance the fan experience. One of the biggest areas of our growth is our involvement with our sponsorship group. I spend the majority of my time, at least 65 percent of my time, out in the field working with our various business units on solidifying sponsorship deals and working with business units to develop their individual technology strate-gies going forward.

larry BonfanTe, UsTa: IT is a key business enabler for every aspect of the business. … Whether it’s helping to drive our programs throughout the country or whether it’s actually starting to monetize some of our assets, and start to drive top-line revenue, IT really is in every aspect of the business at this point.

CraIG neeB, IsC: Early on it was a very infrastructure-oriented approach in our

sport. But as technology has been more and more adopted by our consumers, the strategic advantage around technology has played a bigger role. It’s also viewed as one of the key innovators as well as how do we do things differently, how do we engage with our fans more, how do we listen to our fans more. We’re basically now … at the table in helping to set the overall business direction, and then that closely aligns to what the total corporate strategy may be and where we’re trying to go as a business.

anDy sChWalB, nasCar: As the fan ex-pectation has changed over the years and as technology has become a greater part of their daily lives, technology is going to be the way they connect, consume and enjoy the sport going forward. We’re leveraging technology in a variety of new ways. Part of it is how we manage the sport, the inspec-tion process or operate the sport itself, all the way through to the way we deliver the sport to the fans and connect our sponsors

into that network where NASCAR is very strong. Technology is really the underpin-ning to basically every aspect of NASCAR today, and I would imagine for most proper-ties, in that it isn’t just about infrastructure or the business operations anymore. IT and technology itself becomes the connective tissue that allows the consumption, delivery and the creation of most of our content.

PeTer BrICkman, neW meaDoWlanDs sTaDIUm: From the stadium point of view, when I came on, I was tasked by our own-ership to take the stadium experience to a higher level than what viewers can see at the home. We use technology in many dif-ferent facets to create multiple touch points and provide a very robust experience. More than just the scoreboards, but a stadium that’s bathed in Wi-Fi and tons of interactive experiences through our StadiumVision product, and the ability to plug and play into the future for new technologies that come,

■ larry Bonfante, chief information officer, USTA

■ Peter Brickman, chief technology officer, New Meadowlands Stadium

■ andy elder, vice president, global sales, Cisco Sports and Entertainment

■ David holland, senior vice president, general manager, Cisco Sports and Entertain-ment

■ rob hunter, vice president, innovation, ESPN

■ Craig neeb, vice president, multichannel marketing and chief information officer, Inter-national Speedway Corp.

■ andy schwalb, vice presi-dent, chief information and technology officer, NASCAR and NASCAR Media Group

■ Denise Taylor, vice presi-dent, information technology, AEG

gets a seat at the table

Back-office duties remain, but technologists today are helping to set the strategy on revenues, sponsorships and improving the fan experience

Tech

VIrTUal TeChnoloGy leaDers sUmmIT ParTICIPanTs

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The technology summit was held feb. 9 using Cisco’s TelePresence to connect participants in new york, los angeles, san Jose, orlando and Charlotte.

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Street & Smith’sSportsBusinessJournal❘www.sportsbusinessjournal.com February28-March6, 2011❘ 1 7

In-DepthIn-DepthInformation Technology in Sports

as they get developed, and quickly get them implemented and bring them to market.

■ you’re all in agreement that technol-ogy leaders command a different seat at the table than they used to. how has that changed?

BonfanTe: When I first got to the USTA, IT was viewed as a utility, and not a very effective utility, to be honest with you. So it has evolved as we’ve built credibility in terms of what we can deliver for our con-sumers. We’ve been more engaged in the process to the point now that we run side-by-side with business folks on every-thing they do.

neeB: When you com-pare the sports entertain-ment industry to other more traditional indus-tries that use technology, be they manufacturing or retail, technology was core to those businesses. I came out of that into sports enter-tainment, this was 2000, and it was a quick realization that the same view didn’t occur in sports. It was viewed more as that utility and I have to keep the lights on and keep the plumbing work-ing and all those things. What has happened … is that the consumer is what’s really driv-ing the demand for that new experience and that new technology. And so the relative importance of it has certainly bubbled up. As leaders you have to earn your way to the table, too, and you have to be able to be part of the business strategy and earn that respect and be able to talk in that fashion and deliver against those solutions.

sChWalB: I’m the first CIO/CTO for NAS-CAR. I think it is a direct response to your point that the elevation and recognition by the governing body and the leadership at NASCAR that technology was going to play a critical role in all aspects of the business. So they wanted to have someone with a seat

at the table to partici-

pate in business strategy, everything from competition to marketing, through running operations, through our media, and differ-ent channels of distribution for our content. I would say that’s a fairly new recognition for NASCAR, but they clearly understand the importance of that from the top down.

roB hUnTer, esPn: I think the thing that has changed most, that has changed the nature of the seat at the table, is the requirement across functional teams for technology to integrate capabilities. If you think back even 10 years ago, there was a telecommunications person and they were largely responsible for telecommunications. Today the telecommunications function crosses everybody else’s universe. You can say the same thing about data networking. … Live-event production was one class of

skills, studio production was another class of skills. There wasn’t necessarily correspondence between them. Neither one of them leaked over much into the digital media space. Today, it is our role as technologists to help each of those differ-ent functional groups leverage their skills, and the skills of their colleagues, and that’s a big, big difference — the integration re-quirement’s really changed.

