TECHNOLOGY
Tablets will make debut in MLB dugouts
Bob Bowman, MLB’s president of business and media, outlined plans to put tablets in the dugout for the first time this season, calling it part of new Commissioner Rob Manfred’s technological push.
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BOWMAN
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Speaking at the SXSW event in Austin earlier this month, Bowman said he expects to have tablets in the dugout at some point this season. It’s unclear whether the introduction of tablets would conflict with club deals with wireless carriers or MLB’s national wireless deal with T-Mobile, or what brand of tablets might be used. MLB is in the third and final year of a three-year wireless sponsorship deal it signed with T-Mobile in January 2013, and there’s no sponsor deal in place covering tablets.
Bowman: “Clubs themselves use a lot of analytics to try and find the right player or put the right defense on or the right pitch at the right time. There are probably a thousand decisions that a manager makes during a baseball game, trying to figure out everything on every pitch. Every time a pitcher moves his arm, a decision — or three or four — has been made. … Tablets will have all this historical information — hitting charts, spray charts. … We’re excited about what that will do to the game.”
Describing Manfred as being from a “different generation,” Bowman said that the new commissioner supports the push. “He believes that the technology that baseball has is something we can use to engage our fans and our managers and general managers — everybody who wants to use technology more.”
