Having just been named the official technology partner of multiple national sports teams, Verizon is paving way for the future of network partnerships.
In this conversation we learn the evolution of the network partnership, including what infrastructure stadiums will need on their side in the near distant future, how the Ultra-Wideband Network is unlocking innovative & new experiences, and what fans can expect both in the stands and on the screen.
Fan preference informs experience—telcos partnering with stadiums, leagues, and venues is paving way for experiential innovation. How? Whatever information that fans are willing to supply, whether it be captured via mobile device, surveys, or any other digital form of feedback, informs what changes venues and leagues can make to create a more seamless experience. Telcos, stadiums, leagues, and arenas all share one goal: create a positive user experience. If the fan wants an experience, and they’re willing to volunteer information for it, then, simply put, they should get it.Â
Benefits of the new network partnership—telcos partnering with stadiums, venues, and arenas touches the fan experience in more ways than one. Verizon’s partnership with Rock Stadium, home to the Miami Dolphins and last year’s Super Bowl, allowed for the application of 5G & MEC technology to stadium operations. Together, these partners are streamlining the security screening processes, BOH (back of house) operations to more efficiently set up and tear down for large events (hello, halftime performance), restock on food and beverage the moment stock is low, and much more. On the same note, fans can have notifications sent to their phones about wait times at the concession stand, or catered suggestions for concession stands that have the fan’s drink of choice available, creating a more cohesive experience across the venue.
Returning to stadiums—fan safety is obviously a top priority. During this time where stadiums, arenas, and venues have been vacant, telcos and their partners had time to work on internal renovations, allowing for a safe, contactless, and more seamless experience when fans return. Mobile will become an integral part of the new stadium experience, and as long as those mobile features ensure safety and convenience, packaged in a digital form, fans will adopt it. Mobile apps for leagues, teams, and arenas are now indispensable in the same way that mobile apps for airlines and e-tickets have become a necessary part of the travel journey.
Elizabeth is an Executive Director of network engineering at Verizon, responsible for program management efforts related to in-building and venue deployments. Prior to this role, Elizabeth was the chief of staff for the office of the CTO and the Global Network and Technology organization, leading executive support efforts focused on data analytics, business transformation, strategic planning, communications, project management, and business operations. Elizabeth has held a variety of network field and center operations positions since joining Verizon in 2013. Prior to joining Verizon, she was the Director of Strategy and Operations for a small private investment firm and also held operations and staff positions in a number of locations across the United States for the Hertz Corporation.
Ryan is a sports futurist and global connector. In 2018 he founded SportsTech.ai a consultancy advising start-ups, clubs and leagues on their innovation journey. Prior to launching SportsTech.ai he was the Global Head of Sports Tech for KPMG, and was a telecom management consultant for 18 years serving multiple clients in over 20 countries including Verizon, Telefonica, Telstra, etc. Currently he is leading the worlds largest sports tech start-up competition the Hype Global Virtual Accelerator focused on helping bring 40+ sports partners e.g. Milwaukee Bucks, Phillies, Inter Miami, Blues, French Football Federation, etc. back through innovation; including 5G.
Joshua Ness is a Senior Manager at Verizon 5G Labs in New York City. He partners with enterprise, startups, and academic teams to drive innovation around 5G and co-create new 5G concepts that take advantage of complementary technologies like spatial computing, edge computing, and computer vision. Joshua sits at the intersection of the application of emerging technology and of the actual nitty-gritty under the hood that makes the technology work. He uses this to create compelling stories that use historical contexts combined with current and future technology advancements in order to educate, inspire, and connect the dots for individuals and businesses.
Joshua Ness 0:04
All right. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us on your Thursday afternoon as we kick off the new year with our sports series of events in the run up to the Super Bowl on February 7. But we're excited to jump into today's conversation, one that we're calling A League of Their Own, exploring the future of network partnerships. My name is Joshua Ness, and I'm a senior manager at Verizon 5G Labs. We're excited to host this discussion as part of our virtual event series. For those of you who aren't familiar with Verizon 5G Labs, we work with startups, academia, and enterprise teams to build a 5G powered world using the practical application of emerging technology. Part of that mission includes having conversations like this, that address technology advancement within industry, and also discuss barriers to digital inclusion and how to create opportunities for communities to thrive and grow. And if you're interested in learning more about our work, you can visit us at Verizon5Glabs.com. We also would like to thank Alley for partnering with us to make this event happen. Alley is a community agency that unites rich and diverse communities around the country with corporate partners to provide the resources and catalysts to drive positive change in technology. So, now that that's out of the way, we'll get started. And I want to turn it over to our amazing panel of contributors who are with us today. Elizabeth, once you kick us off and tell us a little bit about yourself and what we're doing here.
Elizabeth Lundin 1:30
Yeah, sure. Thanks. So I'm Elizabeth Lundin. I am executive director in network engineering for Verizon, focusing specifically on in building and venue deployment. So it's a very appropriate topic here today. It's when I'm passionate about and you know, we have horizon are all in on 5G. And we're also all in on making sure our customers have the best experience wherever they are, whether that's outdoors or indoors. And so my team focuses on making sure that experience extends extends to the venue, as well. So really excited to be here today. And looking forward to the panel.
Joshua Ness 2:03
Yeah, it's gonna be a good one. Priya? How about you?
Priya Narasimhan 2:07
You're on. Thank you for having me here. I'm the CEO and Founder of Yinzcam. I'm also a professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University. Oh, we have the pleasure and the privilege of working with over 200 different professional sports teams and leagues, around the world across six continents. And we also have the privilege of working with Verizon on a number of initiatives in the last few months.
Joshua Ness 2:33
Yeah, it's been it's been really good working with you. And Ryan once you're close this out.
Unknown Speaker 2:41
You're on.
Ryan McCumber 2:45
Thanks. So Ryan McCumber, I run a consultancy called SportsTech.AI where I advise leagues clubs and federations on the the fan journey from start to finish, which absolutely involves 5G, the former head of sports tech from KPMG. And I'm currently running a large accelerator focused on innovation and helping to bring sports back across 50 partners worldwide, including some of rising stadiums, and 5G is one of the challenges that we're looking for to software.