■ If you look at the role of the CIo/CTo today, and you go out three to five years, what will that look like, and where are those individuals being created? are they coming from the other sectors? are they being created within the sports and enter-tainment field?

BonfanTe: I think it’s less about where people are coming from and more about the

competencies they’re bringing to the table. Historically, the CIO has been more of an information technology professional who you want to keep the lights on. I think the focus now is on someone who knows how to drive organizational change, someone who knows how to develop relations both at the consumer level and the board level, and someone who really knows how to drive change, be a leader in the organization, and engage with every aspect. … I think the focus is different. I think the competen-cies are different moving forward.

BrICkman: I think as we mature and go forward we are going to spend a lot more time on the product offering of the company more so than just the back office, working with whether it’s the content producers or whatever to facilitate their needs. Typically,

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The U.s. open’s command center makes sure the event delivers for consumers.

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what I’ve seen now … is that we’re spending a lot of time with the sponsorship groups, spending a lot of time with the production groups and the marketing groups, to create these new experiences and figure out how to execute whatever it is they need. But we do start to step into the actual product offering as opposed to making sure we have enough servers and bandwidth to make it happen.

hUnTer: The notion that the technology leadership is at least involved in, if not responsible for, the product development is pretty key. We have a great deal of respect here for the folks who run facilities, whether it’s Denise … or what Peter’s been doing with the New Meadow-lands. If we look at the platforms they have to create, and of course they are customer fac-ing on a daily basis, so they can’t break, they can’t not work, when someone walks through the door … what that really says is that we have a di-rect responsibility today to facilitate the delivery of product. And that, I think, is a bit of a change from the notion that the CIO was a utility operator and as long as the utility was flowing, everybody was going to be happy. That’s not good enough today.

■ you’ve talked about aligning your strat-egy, your technology groups, with the busi-ness, strategic goals. What have been the challenges there?

BonfanTe: You hear a lot about alignment in the IT industry, and to me that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard in my life because the assumption is that somehow IT is separate and discrete from the business. Nothing could be further from the truth.

You don’t hear chief marketing officers or chief financial officers being asked how they’re aligned with the business because they are the business. Well, so are we in IT. We’re integrated with every aspect of the business.

■ Give us a specific example of how you’ve been able to drive change in your organization.

BonfanTe: One of our big initiatives is 10-and-under tennis. We’re trying to get kids involved in tennis earlier, have a more posi-tive experience, so they grow up playing

tennis for a lifetime. Every aspect of how we’re driving that program and the aware-ness of that program is through the use of technology, whether it’s social media, whether it’s Web presence where parents and providers can go on to get every aspect of what they need to know to get kids in-volved in tennis — everything that we’re doing to drive that program forward has technology as an underpinning, especially when you consider that this generation of tennis players, that’s where they live, that’s how they engage, is with those types of media.

neeB: One of the things that we started a couple of years ago was really the need for information around our customers and who they are, what they like, what their interests are. It’s the classic relationship management, or CRM. And that concept for years in our sport really wasn’t necessary because our sport was growing so rapidly. Then, as it peaked and flattened out, and cer-tainly with the economic situation started to decline, what we’ve been able to build over the last two years is that 360-degree view of the customer where every time we touched a fan, no matter what channel we touched that fan, we were asking for information, storing that information about who that fan was, so that we could go back and seg-ment around those fans and understand what their likes and dislikes are, and their propensities to deal with us and have busi-ness with us and engage with us.

■ What are some of the barriers or road-blocks to innovation, and how are you ad-dressing them?

BonfanTe: I think the biggest barrier to innovation quite frankly is a cultural barrier. You have to create a culture where prudent risk is recognized and rewarded. A lot of people, especially in technology, grew up that the lights have to be on constantly, and if anything went wrong, that they were

put out behind a tool shed and shot. The whole idea with innovation is that you’re going to take risks, and some of those risks are going to work and some of them aren’t, and it’s OK if they don’t work as long as you learn something from that process and move the change forward.

