Interview continued...
They say in sports that speed can’t be taught, but there’s nothing stopping us from learning how to harness it to improve the game. From creating immersive fan experiences, accelerated training techniques and real-time game rulings never before possible, the technology teams at Major League Baseball have embraced the power of 5G connectivity available in both ballparks and beyond to bring America’s favorite pastime into the modern age.
In this special 2-part episode of The Restless Ones, we sit down with Vasanth Williams, Chief Product Officer and EVP of Product & Engineering and Truman Boyes, SVP of Infrastructure for Major League Baseball. Their complementary responsibilities span everything from keeping the league and teams interconnected to unlocking enhanced fan experiences both inside the ballpark and at home. We’ll hear how they are utilizing some of the latest innovations made possible in a connected world, such as AR, smart sensors and low-latency/high-throughput data transfers to elevate the player and fan experience both on and off the field.
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The experience you're going to have is going to change, the rich, mussive experience that was never thought possible. It will be possible with five G, especially from a sports point of view. I'm excited about what it can bring to the fans and provide a rich and a more communal experience. And I think it's up to us across MLB to make that possible, and we will. We're going to have some interesting things in the Mobile Home Run Derby and the All Star Game this year with the A R and five G, and it will be fun to showcase that to our fans. Welcome to the Restless Ones. I'm Jonathan Strickland. I've spent more than a decade really learning about technology, what makes it tick, and then describing and explaining that to my audience. But it's the conversations with the world's most unconventional thinkers, the leaders at the intersection of technology and business that fascinated me the most. In partnership with T Mobile for Business, I explore the unique set of challenges that see I O S C T o S face from advancements in cloud and edge computing, software as a service, Internet of Things, and of course five Gen we are often left wondering how the leading minds and business continue to thrive. Let's find out. Today. We have two guests from Major League Baseball or MLB, the Sans Williams, Chief Product Officer and e VP of Product and Engineering, as well as Truman Boys, s VP of Infrastructure. In our last episode, I spoke with the San Than Truman to learn more about their roles and how they leverage technology to augment the game of baseball. And by that I don't just mean the experience of watching a game or even visiting a ballpark. It also includes the game itself, which changes as coaches and players gain access to more sophisticated technology and analytics. In today's episode, we begin exploring how some emerging technologies are already having an effect on how we experience baseball and what we might expect in the future. I want to start with talking about how MLB is planning on leveraging five G connectivity with high frequency five G. Now that we're seeing more and more five G supported devices coming out, we've got a broader implementation of five G and different regions. What are the plans for MLB to leverage five G? I can speak to it on an infrastructure standpoint, I think, you know, overall, there may be additional product changes that we we start to unlock, but I look at it as a technology that unlocks possibilities. So to start with one, it would be additional bandwidth and low latency and being mobile matters. So you know, we talked about the thirty ballparks. That's one thing, but we also service Jewel events, which are you know, there's the t Mobile Home Run, Derby's, there's Field of Dreams, and there's just all these other things that support the game of baseball which are more for transient or temporary connections and being able to have either live video streamed out of these locations with adequate bandwidth or stats or all of it. You know, it may be all of that type of data that we want to have delivered. And so you start there and then you sort of, you know, build upon it. You know, how can we have better security in the areas to monitor anti drone technologies and things that we know we care about, we care about, you know, how do we protect the entire ballpark? Five G I think provides transport and infrastructure to allow us to do that. So that's from an infrastructure side, I'd say those are key points, excellent fasof do you have any thoughts? Yeah, I would say at this point we are scratching the selface and all the possibilities of five gets. So if you really take a step back and think about it, imagine you know, the ballpark and the things five G allows you to do. One of the things we talked about internally at MLBS, how could we make the experience at the ballpark better than watching it on TV? With all this different camera angle, going to the ballpark experience should be, on part better than watching it from home on your television. How can we make that happen? I think five G enables that, you know, if you missed a play, or you want to see it from an angle that has never seen before, or you can see from a different camera angle itself, we should be able to make that possible. And I think I really provides that experience makes that possible, right, And you'll see some of that coming out part of a jewel the wind. But I think I'm excited what five you can unlock. Yeah, I think of things like augmented reality implementations that could go from anything from just augmenting the experience of sitting between innings, two