Joshua Ness 3:17
Yeah, bringing sports back, I think we're all pretty, pretty happy about that. It's been remember those first couple of months of the quarantine where there were no sports, and we just didn't know what to do with ourselves. So I'm really excited that sports are starting to make a comeback. Now, before we kick things off, everyone in the audience, please make sure to drop your questions into the q&a feature here. And we'll be answering these throughout today's conversation. As we get into the conversation, we're going to be talking a lot about 5G naturally, the whole conversation isn't going to focus on 5G, but 5G does play a really big role. And it's helpful to set the stage about what 5G actually is because a lot of people know it because it's appeared on their on their devices on their phones in your hands. But they're not really noticing a whole lot. A whole lot different than than the devices used to pay for 5G is is the next generation of wireless coming. It is it as a as a as a as a next step to what was one g of calling and 2G was texting and 3G was the beginnings of data, the ability to do calendaring an email and maybe take a selfie and send it to somebody who got a grainy image. 4G brought with it streaming video and a whole other host of applications that we couldn't have predicted back then when 4G first was released in 2010. Back in 2010, nobody was was saying that they were waiting for seamless e commerce or location targeting for things like ride sharing or even the gig economy which is based largely on the ability for people to be connected on the go. And in 4G brought with it changes in how we live our lives and changes in the way technology then gets developed. Well 5G is going to do the same thing. 5G is not just another G. It is a fundamental rethinking and a shift in the way that we approach network structure and connectivity. And it has several different attributes or what we're calling currencies that make it different from 4G, everything from drastically increased bandwidth up to up to, I think we're seeing four to five gigabits per second in market right now. Very, very low latency, but the time it takes for a signal to ping the the network and get a response back. These combined with a few other attributes of 5G are going to enable a whole new range of technology advancements both in hardware and in software experiences. And it's first it's going to be felt in places like industry and public places like stadiums and arenas, like we're going to talk about today. And eventually, it's going to start impacting the devices that we use as consumers, whether those handheld devices or something more, we'll probably touch on that in a little bit as well. So as we're talking about 5G, think of that not as in what your devices can do, now that 5G is here, but about what the next several years are going to bring. And I think we're gonna, we're gonna that's going to drive a lot of our conversation. So the thing to remember here is that 5G represents something that enables a lot of new types of technology much in the same way 4G did, things like VR and AR are going to become much more ubiquitous. The IoT ification of everything is going to happen. Things like computer vision, and being able to run a lots of different types of data through edge edge instances that are that have automated, that have artificial intelligence, analyzing them and offering up new information and offering up new experiences and new types of value. So that's what we're talking about when we talk about 5G. If you want to know more, definitely come visit us at Verizon 5G labs.com where you can see a lot of our previous previous events where we've sometimes dive much deeper into what 5G is and what it's going to bring. But as we start talking about this conversation, I want us to kick things off and hear from the rest of the panel about historically what the relationship between telcos and stadiums and venues has looked like. I'm curious, uh, Priya? Like Where? What? What have you How have you seen us evolve to where we are right now?
Priya Narasimhan 7:23
Absolutely. I think going back over, you know, the lifespan of where we've been with humans can we started 1314 years ago from Wi Fi inside a stadium was unheard of. It was not just a luxury, but it was also never seen as a necessity. Right to now the expectation of every person walking into a venue is, you know, lights on on my device, right? And the expectation is not just of connectivity, but of being able to do things seamlessly on your device, as if you were on a desktop. And more importantly, I think the expectation has gone up. But your point, Josh, you said, you know, we went from all the way from text to image to video. I think it's now real time, real time, real time. Instant gratification on whatever device I choose to bring with me, is fundamentally important. So we've seen that shift from Wi Fi, Wi Fi, inside the stadium, all the way to give everything to me now. And I think that pivot has been not just on the team side and the stadium side. This has all been driven by what the fans want today.
Joshua Ness 8:38
And Ryan, have you have you? Have you noticed that as well as a lot of the consulting that you do, how much of it is derived from what you think is might be like the pole of fan demand?
Ryan McCumber 8:51
Yeah, it's definitely a push in a pole. I mean, it's it's the telcos enabling stadiums and lighting stadiums up that sense also that no stadium is wanting to have it and pull it in the fans asking for it. Now, a big challenge outside the US is a lot of stadiums aren't owned by the club's most of the NFL clubs are owned, and they can do their own thing. And they're throwing Wi-Fi up or doing 5G. I think cattlemen aren't ready to go to stadiums. In Australia, I'm pretty used to this. They don't even have Wi Fi in some places. And it is still a problem. And this is a government run facility. And where if you go to the UK, I mean famous venues there, you still can't get good broadband. So it's, it is a still big cause of the two big difference between good and bad. It's a significant difference. And it's hard to get a signal. There's truly truly that push and pull of telcos wanting to do it. And then if you own the stadium, you can bring it in, but when the government owns it, it's even harder, because just government legislation just takes time.
Joshua Ness 9:49
Yeah, I wonder if we should go and check out Emirates Stadium in the UK and see if they need some boosts with their technology. Maybe it'll help Arsenal perform a little better this year. Hello We Ryan was talking about about the the the pushes in the poll and the pros and the cons and the difficulties of sometimes getting these these stadiums lit up with with connectivity in general, let alone 5G. How is how have you seen this happen and fold over the past 10 years or so?
Elizabeth Lundin 10:16
Yeah, yeah. So I think Brian hit the nail on the head, like it's been a push pull relationship beyond the past. You know, connectivity is really seen as a value add for the carrier's in venues right. You know, it was important for the carriers to provide connectivity to their customers, it didn't matter to the venues right, the venue experience didn't rely on a wireless connection. Now with 5G we're seeing that completely flipped on its end, where it's a value add for the venue to have 5G and to have wireless connectivity. Whereas it's more of a carrier will be there. Right? But but it's more of a symbiotic relationship, I would say with the venues now where we're working together with them not just to provide connectivity to our customers, but also services to their business right and Priya mentioned it as well that's that real time experience and and venues are starting to realize that it takes partnership with the wireless carriers to truly execute and deliver on that. And it's a that's the biggest change that I've seen in the all the G's and in terms of venues
Ryan McCumber 11:16
that their thing is the at home experience has gotten so great. You know, how do you replace that inside the stadium? How do you allow the fans to spend money to come? Now we all want to go to the stadiums. We can't go. But at one point though, everyone has a big TV on the wall. It's it's like a movie theater. You get all the other stats, you have six or seven TVs. Now do you need to go the stadium so the stadium needs to keep up and keep pulling in that fan with different experiences.