Taylor: For us the biggest challenge with innovation is actually balancing the wants and the needs. Our culture at AEG is very, very dynamic and very entrepreneurial, so the ideas come forward all the time. So it’s really looking at it and making sure we take advantage of those innovations that there’s a goal attached to it, and not just a want out there. ... Like I said, we work in a great culture that produces ideas, generates thoughts, has lots of collaboration across multiple business units. Then it’s really narrowing it down to those decisions where we really want to take the risk.

sChWalB: In the culture, especially in NASCAR and other places I’ve been, a lot of good ideas are popped around, and how do you put a good filter in place, because a lot of good ideas can get in the way of a great idea. You want to make sure you focus your energies and resources on that great idea that can really move the ball forward versus getting mired with a bunch of just little good ideas. … The other part about it is that I’m always mindful, too, of respect-ing tradition and heritage. Innovation can move you off where your real core path is if you’re not careful and understand where you’re heading. So keeping that anchored appropriately, not to hold you back, not to keep you from moving forward, but in keep-ing with what your core value structure is, is important as well.

neeB: I think the balancing is probably the most challenging thing in all of this because, as Denise pointed out and Andy, in-novation is coming in from everywhere. It’s that vetting process, but not being viewed as bureaucratic or inflexible. It’s getting that ownership in from the other stakeholders that are helping to set that priority so that it doesn’t come across that technology is the barrier or the impediment to getting

it done. It really is collaboration around everybody setting what those priorities are, and making sure everyone buys into that process.

■ In these cultural issues that you have outlined, to what extent are you wrestling with wireless bandwidth?

BrICkman: What we’re finding now is the explosive growth of Wi-Fi. In an 80,000-seat venue, you’re never going to have enough bandwidth on cellular … to support stream-ing of content to the appliance. You’re going to have to rely on other vehicles such as Wi-Fi. We have been talking to Cisco to develop the next generation of Wi-Fi streaming. It goes not only to the number of access points in the building, which will basically be doubled pretty soon, but also to the type of players that are on the appliance. We’re working with the development of multicast players so that that stream is one stream instead of a thousand streams, because that is an absolute growing need. I was going to mention before that one of the things you have to focus on is customer adoption. The adoption and expectation of streaming on an appliance, whether it’s an iPad or a Droid or whatever, has gotten explosive to the point that the carriers … when it comes to a sta-dium to their streaming apps, have shut down the apps because they can’t support it, so they want to reduce the expectations. But there are ways around it and we’re work-ing with the carriers, and the carriers are supporting distribution methods other than cellular because they know they’ll never get there. So we are quite frankly asking them to fund the bill for it. … We task our carriers, whether they are from the broadcast side or the customer side, they’re not going to share their core revenue with us, but they are going to provide revenue to enjoy the privilege of being in the stadium.

BonfanTe: We have a similar situation where the Wi-Fi isn’t an issue, because we have control over that. We’ve blanketed the campus with Wi-Fi. But when you get to the patrons and the fan experience, we could put 35,000 people on the grounds, and the


new meadowlands stadium takes full advantage of video signage, whether to help direct fans to entrances that have the shortest lines or to keep them up to date on scores of other games.

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“Theexpectationofthecustomeris‘I’mgoingtogetacellsignal.I’mgoingtogetwirelessandI’mgoingtobeabletodowhateverIcandoathome,inthestadium.’”

CraIgNeebInternatIonalSPeedwaycorP.



Mets may be playing across the street with another 45,000, so you’ve got the better part of 80,000 people all trying to share that 3G or 4G bandwidth. We’ve got wonderful ap-plications, we have a great U.S. Open iPhone application, but if you can’t access it, it loses its value.

BrICkman: We have very low-power, 500 cellular antennas throughout the building that can pick up, and each carrier has its own. The top carriers have been very sup-portive of the program. Now the second- and third-tier carriers are realizing that they have to come in.

BonfanTe: You’re playing football games for the better part of half of the year, so the carriers are willing to make that investment, whereas our event happens over a two-week period, so to build that permanent infra-structure just isn’t cost effective for them.

neeB: I share that pain with you, Larry, having to do that in facilities that may only operate two weekends a year. And then on top of that … the amount of acreage that we have to cover. Then we don’t have any RF (radio frequency) plans, or any RF po-lice around it, and that’s something that we’re working with the sanctioning body and NASCAR — how do we get more disci-plined? You have your vendors who come in with their wireless, you have the teams, you have what’s proprietary to the facility and everything else. It becomes a wireless mess for lack of a better term, to try to ad-dress. And getting back to Peter’s point, the expectation of the customer is “I’m going to get a cell signal. I’m going to get wireless and I’m going to be able to do whatever I can do at home, in the stadium.” And then when they don’t get that, it’s an upset customer and how do you address that?

Taylor: As much as we’re impacting the customer with their expectations, one of the challenges we’re running up against is that it actually affects our back-of-the-house operations. We use wireless for ticketing, for food and beverage, for merchandise sales, so we’re dealing with a two-prong issue here. Obviously the upset fan is a huge concern for us, but in the same breath, too, if our operations can’t run, we’re going to have an even greater number of upset fans to deal with.

■ how does wireless fit into your overall business strategy? What kind of content and media rights issues do you see there, and how are you looking to deal with that to cre-ate new experiences?