things that are actively giving you more information about what you're seeing. Absolutely, yeah, I can't wait. I'm curious. Also, where are some of the bleeding edge technologies that you're eager to experiment with, stuff that you know, you see the promise of that tech and you're hoping that you might be able to find meaningful ways to implement within the MLB approach. Definitely, you already touched upon it a little bit. The augmented reality, It's already here, but to a point where it is not interfering with your actual physical experience. So that's to me is the things that we're experimenting with augmented reality need not just be through your phone. It could be through your your smart class or any other device that actually lets you experience a full physical reality as well as and adds on to it versus right now, I got to do one or the other. So at any point in real time, you can say how fast the pitch was, was the launch angle, and where are you sitting in the field and really create an experience that is really phenomenal and immersive for a fan, so that I'm excited about it and and it's going to happen. It's a question of time and how fast we're going to do it, and we're going to keep experimenting with it and and the someth I'm so glad you brought that up to because I agree. I think. I think when we get to a point where are headsets are at a level of sophistication and affordability, then they are truly immersed in the experience while they still get the benefit of that augmentation. I really look forward to the emergence of that technology and the maturation of it. Um Truman, do you have any thoughts about any sort of bleeding edge tech that. I mean, you've been working with things like lidar and stuff already to a great extent, but I think all those things are really exciting. I think biometric access to ballparks is going to have a transformational impact. I think to fans and even new fans, it's just like, what's it like to go to a game? Oh wow, I have to wait in all, you know, minutes to kind of get in here, and then I got to deal with the concession stands. It's a lovely experience, but making it better and finding ways to just even purchasing items should just be a very seamless experience. We've we've solved other places, and it would be nice to see this make its way, you know, into into the ballparks. And I think the second thing is it's a little bit more reachable right now, which is a lower latency product. So you know your phone and go and try and watch a game live, you know, physically, go to the ball park and look at the delta between when a pitch is thrown and when you see it on your screen. And the reason why this actually matters is because when you get up for some reason and you want to just see what just happened or what you missed, or there's a cheering every everyone in the crowds are going wild and then you're like, what I miss Well? How nice would be able to pull that back up and just go, oh wow, that's cool. All right, I'm back in the game now, I saw what happened, and to experience that to bring that latency down, and those technologies are they're accessible to us, and so we're spending time on this now to try to make the experience better. And I guess it also really helps to be a fan of baseball and to know what those experiences are like, where are those potential pain points for fans, Like what are the things that might be frustrating for a fan UH and finding ways where technology can perhaps alleviate that or speed things up so that it is a more seamless and fun experience from start to a mission. At the end of the day, when you go home after the Braves have choked and playoffs, you can say like, well, that was an amazing day, even if it didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. Well. Um, I also I'm curious how are you how are you leveraging technology not just to UH to create new experiences for baseball fans, how are you using it to attract new fans to the game In what ways are you looking at technology as a way of bringing in new people? So we need to be where the fans are, so the next generation of fans not just which digital places they are, but also the way they consume media. It's different, and if we don't adapt and provide them in the way they consume, we're going to lose them in a formordable long period of time. So we're leveraging all of this new technology that we have to provide content in a way that's aging to them, whether it's shot from white sized content where they have it on the go, are you know you're morning ground up of what happened last night. So those are biggers of investment for us. We launched a product called Rally, which is a predicted gaming where you can predict what's gonna happen while you're watching the game. So the age group that plays that game is significantly lower than our average baseball fan because we're using technology and products and functionality that appeals to the next generation is critically it changes all the time. So as I talk to you about pace of change, you know they go back five six years ago TikTok was didn't exist or wasn't big, and we have to continuously adapt and use technology to be in the forefront of that. So I love that part of the strategy is gamifying the baseball game. It's gamification taken to the nth degree. But also, like as you point out, it is interesting because part your challenges that you're looking at making the all this amazing data, finding those meaningful implementations of that data not just in one size fits all, but in different aspects to appeal to the various UH tendencies you you observe in different generations. I honestly have not even thought about that. It's not just enough to collect this information and not even enough