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TAYLOR’S TAKE: There’s only one place this week where you can catch a Cardinals game, eat mouth-watering BBQ, go on a Budweiser tour, and attend an awesome sports business conference — St. Louis, of course!
I’m on the road this week in St. Louis, where Washington University is hosting the Olin Sports Business Summit. Today I’m helping emcee the event, which invites business and tech leaders from the sports world to speak on stage about the latest innovations and ideas.
Topics include advances in sports performance, sponsorship analytics, facility renovations and more. Speakers include St. Louis Blues President Chris Zimmerman; Golden State Warriors Assistant GM Kirk Lacob; Ticketmaster CTO Jody Mulkey; and others. I’ll recap the event with some of my key takeaways for next week’s update, so stay tuned.
Tech at the ballpark: Last night, speakers and organizers took in some September baseball. It was great to watch the Cubs vs. Cardinals at Busch Stadium, which got some tech upgrades last year. The Cardinals offer two unique tech-related deals to fans: A mobile ticket to every home game for $29.99 per month, and Cards Cash, which lets you use your game ticket as a payment method for concessions, team apparel, and other products inside the ballpark.
Caught my first Cardinals game with @WUSTLbusiness peeps. Fun baseball atmosphere. pic.twitter.com/OqeefwL5yp
— Taylor Soper (@Taylor_Soper) September 29, 2017
Follow me @taylor_soper for more from St. Louis and the Olin Sports Business Summit.
Highlights from the week in sports tech
- My fellow GeekWire reporter Nat Levy watched Amazon’s first-ever NFL stream. Here’s his review.
- TechCrunch and Recode have the details about a new multi-year partnership between the NFL and Facebook that will put official highlights and game recaps on the social media site, along with other video content.
- Nike today unveiled its “Connected Jersey,” which lets fans tap a tag on an NBA jersey with a smartphone to unlock access to highlights, exclusive gear, game tickets, and more.
- Apple featured MLB at its iPhone press event earlier this month to demonstrate the phone’s new augmented reality capabilities. USA Today, TechCrunch, CNET, and others got a demo of the technology at AT&T Park.
- The Sounders are replacing TicketMaster with SeatGeek — here are the main differences between the two ticketing platforms.
- Axios reports about how sports AI is “in its infancy” — but the possibilities are intriguing.
- The New York Times has a good overview on the state of wearable technology in sports. Teams are clearly getting value out of new gadgets and the resulting data, but many questions still remain.
- Mobile Sports Report just published its quarterly issue that goes in-depth about the latest in-stadium technology.
- This is fun: The Ringer reporter Zach Schwartz writes about Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer coaching a third-grade basketball team. Read GeekWire’s take here.
- The NFL is using Intel 3D replay technology to create some cool videos with various perspectives from a given play. Check it out below.
Tweet of the week: LeBron James’ “U bum” tweet immediately became his most popular of all time. The NBA superstar was responding to President Donald Trump’s tweet about disinviting Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry to a White House celebration. Lebron later explained why he posted the tweet, and said he doesn’t regret it.
"It’s not about dividing. We as American people need to come together even stronger.” — @KingJames responds to @realDonaldTrump’s comments. pic.twitter.com/UHpzXpb42K
— UNINTERRUPTED (@uninterrupted) September 23, 2017
What to watch this weekend: No. 5 USC vs. No. 16 Washington State looks like the college football game of the week. The action kicks off from Pullman tonight at 7:30 p.m. PT — ESPN is streaming it here.
The President’s Cup doesn’t quite have the prestige of the Ryder Cup, but watching America’s top golfers battle against the world’s best — minus European players — is still exciting. You can stream it here.
Special bonus: Check out my amazing BBQ lunch from yesterday. Gotta love a trip to St. Louis! Follow me on Instagram for more of my adventures.
Thanks for tuning in, everyone! We’re mixing up the format for this weekly rundown, so please let me know what you think at taylor@geekwire.com. — Taylor Soper