Joshua Ness 11:40
Elizabeth it finding that to be true like this, this sudden shift in in stadiums realizing that they need this thing, is it coming? Because they were potentially losing revenue? Because fans just didn't care as much anymore?
Elizabeth Lundin 11:52
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's always been a struggle for I think they call it you know, be is butts in seats right in the venue. But also, once you're in the venue, how do you monetize that customer in the venue? Right? They bought their ticket, but how do you? How do you market concessions or souvenirs to them? Right? And those are all the types of things we're working on our awesome product team is working with venue owners and operators and teams and Ryan and pre I'm sure you are as well, which is how do you use that kind of activity that we bring to not just provide the game experience, but also the total experience and then monetize the the customer while they're in your venue as well.
Joshua Ness 12:31
So what might have started as a way to, quote unquote, stop the bleeding of people gravitating more towards their living rooms has now turned into a revenue generation.
Elizabeth Lundin 12:42
Exactly, exactly.
Joshua Ness 12:45
And where you mentioned how these partnerships have become critical to venues being able to realize this, Elizabeth, sticking with you for a second? Where have like what sort of partnerships have you seen that have been critical to the innovation, or to innovation on the network, whether it's innovating on fan experiences or innovating on backend operations or things like that? Yep. Yeah. So
Elizabeth Lundin 13:08
you know, Ryan kind of hit on it as well, it's, it's a little bit different. In the US even we have a lot of stadiums that are owned by government entities or some are owned by teams, some are owned by one team, but maybe there are multiple teams that occupy a venue. So we've seen success on different levels. You know, we have great league wide partnerships with with leagues like the NFL and the NHL that we just announced. Having those partnerships really helps bring the power of all the franchises together to help us really deliver in the venues if we've run into some of those roadblocks with the municipality or a third party that gets between us and the team. And so it's working with those teams and with those leagues on a league wide basis to figure out what what's the technology that will differentiate this week from other leagues? What's going to provide your league with a a truly innovative experience, right for your fans and bringing new fans? And then how do we partner with you guys at the venue to enable that either for people in the venue or as Ryan mentioned, people who are at home, right, there's a lot of technology, being able in the venue that also feeds the at home broadcasts experience. And then there are other there's some teams that are all all in on innovation. And so we work with them as well. But definitely the lead by partnerships are where we see the most the most innovation on the fastest scale
Joshua Ness 14:25
that can contribute to that to revenue, right. Like we like it's not always just stadiums like it places like airports to where we can help help venues and not just sports venues, but up venues in general. Not only provide new experiences, but also drive some dollars on the back end, right.
Elizabeth Lundin 14:44
That's the hope right now we're, you know, at the end of the day, our goal of pricing is again to provide the best, most seamless customer experience for you. However you're connecting wherever you're connecting. And we obviously want to do it in a way that sets us up for future growth as well. Well, so it's always a balancing act between those two things.
Priya Narasimhan 15:03
Jumping. Yeah, want to jump in on one thing that Elizabeth said. So, Elizabeth, you have fantastic examples there of you know, like food and beverage ordering, or it's, you know, the real time experience in the venue. I think one of the things here with 5G that is the the untapped potential is, I don't know that yet people have conceived what is even possible, because you see, that kind of power didn't exist in the infrastructure before. So you know, not only does it take these existing, you know, food and beverage ordering, or whatever else we're thinking of, and make that a real time experience, but there are as yet unseen, real time experiences that are waiting to be built on top of this infrastructure, because this infrastructure is going to make things possible that don't yet exist. And I think that feeds also into the kinds of, you know, incubation experiences that Ryan has, where we're looking to build what the future is not what the present looks like. Yeah,
Ryan McCumber 16:06
I'm pretty sure you're talking about the stadium, it's, it's an end to end journey. You know, it's that full journey from the moment you buy that ticket to when the game's over, you're heading home, it's not just in the stadium, but coming up to the stadium. And it being able to tell you where to what gate to enter from where there's less of a line, or where there's a you know, it knows that you like craft beer, and there's a craft beer special over in Section 32. and head over that way. And it even tells you how to get there. But it knows more about you than you do. And it's telling you kind of a lot more than just the game itself.
Joshua Ness 16:42
Yeah, pre like you were talking about creating new experiences out of this new infrastructure. How, how is the infrastructure that is now available in these stadiums and is continued to be rolling out? How does that influence the way and these partnerships? How does it influence your product development roadmap? And what do you find is critical when you're when you're developing the next versions of against cam?
Priya Narasimhan 17:09
Yeah, no, that's a fantastic question. And here's why. Right? At the end of the day, if you look at it, you don't quite realize it today. But whatever current infrastructure you have, you need to develop your experience to meet the infrastructure. Let me put it that way, right. Because whatever the infrastructure today thinks is real time you program yourself to that real time, you don't even know you can go more real time that day. I know it sounds terrible to overload this word. But you know, you know what I'm saying here, so you don't even know that you can get through really atrociously low latencies here. And once knowing that's possible, you can now envision, it's possible for me to hold my phone up point to a moving object on the field in real time in LA, we're really talking in real time, and have things overlaid on top of that moving object. whereas previously, we'd be sitting there and thinking, Well, you know, what, the latency of the amount of time it'll take for me to go fetch that stuff, stay there, bring it back here, I need to go for a suboptimal experience, because that's all I can get from the plumbing. Right. So that I think is the game changer. We're, today we are designing our experiences, to suit what the infrastructure believes it's latencies. Tomorrow, we'll be designing our experiences, knowing that there are those limits on the latency, if that makes sense.
Joshua Ness 18:40
But it's a it's a common, a common problem with with innovation is, is innovating, given the parameters that you have at the moment. And the example that I love to use is, is the Star Trek, actually, when you look at Star Trek in the 60s, Captain Kirk and and and in such they had their their tablets, they actually had tablets that were wireless tablets that they used for information. But if you look at the tablet itself, there were dials and switches and things like that the way it wasn't touchscreen, because they were thinking they would like Gene Roddenberry and team they were thinking wireless. Okay, that's going to be the future, but it was, what does that interface going to look like? And they just didn't know. And so I love to point it out as a way that innovators have to like break beyond the bounds of what currently exists to start creating something that is sometimes essentially out of nothing. When those parameters are constantly changing.