BrICkman: From the NFL stadium point of view, we have a unique opportunity be-cause, the way the broadcast agreements are written, we have unfettered rights to anything NFL related within the stadium compound. So offering an NFL Sunday Ticket experience, offering up a Red Zone experience, offering up a cable cam experi-ence, enhanced stats, we can deliver it to our TVs. We can customize stats-based chan-nels and L wraps [stats and other messaging on video boards and other screens] to have fans create their own experiences, their own fantasy experiences. As long as it doesn’t leave the confines of the building, we have unfettered access. … We are very interested in taking this to the next model where we interact fan-created content to league-based content. I know the NFL is very interested

in where that goes going forward. This goes back to creating all of those experiences that you can’t necessarily get at home.

sChWalB: From a NASCAR perspective,

for us it’s all about the connected fan, not only while they’re at the tracks and enjoying the races directly. I think you mentioned earlier about that adjacent experience they may be having as well with a viewing com-panion. One of the key target things that we want to do to help grow the sport is to help bring new people to the sport. One of the barriers to bringing new people to the sport is awareness and understanding of what the sport is and the intricacies associated with motorsports and NASCAR in particular. To the extent that I can get delivery of a Galaxy Tab [tablet] application running on Wi-Fi that while they’re watching the broadcast it can give them behind-the-scenes informa-tion about the particular run that Jimmie Johnson is making around the track and how that is affecting his competition with Jeff Gordon or something like that, and help illustrate some of the nuances that aren’t necessarily evident on the broadcast itself, I think are going to be key. And bringing those not only to the stadium but also to home or wherever they’re watching the sport. I think those are the kinds of things that are going to add value to us in the longer term, adding that augmentation.

■ What are some other roadblocks to in-novation?

BrICkman: In my mind, capital is always the hardest thing. You’re always challenged to get capital for any project. Initially when you try to do an ROI on the cost of capital, unless it’s something where a sponsor can come across and underwrite the cost of it, it’s always challenging. … We were fortu-nate in that we were able to buy $100 million worth of technology from the beginning and ensure that it had capabilities to meet our needs going forward for the next few years. … If you’re starting from an existing operation, you have to add a whole bunch

of technology. Getting that financial com-mitment is very tough unless you get a firm revenue behind it.

Taylor: I completely agree. On our new builds of stadiums and venues, we can build those smart arenas; we’re in it from the ground up. But when we have to go back and try to future-proof some of our exist-ing arenas … it’s much more challenging than with a new build. In addition to the capital budget that’s needed, it’s opening walls and obviously going through retrofits and construction.

■ To the extent that an investment has a proven roI, even in a retrofit situation, shouldn’t those investments be made? or has how we are tied to sponsorships and the way the industry done business traditionally stood in the way?

Taylor: It is a bit easier if there is a proven ROI on a technology. But currently, technol-ogy is changing so fast, a lot of the new technologies coming out, the proven ROI is not there yet. So I think that is where the challenge is, in regard to being able to show the need for that budget. I do believe that as we’re progressing and kind of moving along, and with the growth of the whole technology infrastructure kind of evolving, it’s becoming a little bit easier. But a lot of the technologies today, except for the solu-tions such as StadiumVision, I don’t believe there’s a proven ROI model immediately. But we know and we see it out there and we see that it’s working very successfully in numerous arenas and stadiums. We expect it to work in our venues as well.

BonfanTe: I think there’s two types of ROI. There’s a quantitative ROI and, to Denise’s point, that’s perhaps not always possible to get your arms around. But there’s also a qualitative ROI. So fans are expecting a certain experience when they come to your venue, your sponsors are expecting a cer-tain level of capability when they come to

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“Forusit’sallabouttheconnectedfan,notonlywhilethey’reatthetracksandenjoyingtheracesdirectly.”

aNdYSChwalbnaScar


mark sTrossChief technology officeranC sports enterprises

Biggest challenge fac-ing sports IT: “Content man-agement and bandwidth al-location man-aging exponen-tially growing assets.”

Biggest misperception about IT: “IT professionals simply want the newest gadgets in the industry.”

key strategic role a CTo should play within an organization: “To inspire in-novative, revenue-enhancing concepts.”

John sUllivanVice president, information technologymajor league soccer

new technol-ogy we’ll be talk-ing about in two years: “The cloud. Cloud-based ser-vices enable or-ganizations to quickly deploy scalable appli-cations without worrying about hardware man-agement.”

organization that sports entities can learn the most from with regard to tech-nology: “The mobile industry. Mobile Internet usage continues to soar, and at some point in the near future, we will have more mobile Internet users than desktop connected users.”

Within your organization, IT’s role is stra-tegic in that it: “Has a responsibility to support and provide solutions for many different business units.”

sTeve QUinnChief technology officerXos Digital

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Cloud services and mobile devices will provide new opportunities in sports analysis and coaching services. On the consumer front, connected TV and other online viewing experiences will continue to grow.”

Biggest chal-lenge facing sports IT: “Security. As more products and services are hosted, we need to ensure client and content security is maintained, and we need to prove it to our customers.”

Within your orga-nization, IT’s role is strategic in that it: “Pro-vides a secure, supportable and scalable infrastructure allowing us to support our partners and end-users.”

david mazzaSenior vice president, engineeringnBC olympics

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Over-the-top, Internet-deliv-

ered video.”Biggest chal-

lenge facing sports IT: “Es-calating rights fees not leaving enough budget for the produc-tion quality that everyone has come to expect.”

