Teams and Fans: Real-Time Participation

Team sports steeped in tradition and history (baseball, football, and soccer, for example) will have a difficult time crossing the connectivity divide, at least for some aspects of the game. Fear that inserting more technology will alter the original balance or nature of a game is the major impediment. Change will come slowly and incrementally.

Nevertheless, those incremental changes are already evident. Major league baseball stadiums are rolling out WiFi services now in an effort to enhance the fan experience withwhat elsemore data. Team stats, pitching stats, individual hitting stats correlated with stats on other playersmerely tap your wireless PDA screen or full-function cell phone and a river of baseball data starts flowing your way. The 2004 All Star Game in Houston offered WiFi access throughout the stadium. San Francisco's SBC Giants Stadium and now many others are offering free WiFi service throughout the entire park.

In addition to stats in real time, fans are also treated to streaming videodugout views of the players, instant replays, and much more. Of course, full Internet access is also there for the connected cognoscenti in the crowdsome of whom may actually be trying to disguise the fact that they are playing hooky from work by keeping current with e-mails and instant messages. Forget your laptop. Why risk having an exuberant fan spill his beer onto its keyboard? You will need at least a wireless-enabled PDA to play in the big leagues here. So, although you might be picturing the awkwardness of lugging your 11-inch laptop into the stadiumfagetaboudit! Get the right gear.

SMS and Audiences

The wildly successful TV show American Idol catapulted the use of SMS (short messaging via cell phone) and created a new dimension in audience participation. No longer was the use of handheld voting appliances popularized by shows such as Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? limited to an in-studio audience. Now, literally millions of viewers can participate in some aspect of a TV show by merely thumbing a few cell phone keys. 13.5 million SMS messages were delivered during the American Idol season in 2004. More interesting is the fact that 40 percent of the people sending those messages say they had never sent an SMS message before. Something about the show and the messaging capability was compelling enough to mobilize millions of new SMS users.

SMS is also in evidence at major sporting events. Oakland Athletics fans can use their cell phone to SMS a response to messages posted to the in-stadium megaboard.^[1] The megaboard then displays the results. Although it might currently be used for idle-time entertainment, SMS can also be used for more serious game-related activities. Was the runner safe? Key 112 for "Yes," 113 for "No." Second-guessing the officials is as much of the fan experience as any other facet of a game. The power of being able to survey tens of thousands of spectators within seconds is mind-numbing for fans and could be very intimidating to officials.

^[1] http://mobilemomentum.msn.com/article.aspx?aid=18.

Although the business of sports is entertaining and satisfying fans, with WiFi-enabled stadiums and devices only a bit more capable than traditional cell phones, a club manager or coach can receive valuable "fan sentiment summaries" in real time. Should the pitcher be pulled now? Which relief pitcher would fans rather see take over? The expectations to have our voices heard will climb as a result of the use of pervasive devices directly connected to computers and networks that can instantly process millions of packets seemingly at once and display the results to a massive audience.

The entire fan experience from ticket sales onward is getting more connected. "Like movie theaters, we now have online ticket sales for our fans," describes Will Gartner, head of sports information technology at Boston College. "We're working hard to allow our fans to have easy access to our games and to enhance their game-day experience. In fact, we're exploring using a new technology that allows fans to check in ticketlessly simply by having their cell phone with them. Because we're rolling out WiFi and other technologies for the press areas, it seems sensible that cell phones and PDAs will be one more way for our fans to both get game time data and communicate about the game as it is happening, as opposed to waiting to they get back to their rooms or homes."

So, in forthcoming modern stadiums, fans may not even need their wallets. They enter the park authenticated via their PDA (or cell device). They can similarly use the device to charge their food and beer purchases. While waiting in the beer line, they can be reviewing replays from different camera angles. When seated they can "blog" with distant Webbers about the game and possibly cast an SMS vote for the game's MVPall this by using their pervasive PDA device, bringing them closer and more connected to the game.