In a dynamic media world, it's important to find people who speak both technology and business
As professional sports leagues face new challenges and opportunities in a rapidly changing media landscape, MLS, NHL, and USTA anticipate increased content customization, future applications of artificial intelligence, and continued evolution of distribution platforms. focused.
Major League Soccer SVP, Shinko Ventures, chris schlosserPart of the sports technology panel at the recent SBJ Tech Week conference in New York City, he said he believes technology will have the biggest impact on his sport over the next five to 10 years: “some real personalization.” He said that it would be accompanied by this.
“Whether it’s at a venue, at home or on Apple when I’m running around,” he said. “It's personalized for me and my wife and my kids and my friends. They can all have a different experience. I think it's very achievable. I think that's clear. Going forward, I think over a period of, say, three to five years, the level will change and improve.”
From left: Moderator sports business journalTaylor Bloom, MLS's Chris Schlosser, NHL's David Lehansky and UTA's Paul Maya attend this month's SBJ Tech Week
Share that feeling, David Lehanski, NHL Vice President of Business Development and Innovation provided an example of customized content production on the Big City Greens Classic alternate broadcast that targeted different types of hockey viewers. He pointed out that the viewership has skewed toward women and men in their 60s to 40s, and the average viewer age has dropped from 40s to around 15 years old.
“If you think about cloud production, optimal tracking technology, and generative AI, what the convergence of these things creates is… the ability to create these kinds of experiences in true real-time. [personalized content is] Here it is,” he said. “It's early. It's like we have some of the experience out there that we're all pushing in some areas. We just add another component. It's really coming to us. I think that there.”
Each league is preparing its internal teams for how their respective sports are expected to grow in the coming years.
“Everyone needs to be able to understand the data,” he said. USTA CTO Paul Maya. “This isn't just data from a technology team. It's a whole thing of data literacy.”
“The skillset that is really underserved in the sports and technology industries today is people who can translate technology into business and business into technology,” Schlosser said. He added that MLS is also “trying to spread curiosity among our staff” about how new technology can be applied to soccer operations.
“[Technology] “We're creating this kind of world,” he continued. [they’re] It doesn't apply to real business. And then there are business people who get frustrated and talk about business, business, business, revenue, revenue, revenue, and don't reach out to technology companies to actually make it happen. It's the rare talent that can come and go that we have to build, develop, and rely on because we don't have enough of them today. ”
The continued transition from linear to digital and the emergence of new platforms is creating additional media for content delivery, resulting in an increased need for project managers.
“A lot of that responsibility is [to distribute content] “I don't think anyone is more interested in increasing attendance than we are,” NHL's Lehansky said. In the past, we acted almost exclusively as licensing entities in this one-to-many world of his. “Here's our IP. Give us a check. We'll write you a messy contract. And then we'll sit back and hope it happens.” Well, then we re-enter the market. ” That is, but if you want to cater to all other markets, if you want to pilot your content on these emerging platforms, you You have to do it.
“We need a project manager,” he continued. “We need to be able to own, manage, curate, and grow new experiences that didn't exist before. We need to rethink how we build our organizations in terms of innovation, not just about ideas but managing them. ”
The introduction of artificial intelligence “will be critical to the success” of employees' careers, Maya of the USTA noted, adding that the governing tennis body aims to foster an environment of innovation. “From an AI perspective, we work directly with our HR team, our legal team, every other week to figure out how to support our employees and how we can help our employees reimagine their jobs and not be afraid to reimagine their jobs. We talk about how to create a culture where people know that if they do, something is changing and they're going to get something new.
“We want people to be able to say, ‘Hey, you know what? I’ll think about it.”