to just package it. You have to very intently create different packages for different types of fans. And I would also add that you should also allow them to create. What we are seeing with the younger and newer fans, they want to be creators. How could we let them create their own experience with baseball? That's how we need to be thinking about. Uh, it's not just we created and hey, hey take it, I think you will like it, but rather allow them to create their own experience when they interact with digital or even when they go to the ballpark, creating what we call the personalized experience. And what we've seen this the next generation is very creative content creators in general. So we want to be able to allow that to happen. Well, it takes the baseball experience even more of as a participatory thing as opposed to being a passive spectator of a sport. Now, I feel like we've touched on this a little bit because you've talked about how the data you collect, you're able to share that with teams and coaches. But how would you say that the game overall has sort of evolved due to the fact that you have the ability to to leverage this kind of technology and information. Well, I mean, I think on the macro level, you know, probably you know, five to ten years ago, no one has even heard of a launch angle velocity off the bat was a stat that nobody knew because it simply wasn't measured nor advertised. And I think you've seen impacts to the game where you know, in the dugouts, you know, there's you know, coaches have of iPads they're reviewing, you know, some of the content of the players, so they're able to provide coaching tips. This is happening as a real time feedback loop, and it's supported by a bunch of infrastructure to put in there, you know, high speed WiFi or capabilities for four G and five G within the ballparks. The other thing which is is super important to us is around accuracy, so just accuracy of the tracking, but also accuracy of all of the camera angles and distributing them back to areas where they can be reviewed in a very quick time. Period. So these are high frame rate cameras. We're talking you know, normal cameras, you know, anywhere from thirty to sixty frames per second. It's cameras are like three thousand frames per second, so you can go, you know, clip, clip clip, Let's look at the way that ball was spinning. Let's take a look at you know, what's the foot on the bag. All of that is sent back at very high bit rates, and so it's just enabled better calls. It's enabled a better experience so that you know, fans agree with that particular call that's happening on field. Hopefully there's more of that. Yeah, it's just small changes in tech are having monumental impact. It just takes a little time for them to proliferate, so we're getting there over time. 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See what they can do for your organization at T mobile dot com. Slash Unconventional Open Signal awarded T mobile fastest five G network based on average speeds USA five G User Experience Report January. Capable device required coverage not available in some areas. Some users may require certain planner features set mobile dot Com. As you pointed out earlier, Truman, something that really excites me is this idea of being able to leverage technologies like five G so that you can start to recreate a simulacrum of the experience of a big ballpark in other areas where you're able to have this rapidly deployed in for structure essentially to support that kind of incredible data capture and leveraging of data. Uh, something that would not have been really possible without that kind of very low latency, high throughput connectivity. Yeah, you're right. I think there's a lot that you can do with you know, at least five megabits per second that you can realize on five G and and upwards, and that just didn't exist in the past. So you can have a near parity with a wired connection with five G and latency that matches an Ethernet connection. And so you know, it's not just around you know, can we do the same things that we were previously doing. It's just what can you build on top of this when you have completely open potential on any location and speeds that are adequate. So we were excited about just the transport of video infrastructure components, resilient connections that you know, if fiber connections were to break in a ballpark, that we could route that traffic back over five G and and protect the streaming experience. Just all of it together, I think really becomes you know, open and unlocked. So I really exciting to be a part of it. I mean anecdotally. I would also share that in Jersey City, in New Jersey, I was able to get five megabus per second on T mobile off my sailboat. So you know, it was pretty nice to be able to connect back and stream a game and get that kind of throue. But on a boat no less. Yeah, well vacant. I'm very curious because we've been talking a lot about these these new experiences people can have and things that are uh that are already out there at least in some form. Can you kind of give me what you envision the experience would be like going to what a baseball game five years from now? I mean, clearly the Braves are in the postseason, they're destined to win at this time, but what's that experience like? Yeah? Absolutely, So there's two aspects to when we think about what's five years gonna look like from a technology and digital point of view. The one big one asking about is the into the ballpark experience. Where we think about it is what is the couch to seat and back to couch experience should be? Sitting in your couch. You you want to buy a ticket, you could just ask you Alexa, Google Home, or your Siri and you say, okay, you