I want to send a special thank you to Shripal Shah, Next League’s chief AI and innovation officer, and Drexel University professor Jeffrey Levine. The pair invited me to call in to their co-led class on AI and sports marketing.
If it’s not the first class of its kind, it surely is one of a few looking at the topic. Really appreciated the chance to talk with their students and share some of my knowledge (and if you’re reading this and happen to be teaching a class, please reach out!).
My colleague Joe Lemire kicks us off today with a report from his time in the NHL’s new research and development hub at the Prudential Center.
The NHL Innovation Lab is believed to be the first league-operated R&D space in North America. Joe Lemire
NEWARK, N.J. — When Jack Hughes and the New Jersey Devils practice, they aren’t the only ones preparing for an NHL game there.
The Prudential Center’s practice rink is now a training facility for new league ideas and technologies, as part of the newly opened NHL Innovation Lab powered by Verizon.
There is a dedicated working office space that houses Verizon servers and a 12-foot high-resolution LED display that was designed by KSS Architects and built by the Phelps Construction Group. But much of the work will take place on the practice ice and game rink, connected via Verizon’s private 5G network.
“We’re really able to go and stretch the art of the possible, both in the coverage of our game but also how we officiate it,” said Grant Nodine, NHL SVP of technology. “And then we can make sure that we are really dialed in on how we’re going to operationally support these new technologies in the field.”
SBJ first shared news of the Innovation Lab a year ago, and last week marked its grand opening, with partners and execs, including Sean Williams, NHL VP of innovation-technology partnerships; Evin Dobson, NHL SVP of U.S, partnership marketing; Brian Gorney, senior director of U.S. pro sports, Verizon Business Group; Sasha Puric, HBSE CTO; as well as media — SBJ included — invited for an open house, arena tour and champagne toast.
(l-r) Verizon’s Jake Kornblatt and the NHL’s John Frantzeskakis, Grant Nodine and Sean Williams discuss the vision for the Innovation Lab. Joe Lemire
Nodine described the Innovation Lab as a “prototype environment” designed to accelerate progress and iterations of new ideas that are otherwise hard to test.
In addition to the backend networking, opening the Innovation Lab included the installation of a Sony Hawk-Eye tracking system in the practice rink to creative a test environment for data collection.
John Frantzeskakis, NHL SVP of arena/game technology and operations, walked SBJ through a few R&D ideas being tested:
High sticking: Hockey players cannot raise their sticks above shoulder height to deflect the puck to a teammate. This is an area identified by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman where Hawk-Eye cameras might be able to help automate the decision.
“Our goal is to bring high stick detection by the start of next season,” Frantzeskakis said. “That is an ambitious goal that we’re trying to get to.”
Timing and lighting: While officials now wear Apple Watches synced with the game clock and other notifications, players and coaches don’t have access to ice-level time reminders. The practice rink includes two configurations of the clock being built into the boards at either end, plus the possibility of LED lights signaling certain colors for end of period, coach’s challenge and more.
“You can imagine now, the game’s about to end, I’m down 2-1, and all of a sudden I don’t know how much time I have left — I have to look up,” Frantzeskakis said. “We don’t want that, right? We want to have a visual right in the corners.”
The NHL is testing clock placement in the boards at the Devils’ practice rink. Joe Lemire
Communications: The NHL is exploring ways for referees to communicate with the Situation Room in Toronto or even with each other across the ice through mics and earpieces. An exact implementation isn’t settled.
“We don’t know,” he said. “Our focus right now is, can we get the tech to work that way if we needed to?”
Tracking data integrations: The Edmonton Oilers last year asked to pair the NHL Edge tracking data with their lighting system so, for example, the spotlight can automatically follow a player who just scored a goal. That’s just one possible integration that the lab can test.
Immersive highlights: With Cosm’s C360 cameras in every arena providing 10.5K resolution, the NHL is looking into ways of using that content for personalized fan experiences.
As for why the Prudential Center was chosen, it is a modern building in close proximity to the NHL office in NYC and is one of only four arenas with the practice rink attached. The same networking infrastructure can power use cases early in the process on the practice rink and later in the testing protocols on the game ice.
“If you think about applications that require high reliability, low latency, maximum security, the network’s able to complete all those functions all the way throughout,” said Jake Kornblatt, Verizon Business Group VP.
