Tech and Sport: Wireless Scoreboards, what’s the point?
Engadget has just annouced Ambient Devices has just released it’s baseball scoreboard and it’s a great device. MLB fans can simply input their team and track the game stats. It uses the infocast system which it gives it 90% coverage which is pretty nifty and updates every half inning. It isn’t the first such device either the SportsCasts Wireless Football scoreboard was announced back in September and Vroops retro bluetooth based baseball scoreboard announced before that in June.
All these types of devices leave me thinking “Why?”
Don’t get me wrong the idea of keeping up with a game while you’re not there is a fantastic idea but what about the radio or calling a friend at the game or who’s watching it on TV. I know the geographic proportions of the USA mean that thats difficult but surely someone does sms updates. Is no-one deveoping mobile apps for this market? I mean why sell people a new device, why not sell them a service for a device they already carry around and which has far near 100% coverage wherever you are? If a mobile baseball game can be produced a scoreboard can’t be that difficult.
This leads me to another question, one that bench’d hopes to serve as a focal point to help over the next few years. Are sports communities cut off from the technology community? Is this part of the smart kid/jock divide that started in school? Is this part of our societal norm? Does technology have to enter the mainstream first to be adopted by sports people?
I think that to a certain degree they are cut off. The crossover in uses for technology for sports media coverage and interaction has MASSIVE potential. Sport related transactions online are already in the multiple billions, but the truth is most transactions occur at non sport specific sites. You didn’t book or find your flight to the Manchester Utd. game through a sport website. The problem to date has been that most people at the cutting edge of new media don’t understand the sports community and from the other perspective most people involved in sport are not tech savvy. Thankfully though this is changing. As more social media tools become everyday tools understanding is increased on both sides. I also don’t believe that the sports community needs to wait for social tools to become mainstream to start using them, if anything here is one community that mirrors the tech industry where the fans, (if not the big corporations) believe in working for the greater good and really believe in having their say.
So lets leave off the uni-directional devices and lets plug into whats really going on and what sport fans really want. Interaction!!!
I will say this though the Vroop baseball scoreboard is a pretty cool retro looking gadget so I can’t be too hard on it.
(Originally posted on The B-Team Blog)