Within your organization, IT’s role is strategic in that: “Everything has an Internet proto-col address now. All of us are having to adapt, and we have yet to exploit all of the possibilities.”

michael gliedmanSenior vice president, chief information officernBa

Biggest chal-lenge facing sports IT: “En-hancing in-ven-ue wireless per-formance for our fans. It is a combination of improving both 3G/4G and Wi-Fi as newer devices can move seamlessly between the two.”

Piece of in-stadium technology that should be added to the in-home experience: “We’re working on replicating the im-mersive experience you get at an NBA game with HP Labs to create a triple-wide 3-D viewing experience, and second- and third-screen apps that will allow fans to interact with friends and family the way they do when they’re at a live game.”

Piece of at-home technology that should be added to the in-venue experience: “Our NBA.com StatsCube is a very powerful computer-based analytical tool that we developed to allow users to perform com-plex stats analysis very quickly. Future generations of the tool will be great for fans to take to games with them.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “How can I make my business area run better through technology? Our role has changed from traditional IT or-der-takers/service providers to business partners. And at the NBA, my department is truly at the heart of the game.”

Tony cobaSenior vice president, chief information officermiami heat

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “The need for improved in-venue Wi-Fi, 3G and 4G wireless carrier coverage. With the pro-

liferation of smartphones and tablets at sporting

events, venues are struggling


Talking Trends WiTh Tech eXecs

lorraine spadaroVice president, technology and eBusinessDelaware north Cos. / TD Garden

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Mo-bile enhancing the customer experience at events through video, buy-fi mobile ordering, and interactivity with the fan from event to living room.”

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “Wi-Fi and mobile infrastructure to support delivering interactive apps to fans’ mobile devices.”

Joe choTiSenior vice president, chief technology officerTickets.com / mlB advanced media

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Internet mobility and platform consolidation. Devices are getting smaller and more powerful. This will allow fans to carry around small handheld devices capable of a fully immersive experience.”

Biggest misperception about IT: “It’s not binary. IT organizations are not just a col-lection of geeky people pushing around ones and zeroes.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “What, when and how. IT’s role is to be the silent enabler delivering the fan what they want, when they want it and how they ask for it.”

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with inadequate wireless carrier coverage.”

Piece of in-stadi-um technology that should be added to the in-home fan experience / Piece of at-home technol-ogy that should be added to the in-sta-dium experience: “The challenge is not so much deter-

mining which technology to use to deliver content, but rather the reorganization of delivery of content in ways that enhances the overall fan experience.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “Strategic and operational.”

brian koppVice president, strategy and developmentstats llC

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Real-time motion capture. Micro-soft started it with Kinect in the home and with the upcoming release of their software

development kit. We should expect an explosion in applications lever-aging this unique technology.”

Biggest chal-lenge facing sports IT: “Allowing sports viewers to have more control over their experi-ence, no matter where they are. As

devices get more interactive and functional, and the amount of real-time data available increases, there will be tremendous pressure on technology professionals to deliver the most relevant information, applications and experiences

in a timely and relevant fashion.”Within your organization, IT’s role can be

defined as: “Crucial to remaining the world’s leader in real-time sports statistics. We are growing from a data delivery company into a robust content, technology and solutions provider — all built on the back of a strong IT infrastructure.”

chUck paganoExecutive vice president, technology, engineeringand operationsesPn

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Next-generation broadband wire-less. More devic-es, including TV sets, are going the route of connected media, and con-tent will be pushed out via the easiest receptor.”

Biggest misper-ception about IT: “That they are a separate function from the operations side. At ESPN, IT is embedded in everything we do.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “A parallel to our content technol-ogy efforts, and both are required to push the technological bar higher collectively.”

nancy galieTTiVice president, information technologynfl

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “Tech-nology has moved from a back-office support function to the forefront with critical impli-cations for business growth and fan engage-

ment. There are so many emerg-ing technologies and innovative ideas, the chal-lenge is twofold: having the smart business judg-ment on what to pursue, and hav-ing the scale and ability to execute and deliver great products and solutions.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “One that helps the NFL respond cost-effectively to changing business needs, and gain a competitive advantage by pro-moting innovation and growth.”

bill schloUghChief information officersan francisco Giants

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “The long-awaited arrival of the mobile wallet and how this impacts the ballpark experience, from concessions to ticketing, to micropayments for virtual

amenities.”most techno-

logically advanced sports facility is: “A fallacy. Fans don’t come to sports facilities for the technol-ogy. They come to be entertained.”

Within your or-ganization, IT’s role can be defined as: “A strategic enabler of team success on and off the field and integral part of the fan experience.”

roberT JordanVice president, design and constructionnew meadowlands stadium

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “Integra-tion and adoption. The bandwidth require-ments of a fully attended event with high adoption of devices exceeds the present-day capabilities of the digital domain. Integrat-ing all of the disparate sources of data and


peTe WalshChief information officerDallas Cowboys

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “Fulfill-ing fan expectations. With so many mobile device options, all venues will have to evalu-ate their mobility road map to determine what steps they will take to ensure fans get the applications requested to ‘up’ the fan experience.”

