SBJ Tech: Trail Blazers deploy OneCourt accessibility tech

A year ago in this very newsletter, you learned about accessibility tech startup OneCourt and its efforts to change the fan experience for people with blindness or low vision. And now, the company has notched a major milestone: its first team deal.

With the help of Ticketmaster, the Trail Blazers are offering five OneCourt devices for fans to use at Moda Center for the remainder of the season. The program begins Saturday, following the team’s three-game pilot with OneCourt at the end of last season.

The tablet-sized device uses haptics and a silicone surface that outlines the field/court of play so users can feel game action through their fingertips. The latest version of the OneCourt device features a set of buttons -- picture a video game controller or your childhood Game Boy -- which takes fans through a tutorial of the sport they’re watching. Audio has also been added, allowing for plug-in headphones so fans can hear score and clock updates. CEO Jerred Mace said the device is now 50% smaller, with a much higher resolution.

Matthew Gardner, the Blazers' senior director/customer insights, said the team's current plan is to offer reservations for three devices per game, leaving the remaining two available for on-demand requests at the arena. The organization will track the devices’ use throughout the season as well. “This partnership with Ticketmaster epitomizes that we want everybody to be able to experience the game,” Gardner noted. “That’s what we’re all about, and so the more people we can bring in on a more regular basis to do that is awesome.”

The Blazers will use various communication channels to share OneCourt availability, accepting reservations through guest experience outreach or in-person requests at various guest service stands at the arena.

The initial pilot with OneCourt featured participation from the community, such as the Washington State School for the Blind and the Northwest Association for Blind Athletes. It showed that oftentimes, the fan arriving for a OneCourt game experience came with a handful of other visitors who wanted to see users experience a game with the sensory aid.

 OneCourt enjoyed a handful of calendar highlights within this last year: 

• Winning at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Startup Competition & Trade Show in March.

• Deploying at the MLB All-Star Game at Globe Life Field in July thanks to collaboration with MLB sponsor (and OneCourt partner) T-Mobile.

• Closing a pre-seed funding round of $475,000 in November, led by Oregon Sports Angels.

OneCourt’s partnership plan is focused on growth through its NBA and MLB connections while also expanding more regionally in the west. The Seattle-based startup was founded while leadership attended the University of Washington.

Added OneCourt COO Antyush Bollini on the company’s breakthrough partnership: “Portland and Ticketmaster were great partners because they understood that we needed to transition from going from a three-game pilot into this full integration. That process isn’t black and white -- there's a lot of steps involved, and they’ve been so helpful in giving us the time and the space and the opportunity to integrate and figure out the process of getting to the independent experience.”

To close out 2024, I asked readers question: “What is your 2025 prediction for the sports tech industry?”

The thoughtful responses centered on three main themes:

• AI usage to connect with fans and power high-level content

• The establishment of clearer connections between leagues/teams and fans

• Effort to make the fan in-venue experience as seamless as possible.

See contributing thoughts from all around the space below.

Julie Souza, AWS global head of sports: The sports industry will continue to see unprecedented globalization, fueled by innovative technologies that make sports content scalable and locally relevant to diverse audiences. Generative AI and translation tools will play a pivotal role in connecting with international fans.

Beyond language, advanced analytics will be leveraged to educate new fanbases and create engaging experiences tailored to the cultural nuances of various regions and fan personas. As leagues expand their global reach, they will prioritize flexible infrastructures that support these efforts.

Sandy Khaund, Credenza CEO and founder: In 2025, memories of the NFT overplays and crypto scandals will fade, regulatory hurdles will ease in Washington and blockchain will emerge stronger than ever. If Bitcoin’s rise in 2017 was Blockchain 1.0, and the NFT boom in 2021 was Blockchain 2.0, 2025 marks Blockchain 3.0.

This iteration will power a decentralized data ecosystem that is transparent to users, respects customers identity, empowers partners to collaborate in innovative ways through an open web and enables transformative user experiences.

David Shapiro, Pixellot president/North America: 2025 will be the year of personalized data and highlights across every level of sports.

