SBJ Football: NFL keeps its eyes on cutting-edge tech

NFL Deputy CIO Aaron Amendolia was featured on the conference’s opening session, where top tech execs look at key issues facing the sports industry. With the NFL being the 10,000-pound gorilla of U.S. sports, that means paying attention to a swath of issues.

“As we focus on emerging technology, they may help us with the improvement of the operation game content and engagement, but also preparing our venues,” Amendolia said. “We play domestically, but we also play internationally. So we use a lot of venues that we don't own, and then we're also building new venues. So how do we have this technology, this experience, consistent through all these different types of formats that we're exposed to?”

Cutting through the noise is also top of mind for the league as it looks to make its product better. Amendolia: “There's a tendency to try to look at a single technology, because that is going to be the technology that changes everything. And what we're really learning is that it's a combination of technologies working together and as they emerge, they have to work through the ecosystem around your business. … Everything has to be a pursuit to make the game better, the experience better.”

One area the league is focused on is optical tracking, whether it be around game events, on-field tracking, stat automation or the like. “You can't just do sensor-based tracking like we've had with our Next-Gen stats, because there are times when the sensor doesn't tell you all the story because it's about where the player's body position is, what moves they made or where they are,” Amendolia said.

He also talked about the league’s review of crypto and blockchain and how it could be used. Amendolia: “We have some collectibles and other things, but my focus was in the utility area. What do we do to ticketing? What do we do with kind of other memorabilia or fan loyalty programs?”

When you’re a sport with the reach and finances of the NFL, it’s expected that strong cybersecurity measures are going to be taken to protect the Shield’s private business information and trade secrets, the health and safety of players and the game experience itself. NFL Chief Information Security Officer Tomas Maldonado addressed how the league takes steps to protect its interests during a panel at Tech Week.

The Super Bowl is Maldonado’s most-visible event – one he called his “annual performance review that you all get to see on TV.” Maldonado: “We work extensively with our partners at Cisco to really shore up that pre-week -- and even before we get into that sort of pre-week stage … we're actually doing education awareness for small- and medium-sized businesses in and around the location that we operate in.”

The modern NFL also means no breaks. “There’s really no offseason,” Maldonado said. “We have the NFL Combine, which just occurred. We have the annual owners meetings, so I have a board of directors that I actually need to present to. Then we have the NFL Draft coming up in a few weeks. … We actually meet with the clubs on a monthly basis -- individually and as a group, collectively. And the different stadiums, we meet with them quarterly.”

But staying nimble is key for the league. Maldonado: “A lot of our priorities are really shifting towards ensuring that we're able to enable the business from a security standpoint to continue to go as fast as they can, collect as much as information as they can to be able to service our customers in the best possible way and ensure that we have the right level of security controls in place to be able to monitor, detect, and respond -- and be able to recover if there is something that actually occurs.”

I bought an Oculus VR set (now called Meta Quest) a couple of years back not knowing what games would be available -- but I knew they’d be coming in short order. Fast forward to this past year and I feel like the floodgates are opening for solid sports games in VR -- particularly the NFL Pro Era game by StatusPro.

So I was particularly interested to hear what Andrew Hawkins had to say to attendees at Tech Week. Hawkins, a former NFL player who now does analysis for NFL Network, is also co-founder and president of StatusPro, and he spoke on unlocking a new level of access through VR sports.

“People would always ask me, ‘What was that experience like?’ And I would tell them, ‘It was as fun as it looks,’” Hawkins said of playing in the NFL. “I wanted to bring this experience to everybody. ... We're unlocking the final layer of access through these experiences. ... Within a three-year process, we were able to unlock the NFL license and we became only the second stimulation video game the NFL has done in the last 18 years.”

Hawkins noted NFL Pro Era has become the fastest-selling VR sports title of all time. “It is showing the viability of VR,” he said. “In our first 30 days since launch, there were 250 million views on organic gameplay content. That's with a startup company, with not the big budgets of the huge gaming companies you're used to.”

Gen-Z remains the target audience for StatusPro. “They want access, and they're not playing sports at as high a rate as they did when we were growing up,” Hawkins said. “To get them that deeper level of connection to the game, we're kind of showing them a perspective they haven't seen before. And I think sports fans in general are used to this always-on cycle. You watch the games, you then tweet about it, then you watch the analysis the next day, and then you go to Second Spectrum, you see the data. And so we're just trying to bring something into that perspective that hasn't been there.”

I’ll definitely be watching what StatusPro does next. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go play virtual QB for the Giants.

• NFL licensees and licensed products retailers received their annual awards from the league last week at the annual Consumer Products Summit in Miami, with Dick’s Sporting Goods winning Retailer of the Year while the Falcons -- who added stadium retail locations and launched three custom in-house design collections -- won Club Retailers of the Year, notes my colleague Terry Lefton.

• My boss Abe Madkour looked back on late Panthers Owner Jerry Richardson in his Forum this week. "Richardson lived an extraordinary life -- NFL player, successful team owner, influential league leader and generous philanthropist. He was certainly complex and wasn’t a saint. The last chapter of his life was a shame and unfortunate for everyone. Over his final five years, he chose to live a strikingly private life, retreating from public view. But he was caring, had a giant heart -- transplanted at that -- and did so many good things for so many people."

• SBJ this week rolled out the 95 nominees for the 16th annual Sports Business Awards, recognizing excellence over the past year. Among those with ties to pro football are the Giants and 49ers (Best in Sports Social Media), the Walton-Penner group for the purchase of the Broncos (Deal of the Year), the NFL Draft (Event of the Year), Allegiant Stadium and SoFi Stadium (Sports Facility of the Year), the Bills (Sports Team of the Year) and the NFL itself (League of the Year).

• The NFLPA's political action committee spent just $12,000 on donations to campaigns last election cycle and has kept 81.8% of the more than $1 million it has raised since its inception in 2016, notes SBJ's Liz Mullen.

• Fox Sports has adopted drones as a part of their broadcast production strategy, giving a brand-new viewing experience for fans at home, and the next property up in the USFL, notes SBJ's Tom Friend.