Webinar: How Innovations In Tech Can Help Venues Prepare For Sports’ Return

When live sports do make their way back to stadiums throughout North America, things will look a little bit different. Artificial intelligence and other new digital technologies will play an even more significant role in keeping fans, athletes, and venue staff safe and creating positive experiences.

In this webinar, Vice President of Samsung Electronics America Brett Unzicker and HAVRION Chief Technology Officer Daniel Rodriguez join Joe Londergan of Front Office Sports for a discussion on emerging technology in the sports landscape and shaping a new and improved version of live sports.

Edited highlights appear below:

How artificial intelligence can be used to create safer stadiums (05:14)

Unzicker: “We’re working with artificial intelligence that ties to crowd movements. So actually utilizing camera analytics and displaying, if you will, how crowds can get in and around and through venues in the safest way possible. Whether that’s for a safety perspective or whether that’s to the shortest concession line, what we’re doing at Samsung through a variety of partners is really revolutionizing the way people go to venues.”

On using technology to create positive fan experiences (17:55)

Rodriguez: “It focuses, obviously, on building an intimate relationship using technology between the brand and the consumer. It’s about owning that relationship, not just at the time of the event or if they happen to be a season ticket holder…We want to own that experience in perpetuity and more importantly, consistently. And so there’s a unique marrying of technologies, obviously when they’re in venue and outside of venue, to be able to create those unique customer experiences. But then at a moment’s notice inside of these venues, whether it’s something that is as serious as an emergency communication or whether it’s a unique personalized fan experience, being able to use things like location-based services, personalized profiles, and then specifically things like social media to be able to engage that customer to create those powerful experiences.”

On maintaining a balance between safety and fun (35:38)

Unzicker: “I think ultimately it’s really about this seamless, curated experience for fans that is mandatory to compete with the living room…We’ve heard two different things from customers. A lot of people don’t want to think about having their temperature checked when they walk up. Some people want to just know that it’s being done with a thermal sensor and they’re getting to go into the venue and they’re having the time of their life. Other venues want to go the other way with it and want to make sure everybody’s checked. I don’t think there’s a wrong way either in either position.”

On 5G Affecting Fan Experience (1:01:13)

Rodriguez: “5G is going to give us a really whole new set of capabilities in how we augment that customer experience. But also I think for owners and operators, it’s going to allow a far more contextual experience with their customer in real time. So being able to measure sentiment real-time based upon maybe the fact that through the use of 5G, we can see that a percentage of the venue is actually using their phone and they’re on their social media apps, or they’re watching a YouTube video. What do we need to do inside of the space to recapture that attention? And so through the use of that real-time, high-speed transfer of sentiment driven information…will be able to take and process this information in real-time and be able to uniquely and situationally improve the experience for their customers over time.”