know, get me these tickets to the Braves games. And it's just there and goes into your wallet and and you say it's time to go to the game, and you get into your car and it's smart connected cards say, one of the things you really want to make sure is like nobody likes waiting in lines, whether it's at the concession stands or trying to get in it. How do you have minimize that? So you could order right from your car and you walk into the ballpark and you go to where you need to go and food is either delivered to you where you're sitting or you just go pick it up. There's no waiting and standing in line. There's nothing coming in between your experience of the ballpark and the game. So we want technology to take the backseat that just enables and figures out what you're mad seeing most of experience. It's going to be every part of your journey. It's connected. You know, if you want to access and buy memorability or signed baseball. So it's just all real, little easily done for you, and all your there is to enjoy that moment with your family, your friends and watch the game and hopefully people be back and I can promise you will get there. I'm hoping it's not five years, but much earlier than that. A lot of the technologies are there. We just need to make sure that that we do that at scale for people. And I talked to you about allowing people to create their own baseball experience, both physical and digital. That's what we mean the san I think you just created a new season ticket holder. Uh, probably more than one. So that's that's a wonderful vision. Before I could let the sant and Truan go, I needed to ask them one more thing. The santh will start with you. What excites you most about five G? Look at that gets it's the obvious ones. It's Uh, the experience you're going to have is going to change the rich, mossive experience that was never thought possible. It will be possible with five G. It's still in the early stages, but I'm excited about what especially from a sports point of view, I'm excited about what it can bring to the fans and provide a rich and a more communal experience. And I think it's up to us, across MLB and across all the leagues to make that possible, and we will and we'll see We're going to have some interesting things in the Mobile Home Run Derby and the Old Shot game this year with the A R and five G and it will be fun to showcase that to our fans. And and Truman, same question to you, what excites you most about five G? So I was just recalling one of the first cell phones I had that had data capabilities, which I think was like a Sony ericson phone with GPRS, which at the time, you know, fifty six k bits per second and it's like, wow, this is amazing. I remember using it on the Acceller train going you know, up to uh Boston, and I just thought it was mind blowing that you could take data with you and you didn't have to dial up. And we've just seen phenomenal impacts with the data rates increasing. Has every new technology, three G, four G, now five G. It just unlocks capabilities and you see a richer media format in every single site that you go to. So that's only going to increase. And whether that's actually a R or you know, it's four K or eight K streaming, these video streams look beautiful and just imagine people to take that anywhere you go, possibly give it to the kids in the backseat of the car and they're streaming at you know, four K. Just that's the kind of things that you can do with five G. And I think it's just going to open up the possibility for you know, a more connected world, which I think has a lot of benefits as well. Well. Said well, Lassans and Truman, thank you so much for being on the show. I greatly appreciate it. Thanks for having us. I again want to thank the San and Truman for coming on the show and sharing their vision of how technology can enhance the world around us in meaningful ways by laying out infrastructure, building engaging experiences, and leveraging the power of five G. I have no doubt that MLB will continue to pull in new generations of fans and they can't wait to get back to a baseball game and see this technology and action. As we see more sophisticate implementations of technologies like augmented reality and the Internet of Things, we need five G connectivity to make it all work as intended. You don't want to try out a new interactive a R feature in the baseball game and then wait for everything to buffer that it cause you to miss the next play. I really think that in terms of five G utility, professional sports make a pretty great use case. But the powerful story behind five G is that it can enable technological processes in any kind of organization. If there is a task that depends on high throughput and low latency, five G is the answer, and all without cables. Be sure to join us for more the restless ones as we meet with thought leaders in tech. Thanks for listening. I'm Jonathan Strickland. Major League Baseball trademarks used with permission. These days, new ways of working have become the norm, and the status quo no longer cuts it when it comes to helping businesses evolve and grow. That's why T Mobile for Business uses unconventional thinking to help businesses sees innovation only. T Mobile offers America's largest and fastest five gene network, which makes their new WFX solutions possible, letting businesses stay connected and productive where work happens. See what T Mobile for Business can do for you at t mobile dot com. Slash Unconventional Open Signal awarded T mobile fastest five G network based on average speeds USA five G User Experience Report January Capable device required coverage not available in some areas. Some users may require certain plann or features set mobile dot com