Scott Gutterman joined Next League as its new chief digital officer. Marc Bryan-Brown
A chance to diversify experiences and skills became the defining goals for both Scott Gutterman and Matt Gardner in their next phases. The pair both made career moves to third-party providers during the last few months, and it resonated with me mainly because of their long-term tenures at previous stops.
Gardner left the St. Louis Blues after almost 14 years to become the VP/innovation and digital strategy at YinzCam last fall. And Gutterman moved on from the PGA Tour after 20 years, joining tech consultancy Next League as its chief digital officer at the start of this year.
So now that both have gathered their footing in their new roles, I thought it’d be interesting to see how the shift is going. My colleague Josh Carpenter broke down the reasons why Gutterman picked Next League. But the peskiest thing to shake so far? The rewiring of an internal clock that was conditioned by 20 years of the tour schedule. “It’s definitely something I’m getting used to,” said Gutterman, who didn’t go to Augusta National for the Masters for the first time in over a decade.
The nice thing for him is that he’s getting a mix of old and new. Next League’s existing relationships in golf — the firm works with TGL, the USGA and the LPGA — means there’s familiarity in the sport and the people involved from the jump. And he’s also still in an intense learning mode with other clients like NASCAR, the PWHL and New York Road Runners, and each has distinct needs around technology, implementation and support.
Similar to Gutterman, whose Next League role stemmed from a 10-plus year relationship with Next League co-founder/CEO David Nugent, Gardner had previously been a longtime collaborator with YinzCam and its CEO, Priya Narasimhan. Gardner has been a digitally focused person from the moment he left college. With the Blues, he built the club’s digital media strategy, which includes a custom-built fan engagement platform and other projects from his time with the franchise.
Gardner’s past included stints with the ATP Tour and the Magic, but also with some time with agency experience mixed in. With YinzCam, he’s going to enhance both external and internal growth — fostering the platform provider’s already sizeable client list even more while helping YinzCam recognize new business development opportunities.
He’ll do that with a well-established perspective that can empathize with the team clientele he’ll work with.
“In general, all teams are trying to think about this path of how do you take every fan and then start converting those fans into segments of fans, and then from there, going even deeper and creating personalized, one-on-one-style engagements,” Gardner said.
Matt Gardner spent nearly 14 years with the Blues before shifting to work with platform provider YinzCam. Courtesy of Matt Gardner
The sports ecosystem is special in that while employers and titles may change, there’s still a likelihood that you’ll lean on and work with your established connections again. Gutterman, for example, said he’s still in steady communication with his former PGA Tour team and sees them for the occasional round of golf. He’s noticed camaraderie in sports tech has grown dramatically during his time with the tour — and now he has a wider opening to share his learnings throughout the community as well.
“I would say over the last 20 years, the sports industry really shifted from everybody viewing each other as competitors and competing for everybody’s time to becoming more of a community,” Gutterman said. “... So not only do I have the sounding boards there, but I talk to Tim Clark at NASCAR or Amanda Weiner at USGA on a regular basis, Jon Kropp at TGL and the team, Bob Carney and the team at the NBA, Karri Zaremba at MLB.”
The NFL expanded its data-driven tools to inform fans through a new free-to-use web dashboard, NFL IQ, that includes a conversational AI tool powered by Amazon Quick Agents, my tech teammate Joe Lemire highlighted.
Lemire also reports that LIV Golf’s Bryson DeChambeau and a group of investors have acquired smartphone biomechanics app Sportsbox AI in an eight-figure deal.
My colleague Rob Schaefer reported on the upgraded videoboard at Churchill Downs, which Mitsubishi Electric handled.
Lemire also broke down the WSL’s move to add sensors to its soccer ball, the first league in the world to do so.
NASCAR promoted Richard Bowman as its first-ever director of AI as sports leagues get serious about trying to leverage the much ballyhooed and potentially transformative technology, notes SBJ’s Adam Stern.
The NCAA created new recommendations around policy, education, data management, technology selection and more as performance tech proliferates throughout all levels of competition, Lemire writes.
The new Spurs AI Studio is giving fans the chance to create branded virtual experiences that are personalized for them.
A case study that caught my eye recently: WMT Digital deployed its dynamic pricing with Vivenu, which led to 12% of football ticketing revenue and 19.4% of basketball revenue being generated by dynamic pricing changes. This is a similar deployment to what WMT did with Ticketmaster around the South Carolina women’s basketball team, which I covered here last July.