Priya Narasimhan 19:34
Power move, start clicking a bolt on shirt.
Joshua Ness 19:39
Absolutely. Look my my sci fi nerd flag fly. We got a question in the in the chat about that. I think Priya and Ryan, I'd love your thoughts on this. Ryan. I'm sorry. Rick was asking about how 5G and NEC can help venues and stadiums go beyond that broadcast experience. And we started to touch on that. And I think Ryan it talks about gets to what you were talking about. From parking lots of parking lot or even from home to home door to door, getting the information that you need. And then Priya, like you were talking about innovating in real time beyond what we can even imagine, right? Like, what would you say to Rick, about about innovating beyond that broadcast experience?
Unknown Speaker 20:17
Where you can go first?
Priya Narasimhan 20:19
Oh, yeah, sure. So let's look at the broadcast experience today. Right? You sit at home on your couch, you see the broadcast of whatever it is, you know, your favorite sports program. So imagine it's a game of football. You see the yellow downline, the yellow downline, takes several seconds cued to overlay on that footage, right. So you have a broadcast delay actually coming into your home. So if you're in a stadium, and you're listening to the broadcast, and you're listening to the game, they're actually on a delay. And the delay is the ingest of the feed the transmission, the encoding, the overlay of the yellow line, the overlay of the graphics, you're subject to all those delays. So it's not real time, right? Whereas what we are envisioning is, in your seat in the stadium, the game is unfolding in front of you. As the game unfolds, how does your experience unfold with the game in real time, no delays. That is the game changer experience that's beyond rocket.
Ryan McCumber 21:20
Just add from a broadcast perspective, and the broadcaster's know, they love 5G remote production and cut down costs. We also become our own broadcaster. And we can sit there at the game and theoretically be broadcasting the game do our own announcing and everything else we can be streaming that whole entire game. broadcasters want to own those rights. And technically, I think it's even illegal in some some stadiums, they say you're not allowed to do it. But you know, it's going to be happening. You can't You can't stop it. The only thing I was pretty was talking about now I'm work with a couple startups, we're doing real time overlays on using facial recognition of the players were in an NBA game, if that player hits three, three pointers in a row, we can put his head on fire. If If you placed a bet, and you're placing a bet, and let's be getting into real time because it let's face it, if it's delayed, there's a up there's an optimization that someone can have, if you have a bet real time. And your bet comes to life, let's say you bet on harden, getting a scoring 30 points, we can make his head block with money, your bet just came live. Or you can have places that we can put something above and say now's a good time to bet there's a marketing efficiency, click here, and everything's player driven using facial recognition. And this is all stuff that's gonna be enabled, you may have sold the the Nickelodeon game that CBS did with all those graphics, and, you know, it becomes a video game. You know, the future is the video game and the game itself coming together. And there's a fantastic league starting fan control Football League, which is fans choosing the plays real time and the team executing it. Now, that's all going to be enabled by 5G and you know, all that real time. It's an experience and the whole thing is going to be an immersive experience inside the arena.
Joshua Ness 22:59
Yeah, a couple things there one, betting, having that real time access actually will change the betting industry or answer the betting industry because then bookmakers have had an opportunity to get there to get their information in real time as opposed to having that multi second delay that they get from broadcast. Sometimes these days they have somebody on the field who is actually on the phone relaying information in real time back to a bookmaker. So they can save those extra four or 510 seconds. So they can they can keep their books as as accurate real time as possible. You mentioned hardened to it kind of excited that he's coming to Brooklyn. So we'll see what happens with those power three, if anybody can find Kyrie Irving, if anybody knows where Kyrie Irving is going to put it in the chat because
Ryan McCumber 23:39
he's walking across the flat earth. And,
Joshua Ness 23:44
Elizabeth, I want to jump to you and ask questions about exciting partnerships. But first, I do want to touch on something we did get from the QA. Manny, in the audience, we talked about the ability to go and get like your phone, like your devices know that you like craft beer and your devices know that you that you have these preferences, and many in the audience was asking if it's desired for services to know more about us than we do? Which is not that crazy of a question. Because combined with with with with inputs of preferences, and then actual AI analysis of activity, it is quite likely that an AI might know more about our preferences than we do. And I'm curious, like from a privacy perspective, or just from a creepiness perspective, as you were talking to these venues like does that come up? And like what are your thoughts on?
Elizabeth Lundin 24:31
Yeah, yeah. So um, yeah, I'm in the network network team, right. So if I do work with our product team, and I will say that data security and data safety and privacy is at the forefront of all of our designs, whether it's a network design or product design, right. And so we work very closely with our partners, right. If a specific stadium or team wants to develop an app that would potentially use those services, we we often have more stringent privacy and data controls, then come on. They're people, app developers, let's say, you know, if we feel that in that process that line, we just weren't allowed on the platform, basically. But it is it is something we talked about because again, we take our, our, our responsibility to our customers to protect their data very, very seriously. And we do want to make sure that the experiences that that we enable don't infringe on that, right.
Joshua Ness 25:25
Yeah, prayer. Ryan, do you have any thoughts on that? I know like, the the common response from tech companies to his Instagram listening to me, is No, of course not. It just did. The AI knows enough about what you like that it surfaces the thing that you want before you even knew you wanted it? Like, what do you think about that?
Ryan McCumber 25:41
example with the Golden One Center, which I believe is one of your venues. We know everyone who came in the stadium, we know everyone's city, we know who has a kid who doesn't have kid we don't know your name. And I say we use it with a company that deals it. But every section if they haven't sold popcorn, by the end of the first quarter and AI algorithm kicks off, and finds a family tends a free coupon for popcorn, they go then and redeem that popcorn, they end up selling five more popcorn is very popcorn to give away for free. So it's not what you didn't want, because you now saw it and smell it, you want to go get more popcorn. But that algorithm really kicks off runs around the stadium, it's dripping off free popcorn to two kids, because they know who came in with a kid. And they ship it to a family first, they don't know who you are, but they're gonna give you some free popcorn. And then it also understands when they haven't run, they'd haven't sold enough chicken tenders by the fourth quarter, we start getting away free chicken tenders or 50% discount or all your way out the door, stop at section 32 and pick up your chicken tenders. You know, it's it's all that's all about sustainability, you know, no waste, having no waste in the venue, which a lot of people don't realize they think or just give away free food. But it's actually about sustainability.