Piece of in-stadium technology that should be added to the in-home experience: “Instant stats and different camera angles so you can watch what you want to watch and not what the network wants you to see.”

Piece of at-home technology that should be added to the in-venue experience: “Better seating and better sound. Plastic seats for $100,000 a year? Come on! And there is new technology that will allow stadium sound to be easy on the ears and with no echo.”

Within your organization IT’s role can be de-fined as: “At the stadium, everything runs on a computer … So it’s pretty strategic to the running of each event.”

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Joe inzerilloSenior vice president, multimedia and distributionmlB advanced media

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Near field communications. If you look at what is happening in other parts of the world, people are using NFC-equipped cell phones for everything from train tickets to point-of-sale purchase.”

Biggest misperception about IT: “That the ‘T’ often gets missed. People hear IT and they think e-mail servers and printers, all of which are important. What sports really pushes, or at least tries to push, is technology. Few other industries push consumer technology like sports.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “Like good de-sign. Done well, it is invisible.”

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your venue. I think getting those voices heard helps in getting the capital invest-ment required to build out some of this infrastructure.

neeB: I think getting back to the retrofit component, I think the added dimension is there’s competition for capital dollars, because it’s maybe not just necessarily com-petition driven, but certainly the Meadow-lands Stadium and Cowboys Stadium, all those new stadiums have amenities that are beyond technology that we compete for when we look at a prioritization. We say is it nicer seats or is it technology, or all of those components that flavor into a retrofit of a building to say what is going to be the greatest return from the fans that are going to say I really appreciated this or I really appreciated that, and making sure that you’re balancing all of those priorities appropriately.

■ What are some of the priorities at IsC when it comes to the fan experience in terms of technology upgrades? Would it be with big screens or would it be with other elements?

neeB: Certainly the large video format screens have proven to be very attractive to our fans and they like them a lot. We implement them in four of our venues. The feedback we get … has been tremendous. It’s really more opportunistic when it comes to what are the technology priorities. For ex-ample, we’re looking at some major changes out at our Phoenix racetrack. How do we build technology into that retrofit of that stadium? We’re building new seats, we’re going to build a new infield, a new media center. Where can we introduce new tech-nology, be opportunistic, not necessarily leading the cause for change, but we pig-gyback on the change that is already exist-ing and take advantage of that change to introduce technology hopefully as an in-cremental value add to the overall process.

■ some of this is educating sponsors about what this technology can provide. What is the education you’re giving to brands outside the organization to the tech-nology possibilities?

BrICkman: It’s an education of the sales staff, too, to see what the new offering is. Typically the sports salesperson in spon-sorship is used to doing a deal over a steak dinner and everybody slaps each other over the back and gets things done, and maybe you get signage on the stadium for the full season and such, and this has now changed. Now we have the opportunity to sponsor a Red Zone, sponsor a record breaker, spon-sor a matchup, sponsor a whole bunch of different initiatives that can be created that may not have existed a week before, but now all of a sudden they’re available to be sponsored. It’s the education of the sponsor through the sales staff on how we get that done, and we need a creative team to feed us the information, to say we’re coming up with this big opportunity.

Taylor: It’s one of the areas that’s evolved greatly for us over the past 24 months. Pre-viously, we would not, from an IT perspec-tive, work with our sponsorship group in going out and doing technology deals. Now it’s a part of our day-to-day. And really a good portion of our sponsorship deals have actually driven the technology that we’re implementing in our stadium and in our venues. Overall, it’s working in our ben-efit in that as technology is evolving with us from a core infrastructure perspective to more of enhancing the fan experience, it’s a little bit easier when you have that sponsorship support behind you and we’re delivering a product that will enhance the fan experience, to get the budgets neces-sary to do what we need to do. I think that traditionally when you’re trying to replace servers and hardware, getting a budget when you’re competing against everyone else trying to get a budget that’s going to

actually change how the fan interacts with us, we’re definitely going to come at the bot-tom of the list. So for the past 24 months, a whole education process has happened within our company and the sponsors we work with. We really understand how each other works. Our sponsorship group under-stands a good portion of technology. They can go out there and represent IT and really bring in those key sponsors to assist us.

■ Is there a technology you can point to that is bringing the biggest return on invest-ment? Is there one that stands out?

BrICkman: Yes, it’s signage. It’s virtual signage.

hUnTer: I’d like to ask a question to the folks from Cisco. How do you see it from a Cisco standpoint? What is your specific interest and/or targeted return?