Imagine NBA.com-level content being accessible to small colleges, high schools and youth sports. Emerging AI tools, such as automated commentaries and other augmentation services, will transform short-form video content, making it more engaging and viral than ever.

Jeff Boehm, Wicket COO: An expanded focus on the fan journey. Teams will look for ways to better understand and improve the complete fan journey -- especially for their hometown fans.

Pro and college teams want to drive home-field advantage (and venue revenue) by identifying and reducing friction points, analyzing and rewarding fan engagement, and offering amenities local fans crave.

Amir Zonozi, Zoomph CEO and co-founder: We're witnessing a stronger emergence of technologies designed to help sports rights holders address the challenges posed by the rapidly evolving landscape of regional sports networks. While many have already acted as early adopters, more sports teams will soon take on responsibilities for producing, distributing, and monetizing their game broadcasts.

To succeed, they will invest in technologies that minimize resource strain while seizing opportunities to expand fan reach and maximize revenue potential.

Ishveen Jolly, OpenSponsorship CEO and founder: Sports tech is essentially focused around the idea of improving the sports world through tech-driven innovation: on-field performance, fan experiences, business of sport and multiple other areas.

I say this to ensure that when I give my predictions for sports tech, it’s not the same as giving my predictions for the sports industry. Thus my new year prediction for the sports tech industry:

• With the huge push to profitability for many companies in the past couple of years with funding not as freely available, we will see more M&A action and roll-ups to bring more scale to smaller companies whose proposition is strong but might have more funding to scale further.

• AI will play its part but, in my opinion, small ways, such as potentially improving processes like sales or content creation. It will be a few years for a more noticeable impact.

Andres Focil, WMT Digital CEO and founder: As we look ahead to 2025, we will see the accelerated professionalization of college sports converge with a profound digital transformation driven by AI, data analytics and fan-driven digital experiences through storytelling.

Premier organizations in both the professional and collegiate markets will drive deeper fan affinity through personalization and teams will leverage a combination of next-generation digital experiences and artificial intelligence to curate the entire fan journey from pre-game content to in-game statistics to post-game content. With an unprecedented volume of real-time fan data now at their fingertips, forward thinking organizations will understand their fans in new and unique ways and deploy advanced analytics to yield actionable insights to realize deeper fan engagement and loyalty.

Read something that intrigued you or have a related thought? Email me (ejoyce@sportsbusinessjournal.com) to keep the conversation going.

• Sports tech consultant Next League built the TGL’s fan-facing website and app while also migrating the TMRW Sports corporate site into the same backend ahead of the tech-infused golf league's Tuesday night debut.

• Sony and the NFL introduced a prototype of the league’s new official coach-to-coach communication headset onstage at CES on Monday night, reports my SBJ colleague Joe Lemire. It will include Sony’s noise-cancelling and sound quality technologies and run on Verizon’s 5G network. Sony became an official NFL technology partner in July, and the new headset will debut on the sidelines during the 2025 season.

• In his first SBJ Facilities newsletter of 2025, Bret McCormick covers a new tie-up between venue seating firms Irwin and bluecube for Venue360, a system of interrelated and interchangeable furniture equipment that all fits on a rail system embedded in a platform floor, minimizing the need for more permanent connection to sports venues’ seating bowl concrete.

• Smart Ball maker Sportable acquired Intaneous, a computer vision and sports graphics company, to expand its data visualization and storytelling, writes Lemire. Sportable works with ball manufacturers to place sensors inside of the sport’s central piece of equipment to collect data on its position, movement and location for uses cases across performance, fan engagement and officiating.

• The Orlando Magic Venture Challenge, a pitch event to discover and support innovations in sports, the fan experience, health and wellness, will be at Kia Center on March 26, notes my SBJ colleague Juwan Watson.

• Mobile motion capture provider BeOne Sports is the official technology partner of this week’s Hula Bowl, where it will track the college football all-star game’s athletes through practice and combine drills, reports Lemire.