Priya Narasimhan 26:48
Yeah, to add something to that, I think at the end of the day, it has to be fan controlled, right? At the end of the day, the fan, the user is at the center of the universe, in my opinion. So the answer to this is it depends on what the fan desires, not what the service desires, right? If the fan desires an experience, and they volunteer information for it, they should get it simple example. I know I like aisle seats on a plane. If I give you information about that, I hope that my seats are always booked with an aisle seat. I will volunteer that information because I want aisle seats. Same thing as you volunteer information to be on the TSA Pre list. So there are certain things that you volunteer information you weigh in your mind that benefit an example inside a stadium. So as a season ticket member of the penguins, right of the Pittsburgh Penguins, I'm on autopilot. When I go to a game, I want to be on autopilot, because I'm here for the game. So I want the rest of my journey program for me. I go to games with my son, I know in the third period of every game, he's going to want his pizza, I'd rather the pizza was ready for me. Because I don't want to get out of my seat and go spend 15 minutes of my life with the games on. So I don't mind at all if you're programming something I chose and I desire. So I think at the end of the day, the privacy is at the control of the fan. And the services the fan desires. It's important to make it explicit what they're getting for what they're giving. And there they have to make the choice of what they want and what they're getting.
Ryan McCumber 28:26
Sorry. I was just commenting on the flyers feeding the penguins.
Joshua Ness 28:34
Oh, they did yesterday.
Priya Narasimhan 28:37
Civil cloud No, no, no.
Joshua Ness 28:42
That I think that that just goes to show that when we talk about fan experience, it means so much more than it used to and it really can vary depending on the the the sport being played, and even the fan the fans themselves, because now that experiences can be customized. One person's amazing fan experience doesn't really do much for somebody else. It's almost like almost like love languages for fans. Appreciate the chuckle. Elizabeth, what types of partnerships excite you from a network perspective? Are you seeing anything really interesting or? Or something new, not necessarily in fan experiences, but in ways that that that stadiums, arenas or venues are deploying some of this technology?
Elizabeth Lundin 29:26
Yeah, I would say again, networking, right. The partnerships that get me the most excited are the ones that allow us to do the most the fastest, right that allow us to scale and really get this stuff out into the market as quickly as possible. So, you know, I look at you know, I mentioned the NHL earlier, right. So just a couple months ago, we inked a league wide agreement with them. We're we're the official 5G and mech partner of the NHL, which to me, that is just an amazing opportunity to work at a lead level to again to develop experiences that will impact hockey fans. Feel free to mention she's a penguin Susan
Unknown Speaker 30:01
Taylor, I'm
Elizabeth Lundin 30:02
a fellow season ticket holder, huge hockey fan. So, you know, how do we make, you know, what is the best sport on earth? Right? And really the best live sport? In my opinion, how do we bring the energy that you get in the rink to people outside the rink as well and you talk about low latency, you're gonna have to have that close by really to deliver in that real time experience. And so having that legal partnership will enable us to bring that to more fans faster than if we had to work with all 30 or, you know, 24 US based teams individually, right? And then, you know, you look at, again, innovative teams, so we have great partnership with the NFL, but even within the NFL, there are different levels of different team engagements. I look at hard rock stadium where we had the Super Bowl last year, the dolphins are really all in on innovation, and partnering with them to figure out how can we bring 5G use cases not just for the fan experience, but also in their own stadium operations, right? How can we streamline their security screening processes? How can we streamline their back of house operations so they can more efficiently set up or tear down for large events and, and all those things, again, bring a better fan experience, right? If you don't have as much setup and teardown. So it's, again, it's working with those really forward thinking people who want to do things fast. And at scale.
Ryan McCumber 31:16
That's what gets me the most excited lives with a lot of those people, I deals also deal with the data, and the data comes off. And you now start to collect that data off a hockey player via the sensors. Now how fast was that impact? That was like getting hit by a bicycle in Manhattan, or like a Mack chocolate 95. You know, you can see how hard that impact was. And you know, those experiences of bringing that to life. And maybe even showing us up on the screen. Now. somebody's getting run over by a bicycle delivery guy versus 18 Wheeler running over, somebody probably don't do that. But we showed that impact is like what it feels like, and how hard you can bring it to life and what you're dealing with you Don't do that to play at the team level that's at the league level. And those are the things you're doing at the league level.
Joshua Ness 32:04
Yeah, touching on that, as well as a question that we got in the audience from Chris, pre I have a question for you. What makes VPN scam unique? And its technology? And and what sort of innovations do you think are going to be possible due to 5G that, that you see in scam taking advantage of or maybe some other applications as well? And I asked this because Chris, Chris asked, How long before he can hold up his phone, scan the field and then have real time statistical overlays of players in every NBA or NHL arena? I think it's a valid question. But I also think it then it kind of sort of falls into that trap that we talked about of like that's an innovation that that we're thinking about as a society like Chris is not alone and asking the question of when can I hold up my device and watch the game through my device. But I think the fact is that nobody really wants to do that. And so like, what is the endgame doing now that we are tethered to these devices? But what do you think is going to be possible moving forward that that'll make Chris's view of the future? Something that we think about in the past?
Priya Narasimhan 33:05
Yep, no, a fantastic question. Thank you again. So echoing what Elizabeth said, for us scale and speed. Right? Those are the two things. And the reason is, again, having 200 professional sports teams and leagues that work with us, I would say honestly, we are the beneficiary of 200 sets of sports minds, all crowdsourcing, their intellect and their ideas through our platform. So basically, we're not the same two years running because our platform has already grown 20 to 30%, year to year. Right. So because all these teams are pouring their ideas in. And then as we partner up with, you know, Verizon, on some of the experiences we've done this past season, they say this current NFL season with super stadium and a few other things. That's exactly where we are. So Christy, your question, we're getting that we're fairly close, I think it's now how do we test? And how do we make sure we have enough, you know, capacity to test enough kinds of devices in our fans to test with, so we can verify that that experience is there. There is nothing from a plumbing infrastructure technology standpoint, that is just a showstopper to what you're envisioning, Chris, today there isn't. It's more making sure that we can test that skill. And we can envision more experiences as you said, like you hold your phone up. And you know, that guy just had a 70 yard rushing touchdown, you should be able to see that and you should be able to see a ticker on top of his head as he's going yard by yard. Right and you should be able to see that. So you should be able to take a stats feed from the chips on his shoulder pads, and post that on the video and post that on the camera the person's looking at. And suddenly you have a unified multi sensory experience in real time. As you're watching the game unfold. Technology is no longer the limiter there. It's more we have to be able to scale this and tested at all the differences sites and facilities knowing that in most of these stadiums, it's not the stadium alone, it's the end to end thing from the stadium all the way through wherever you're pulling the stats from. There's a pipe behind. And it's also the pipe. The pipe also plays a role here. So it's not about the stadium and the fan the stadium alone. But yeah, technology's not that amateur. This, I'm hoping in the next year, this is a reality, you're going to see something.