DaVID hollanD, CIsCo: We actually have approached this market, candidly, differ-ently than I think has been by technology firms in the past … which has been much more along the lines of technology firms are approached and say, “Look if you’re willing to pay us a sponsorship we’ll let you put technology in our venue.” And candidly we see that as one of the major impediments to the pace of innovation in this sector. So our approach has been that we will sponsor only selectively, and typically at a league level, so that we can drive the overarch-ing messaging, but at the local, property level, we need to demonstrate an ROI that is compelling enough that the technology will persist. So to Peter’s point about signage and the economics of StadiumVision, we think that’s such a compelling story that those investments should be made regardless of a sponsorship discussion, and yet this is the nature of the industry. We talk about it as almost a 12-step program to get away from that initial discussion about “pay me to have a discussion.” In fact in many cases people would rather receive a check today

for a couple of hundred thousand dollars as opposed to having Cisco help them make tens of millions of dollars over a case of a few years.

anDy elDer, CIsCo: This is no longer about IT supporting the business. This is about IT being the business. As we try to think about attracting that next genera-tion of fan into that experience, we know that somebody dressed as a rubber sausage running across a field won’t entertain the


SeeSummitPage23

Turnkey Sports PollThe following are results of the

Turnkey Sports Poll taken in Janu-ary. The survey covered more than 1,100 senior-level sports industry ex-ecutives spanning professional and college sports.

■ how would you describe your organiza-tion’s approach to utilizing new technology to improve your business practices?User of established technological solutions 42%Making baby steps 29%First to implement new technology 27%Non-user 1%Not sure / No response 2%

■ Compared to other industries (e.g. fi-nancial services, telecommunications), how well does the sports industry do at collecting and utilizing consumer data?Worse 60%Same 25%Better 12%Not sure / No response 3%

Source: Turnkey Sports & Entertainment in conjunction with SportsBusiness Journal. Turnkey Intelligence specializes in research, measurement and lead generation for brands and properties. Visit www.turnkeyse.com.

platforms will require a para-digm shift in the use and reuse of the available data.”

Piece of in-stadium technol-ogy that should be added to the in-home fan experi-ence: “What will make inroads is

any device that can accurately portray the compelling nature of the live event. The advent of 3-D, surround sound, alternate viewing angles when used as a holistic program will bring ‘live’ into the home.”

Piece of at-home technology that should be added to the in-stadium experience: “Technology should be used to enhance the entire experience, the ingress, the food and beverage, the way-finding, as well as the requisite video, statistics, and the commonly stated broadcast graphics and information.”

michael herExecutive vice president, research and developmentneulion

new technology we’ll be talking about in two years: “Near field communications and related applications, such as mobile payment and in-venue NFC smart mobile apps.”

Biggest challenge fac-ing sports IT: “Providing ap-plications and services on various mobile and connected devices.”

Within your organization, IT’s role can be defined as: “Partnership with our customers.”

peTer delgiaccoExecutive vice president, chief technology officernhl

Biggest challenge facing sports IT: “Build-ing and maintaining an IT organization that has the skills to identify new tech-nologies that can enhance the fan expe-rience, build infrastructures to ensure

timely distribution of information to fans and partners, and design workflows that deliver content to multiple platforms.”

Piece of in-stadium technology that should be added to the in-home fan experience: “Higher-quality audio, access to multiple camera angles, and rich companion PC experience to replicate the multisensory experience of sitting in the arena.”

Piece of at-home technology that should be added to the in-stadium experience: “Fast Internet connectivity.”

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— Compiled by Eric Fisher


with Wi-Fi and wireless. I guarantee you that in three to five years we’ll have it solved, and at that point we’ll be talking about ways to offer even more services over it so that we can then make the fan experience go all the way out from when they wake up in the morning, to their coming into our parking lots, to when they’re walking through our stadiums, and extending that day with them.

sChWalB: I think to your point about

the connectivity being continuous and ubiquitous, and the ability to engage at any level with NASCAR with your favorite driver, and communicate and build a relationship, I think [that] will be interesting. Also, looking for the ability to experience the sport in a more visceral way through 3-D modeling technologies or virtualization technologies to the ex-tent that I can participate in this sport either at home or at the track, in a way that maybe helps me draw a closer rela-tionship to what’s actually going out on the track, I think are interesting things that I’ll keep my eye on.

neeB: From the venue side, it’s that year-round, personalized experience. The ability to intimately know our fans and to be able to proactively communi-cate with them and be able to create dy-namic itineraries, if you will, personal-ized itineraries, and giving that really special purpose. … We want them to have that intimate relationship with us and want to come back and plan their year around coming back to one of our facili-ties to live the experience of that event.

BonfanTe: Engaging our fans more interactively and having the kind of infrastructure in place to provide the kind of experience and the kind of in-formation to them that we currently can for our media and broadcast partners.