Ryan McCumber 35:26
Yeah, the reality today is you can hold your phone up to like a figurine or bobblehead and you can see the stats from the night before. And that's kind of a stepping stone to getting there real time, where you hold it up to a, whatever it is, you start to get everything presented to you and it'll be customized to what you want. Now you wake up in the morning, you can just hold your phone up, and you can see everything.
Joshua Ness 35:49
Yeah, where does that lead us in terms of return on investment, like all of this? Like, like, Elizabeth we're Verizon is investing billions of dollars in fiber and mechon. And all of this and, and Priya, you're clearly investing time and resources and treasure into developing this this current version of your of your technology and future versions of your technology? How are we thinking about without where that what return is? We're going to see on that, because there's so many different stakeholders, there's the leagues, the teams, the fans, as well as the technology providers themselves. What are your What are your thoughts on that? Starting with you, Elizabeth? Yeah, yeah.
Elizabeth Lundin 36:29
So I mean, obviously, you know, as a carrier, the first is the first that's just your traditional, you know, mobile device. strathmere. Right. But that's what it's always been. And and that's something we'll continue to gauge, right? You know, are we seeing mobile device penetration, right, as a network person, I want to make sure that the network we build people are using it right. So to me ROI is am I passing through the amount of traffic that I built and designed the the network to handle? And then the exciting thing about 5G though, is that, you know, is Priya and Ryan both hit on is we kind of don't know what the new value use cases will be. Right? But but we want to make sure we're building a network where we can get the ROI on those use cases as they do get enabled. And we want to be part of that discussion. And part of that partnership with venues right. And one thing we haven't hit on really yet, maybe a little bit in the in the beginning was that, traditionally, connectivity has been a revenue source for the venue, meaning us as carriers, we as carriers, provide revenue to the venue for the privilege of providing connectivity. And and that's fine. It's a partnership that's worked very well for many years. But again, as we start to see the connectivity enable more value for the venue, you know, as a carrier, we like to think about how can we then also provide more value for our customers, right, and also, for our investment that we've made into that value that the venue is getting, so that again, it's it's it's really Greenfield with 5G, which is why it's so exciting.
Priya Narasimhan 38:03
Yep, jumping in here, Josh, as well, you know, to Elizabeth's point, we don't yet know what we don't don't we don't know how this can be used for all of the awesome use cases. And I think that's fantastic. And honestly, with a little bit of my academic hat on from a university research standpoint, right, working with some of my students, we're trying to paint the picture of what that future will look like. Because that's the promise of this new infrastructure in this new plumbing, we have right to go back a little bit your ROI for me. And forgive me, I've been doing doing this for 12 years, the ROI is the fan. Right? At the end of the day, the ROI for the fan is a differentiated experience that you didn't even dream of. Right? That truly is, to me the big thing, right? You know, I think all of us uniformly are hockey fans here. So you know, we're amongst friends. So, for me, I started watching the Pittsburgh Penguins when I moved to Pittsburgh, not before then, and I fell in love with hockey, right? When I first started, I didn't know the rules of the game. When I first even today, there's some arcane thing that happens in a game that I'm still trying to scramble around trying to find out more information. I want to be immersed in the game. But when I want the information, I'm not a fan of pulling up my browser and let me search for set information. I want you to come to me, right? Because I'm not going to spend minutes of my life there while I'm at a live game, which is awesome as a hockey game, spending my time searching on a browser trying to figure out what my key words are here that I need to figure out what that arcane rule in front of me was. I want to hold up my phone and I want rule to appear right above the guy's head. Whoever had the infraction, right? I don't want to go look for this. So I want that experience that normally you know what I would have done when I first started learning hockey, I would have asked the experts sitting next to me What just happened? So my choices were what just happened or let me go look at a browser, I want information to come to me in real time when I want it. And to be able to anticipate that, so hold my phone up, tap on that should tell me who the instructor what the infraction is, and who's the offender. And I don't want to guess. Right? And to me that to provide that heightened experience, that's the ROI for the fan. Now, how does that what's the halo effect of that ROI? The fan ROI always leads to pm ROI, venue ROI. It's inevitable, right? But we start with the final ROI. Where's the team ROI? The theme ROI is, if the fan knows there's a differentiated experience, guess what? They're showing up? Because you can't get that at home? Right? So you know, going back to Elizabeth, Watson sees comment, you have a reason to be there. Because you no longer have to go phone a friend to find out the answer. Right? It's in front of you, and you don't miss out on the live experience. Right? So you've got that. So you've got that experience. And this is why people renew this season, ticket memberships, etc. What about the ROI for the venue, the ROI for the venue is, if you now provide this heightened differentiated experience, pregame in game hosting, you've now extended your game window, right? The moment you extend your game window, people are at the venue longer, the longer they're at the venue, the more they're spending at the venue. So there is from the fan ROI. And I for me, it always starts with that the halo effect the steam ROI, venue ROI, you go step back sponsor ROI, it just ripples. But it starts with the fact that you've not provided a unique differentiated experience that the fan is actually willing to engage in continuously while they're watching the game continuously. And there's no friction. And that I think is a game changer.
Joshua Ness 42:04
That's like some sports version of trickle down economics. If, if the fan is happy, then then everyone else is going to be happy to Yeah, and I agree free. I really would like that innovation because trying to explain. icing and hockey is like trying to explain offsides and soccer just gives you a headache. And Ryan, I wanted to get your take on this too, as well as throwing a little bit of a wrench in there from something that came out of the audience. Are we banking on consumer based ad revenue, a model like that, like the social media companies have established? Or as we're thinking about this trickle down value and revenue and return that he was talking about? How do you think it's going to move beyond these traditional models,
Ryan McCumber 42:44
I actually think is beyond traditional ad models. I mean, that's pretty much saying the more you're engaged, the more you're at the stadium, more you're going to consume, whether that's merchant or food and beverage, but just being at a game as previous as she she wants to just watch the game, I want to watch two or three games with my phone and see what else is going on because of my fantasy team or whatever I have going on. And I want to see those replays. But it's just that engagement. Yeah, there could be ads there. But it's more immersed ads, it's more things are targeted to that you don't even realize them, not your traditional, I have to watch an ad before I watch this replay. It's going to be in different directions, you're not quite realizing, you know, when you walk by in a stadium, the ad that precedes might be a different ad that I see. You know, there's targeted advertising companies out there that can what's being targeted to you, and it's speaking to you. So that's something to actually consider. But I definitely think it's not going to be just ad driven. I think it's a lot more than that. I think there's a lot more revenue streams than that. And really at the base at the end of it, the measurement is engagement, and that duration engagement and how many different modes of engagement at the same time.
Joshua Ness 43:50
Yeah, in moving into to what we're what we can expect in a in a new normal. A Ryan sticking with you like what is what does engagement look like when we can all go back into stadiums again? And how do you think the relationship evolves between that in venue experience, and then the hybrid events experience because let's face it, some people aren't going to want to go back into stadiums. And so how do we how do we create that fan that trickle down fan value from folks who might not necessarily be in the venue at all? And how can the venues and the leaves and the teams and the tech begin to capitalize on these new advancements?
Ryan McCumber 44:25
Yeah, well, it's a good, great question, and everyone's dying to get back and I guess Elizabeth, you are probably there. But my last event was the Super Bowl in Miami. The last live event I've been to. And then I spent this past summer running Season One of what we called the hype global virtual accelerator to really help teams come back and the dolphins were one of our partners. It was the dolphins LFC Toronto Blue Jays. It was all about how we use innovation to help bring the fans back and a lot of it is you know, providing second screen differentiation. A lot of it was how do we corporate sponsors. Horizon would be, you have an expectation to have. Now a lot of tickets here, how do we give you something while you're at home? How do we give you something differentiated. But coming back to to No, 5G related, coming up to the stadium, understanding social distancing, where people are keeping them far enough away from each other, everything has moved to contactless payments, you're not gonna take anything, it'll be all contactless payments, I kind of think the whole digital agenda accelerated about three years. Now previously, stadiums were still on. I mean, in Europe, they still use tickets. It's the law in Belgium, you still have a paper ticket, that law got striped right away. So there's things you know, US has always been at the forefront of that. But then think of, you know, different ticketing and right now there's the secondary market. What about the third market where when you're in a stadium, if someone leaves early, they want to sell their seat, or you want to be able to move and people moving around? There's all kinds of innovation coming with that, but it's really, how do you help bring the fence back in? How do you provide them and wow, them, I promise you something like Allegiant Stadium, or so far, they didn't have fans, they have these beautiful castles that were built, that are phenomenal, that no, they're just aching to get fans back in. But I always kind of look at the the Super Bowl again, is kind of, I feel like I don't it's definitely not gonna be full, that's for sure. But kind of a another highlight of what's to come in the spring within baseball, or, you know, NBA arenas finally letting people back in. But I don't think it'll be that different than it was before. But it's gonna get there. It's definitely going to be unique. And you know, towards the next NFL season, you'll start to see a lot of this innovation taking place.
Joshua Ness 46:35
And Elizabeth, what what do you think about the way that Verizon is preparing for not only fans coming back and stadiums, but also that hybrid experience and that hybrid model to where the, the, the ubiquity of connectivity is going to really be crucial?
Elizabeth Lundin 46:50
Yeah, yeah. So it's, um, you know, Ryan, said, you know, he thinks that COVID really accelerated the digital experience by about three years right in the venue space. And, and I will say that I think customers and fans are really going to notice it when they go back, right, because one of the silver linings for us is, uh, you know, network construction company, right through COVID was with no fans and stains and no events for a large part of the year, we could get a lot of constructions on. We we lit up just as many venues, but 5G in 2020, as we did in 2019. And, and that's with access restrictions, right? within a couple of months, we're just no workouts on so you know, twice as many fans are going to experience 5G and venues as they did, you know, pre COVID. And I think for people who may even haven't been to a game for a while for COVID, it's going to be an eye opening experience. You know, contactless tickets, contactless retail contactless concessions. Everything is going to be geared around. It really was a socially Tizen experience while with you know, 60,000 of your closest friends, basically. And the way we're looking at the hybrid, right? So it is that's really our product team. They're constantly talking to teams, they're constantly talking to leagues and figuring out how do we deliver in that model, right? How do we how do we build experience? How do we build the technology that will really differentiate ourselves in that model? And then it comes down to my team to figure out well, what's the network capability needed to support it? Right? And that's where we come in, you know, how many nodes do you need? What capacity Do you need, what kind of backhaul and I'm a I'm a network geek, so to me, that's the fun part of it. To most people, it's the product. That's the fun part.
Ryan McCumber 48:30
The other thing that Josh is, is the the IoT and you know how everything is connected. We talked earlier or last night, it's not just the phone. Now everything's gonna be connected. So they know when the soap is running out in the bathroom, they know to refill it, you know, when your phone is there a line at the, at the standard concession stand or whatever. It's all going to be telling you where to go, where not to go and when to go. But now the operations of the stadium can actually feel what's going on and feel the pulse of the of the venue. And that's all driven by those IoT sensors. It's all being laid around the stadiums, as we speak.
Joshua Ness 49:06
Prayer. Did you ever comment on that, too?
Priya Narasimhan 49:08
Yeah. So I think one of the things here is right. Human beings are creatures of habit, if you condition us to new habits will get adjusted to new habits, right? Think about how we went from paper ticketing since I was an example that was given your mobile ticketing. I don't know any different now. But I know I've done paper tickets before. I don't know any different now other than to take an Uber but I've taken taxis before. Right. So if you give people safety with convenience, and you deliver it in a digital form, that makes it really really really painless. People will adopt it. Most of us are not going to rush around trying to find a printer to print out boarding pass on. That's too much of a hassle. In fact, most of us get our boarding passes, five minutes from when we are at you know the Security gates, because we can. And nobody stops us from doing that. That's safety and convenience. Right. So I think going back to Ryan's point, it is a contactless universe, which is fantastic for digital. Right. So thinking of that digital contactless universe safety with convenience, delivered through digital, I think we'll get people back. And just as you look at Mobile tickets with, for your planes, right for flights, mobile tickets with paper tickets, it isn't that when they went to mobile tickets, people stopped flying, people flew even more, because it made it became even easier. So I think normalcy will be back. I think it depends on being opportunistic, about rolling out safety with convenience as fast as possible. And to Elizabeth's point, speed and scale.