BrICkman: I’m a very strong supporter of Wi-Fi and the ability of it to offer new content experiences to our fan base. The other thing I wanted to add on was more of a back-office environment, was the use of [cloud computing] to reduce the size of our data centers and offer up these ex-periences in a cloud-based environment.

hUnTer: More. Simply put, more. I don’t think in five years we’re going to tolerate video streams that you can’t tell the numbers of the players. I think we’re going to have better video. I think we’re

going to have more video. I think we’re going to have more data. I think we’re going to have better tools for personal-izing that data. But it really comes down to more. Fans want more, not less. For the last 10 years, we’ve been sneaking up on more. But I think five years from now, we’ll have been there. And it’s pretty exciting.

elDer: I think we’re going to create the traditions of the future. By that, I mean the things that created the fan connec-tion on day one in the olden days when you’d go with your family and you’d have that most tribal experience, I think that’s what carries fans through generations and through their lives. I think what

we’ll do now with technology is create that new tradition, that experiential thing that brings together how you feel when that engine starts on the racetrack, how you feel when the players run out of the tunnel, and we’ll combine that with the comfort you have of watching up close and seeing and being aware of all of the information that’s available to you when you’re at home. And how do you bring those two things together. And I think what we’ll see is that trans-formation.

hollanD: We’re going to be talking about a new concept of networks, around fan-experience networks, which is part broadcast, which is part social media platform, which is part commerce plat-form, and these things coming together around a brand and an affinity group in a way that is really transformational at the user experience level. The pieces are all there. They’re kind of vibrating around in this universe we all see, but they’re not all coming together in a very unified way yet, but I think the future of broadcast will be very different in three to five years than it is today because of what our kids, and kids yet to be born, are going to be demanding.


next generation below us for very long. We have to transform that experience. I think what Larry said is about how IT has an op-portunity to lead from the front in terms of being the next business for a lot of com-panies. And that transition is happening. There are different appetites for it; we see it in all of the conversations that we have. … But also, is it better to get $1 for nothing or better to spend $1 and get 10? And that’s a transformation in the thinking.

■ you have seen the transformation in the thinking, in not just taking the check, but investing in the culture or the changes. But properties are reluctant to do that. They would rather take the money.

elDer: There’s no question about the re-luctance, and I think that for many people, this is a tipping point that we’ll see in the industry, which is around people’s appetite to go and invest in order to make money. And that’s a cultural shift that is occur-ring. What we’re noticing on a global basis is there’s a different appetite to take that risk around the world, depending on where they are. … Understanding that if you are going to be a future player in a space, you need to leapfrog tradition. You need to get ahead of the game. And so different country leaders are coming to us with an appetite to deploy technology very fast to take the experience from day one to the fans in those countries. And I think what you’ll see is some forward-looking people here in North America who are jumping on this and moving aggressively and will

be ready for this tipping point, and there will be some people … who are stuck in the old way of doing business.

■ What have you tried technology-wise that did not work?

neeB: We tried to get into RFID (radio frequency identification), five years ago I guess it was. The concept was an RFID wristband that would be leveraged so that the consumer could use that for payment processing. They would link their credit card to it and everything. It wasn’t so much that technology failed in the case. It was more of an implementation failure. … There is so much technology out there that you can try to adopt and innovate into

your business, [but] you have to make sure there’s a business purpose around it as well and a plan and an objective on how it is going to be measurable and really benefit your business. I would say the failure we experienced there is that we lacked that part of it. We jumped right into the gee-whiz technology because we thought it was cool. Then it was viewed as a technology failure when in fact that wasn’t the case. There wasn’t enough business planning.

sChWalB: The risk is that if you come around to perhaps RFID again, there might be a bigger roadblock. Whereas it might be the right answer to implement … but you’ve got to overcome the fact that people will say that RFID failed, when in fact it

was just implementation.

BrICkman: One of my mantras has always been as a technologist, I always go with leading edge, not bleeding edge. I would very much shy away from prod-ucts that were not to market yet in any way, shape or form, or trying to motivate vendors or manufacturers to go into areas that were not in their road maps because you can only set yourself up for disaster.

hUnTer: What we look for, and I suspect you guys do too, is innovation that scales. The idea that the businesses we’re in that we can afford to take risks with innovation that doesn’t scale, there’s also no payoff to that. Even if you succeed, it doesn’t go any-where. We’re all such large customer-facing entities in terms of the number of people and the number of customer interactions we have to support, that if it works in a universe of 2, 5, 10, 200, that doesn’t count. It needs to be something we can practically say is going to scale every night, 300 nights a year, or it’s going to have to work 3,000 broadcasts a year. That’s our decision point when we consider whether we’re going to make a significant investment. If we’re successful, can it scale. And if the answer to that isn’t yes, then we have a relatively limited interest, even though it may be extraordinarily inventive.

For additional highlights from our discus-sion, visit sister publication SportsBusiness Daily at www.sportsbusinessdaily.com.

Taylor: For me, one of the things that’s exciting is that today we’re challenged

sBJ technology writer eric fisher (left) asks panelists about challenges with bandwidth.

The next big thing

What’s hot in technology in the next three to five years?“Fanswantmore,notless.Forthelast10years,we’vebeensneakinguponmore.butIthinkfiveyearsfromnow,we’llhavebeenthere.andit’sprettyexciting.”

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february 28 …...work rules even if the nfl players association disbands, according to sources...

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