Ryan McCumber 50:51
I want to give some credit to Australia, I gave a knock earlier to Australia being skinny without having Wi Fi. They've also had some phenomenal innovation. So this technology exists today. And we're using actually one of the previous clients at the Great Western Sydney, you by the jersey of the team, you don't need a ticket, the ticket is tied to your jersey, literally you walk right in, the gate opens, you sit down, it tells you where to go. And now you're getting sent money can't buy experiences. Because you bought an authentic jersey, your player scores a touchdown, you get sent a notification, hey, go get a free coke because Coke is sponsoring that player. Everything is real time. You don't even need a ticket, but you only need your phone for it. Everything is tied to your fandom on that authentic jersey. Now that's not the US because a couple brands kind of control the leaks. But that technology is there. And we've been rolling it out in Europe. We also see that as launched this in La Liga that's, that's live this season, your jersey becomes your ticket, and you just walk right in.
Joshua Ness 51:47
Yeah, and I know you've been doing work with DNS cam. And and especially as we're as we're seeing as we're getting close to time here, wanted to shoot this over to the to the panel, but free starting with you about what you fans need to know about, about getting about all of this about getting back into sports, whether it's in the living room, or whether it's in the stadium, things like mobile ticketing and interactive maps or safety or safety precautions. We mentioned contactless payments, it seems like there's a lot of innovations that are almost becoming second nature that we don't even think about them as innovations. It's just Oh, it's just a response to acts on it. What advice would you give to fans or even venues themselves? As we start to roll into this new normal? Like what's what, what what is it? We need to know?
Priya Narasimhan 52:39
Yep, so I think a venues beams and then fans as well, right? So on the fan side, I'm aware that teams and venues are investing a lot, even in a difficult time, like under the pandemic, to make sure that your return is safe, to make sure that everything that can be possible is done through their mobile devices, because they want to make this accessible defense as they walk up to the stadium. So teams are really investing venues are really investing in convenience and safety. So I think that's a huge thing. For fans. As much as there are, you know, some diehard fans that I know that myself, who say I'm there for the purity of the experience, I don't need my mobile device to be my companion, the spontaneity of the game is why I'm here. I say do you think paper boarding tickets? Right? We've we all use digital mobile boarding tickets start because it's a convenience. It's not about taking away from your experience. It's about making sure sure you are safe, and that it's convenient for you to enjoy that experience. So I think that keeping that really in mind that it's not just the experience of the game has to be awesome. My team has to win. And I see AR or VR or whatever on the field, its safety and convenience delivered to you in real time in a digital format. And I think that's where, you know, the mobile apps for these teams and leagues are now indispensable as the way to get it just like your airline apps are indispensable for you to pass through the security don't stop.
Unknown Speaker 54:21
Yeah, Ryan, what
Joshua Ness 54:22
do you think?
Ryan McCumber 54:23
Yeah, yeah, well, I just actually want to go and completely shift gears and something that I envision in the future. And I've actually had a client asked me this question, what is the day when we can go to an empty, let's say the Philadelphia Eagles are playing in the Super Bowl in Minnesota, but I can't make it to the game or I don't want to go to Minnesota because it's freezing. When can I go to the link center and sit there and watch the same game and a hologram of the same players playing almost like you're at the stadium. And that technology is coming so where you can be in the venue watching the game, but it's a it's a hologram of the game. It's the real game taking place in front of your eyes. You're just not there. That technology's not quite there yet, but it's coming. And now they're gonna be able to project that. And 5G is gonna enable it. Now someone's gonna if they're working on it somewhere. My answer at that point was when he 25 2030 was my guess. This was about two years ago. And when I had the question estimate, that's something I kind of envision in the future.
Joshua Ness 55:20
Yeah. And that gets to an audience question that we got. Sherry was asking about, when can we expect to not use these traditional devices, like phones and tablets, to take advantage of these experiences? And I think, Ryan, that gets to what you were you were just saying, and something we touched on at the top, which is that as connectivity evolves, thanks, in no small part to the work that Elizabeth and her team are doing. The devices themselves will evolve, and therefore the experiences that they're able to deliver will evolve. Elizabeth, what are your closing thoughts on that on on where the heck we're going in the future?
Elizabeth Lundin 55:55
Yeah, uh, the most exciting part is I don't know. Right. And I think that's kind of the theme of this of this whole this whole, this whole panel. And, And to me, that's exciting. Right, you know, you wouldn't really ask the Department of fence what they're going to use DARPA net for 30 years in the future, right back in the in the ETS, right? And who could have who could have imagined that? And I think that's the we're on the cusp of that same type of a great leap forward in technology. So yeah, I know, it's not a concrete answer. But that's to me. That's the exciting part of it. We're all on this journey together.
Joshua Ness 56:27
Yeah, so there are any any developers or builders are creators or takers in the audience? Something to think about is that we are on that CUSP that they were on in 2010, when people like Reed Hastings and Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos really started to make their fortunes and really create the application that dictated how we live our lives. As much as we would want to go back and think, man, what must have been great to be there when innovation was just taking off. And there was this entirely new set of experiences that were being enabled. The spoilers that were there again, we're here now. And honestly, that's a lot of the work that 5G Labs does at Verizon, our job is to go out and predict the future. And we do that by working with ecosystem partners just like you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to Elizabeth, Priya and Ryan for this amazing conversation. And a special thank you to the audience for joining in and asking some really great questions. This conversation has been recorded and will be available tomorrow or the next couple of days. I'm probably at the beginning of the week. Next week. If anybody wants to share this content with their communities then please feel free. We'll get back here next week to further discuss how technology is revolutionizing the sports fan experience with experts from groups like live like sports tracker and Yahoo Sports. And you can find all this information and RSVP to those events at Verizon5Glabs.com Thank you so much, everyone. This has been super amazing. I can't wait to continue conversations like this. Thank you all for the amazing work that you're doing and I look forward to talking with you more. Thanks, everyone.
Unknown Speaker 57:56
Thanks, guys. Bye