Menu
Media

MLBAM's Bowman Discusses Development, Rollout Of Player Tracking Tech In Q&A

MLBAM President & CEO Bob Bowman discussed MLB's new player tracking system, unveiled at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics conference last weekend, in a Q&A with Jonah Keri of GRANTLAND. Bowman talked about "what the new technology could mean for the game, and how MLBAM will work through the challenges that are bound to pop up as the system launches this year in three parks, then expands to all 30 stadiums" in '15. The following are excerpts from the interview:

Q: How long had MLBAM been working on this?
Bowman: We’ve been working with Sportvision for some time, on PITCHf/x and FIELDf/x. This system is more evolved, and easier to track. There are two steps here. First, you’re capturing all these pieces of data at 32 frames per second. That’s easy. Then, you’re capturing video. That’s easy. Like any cake you bake, it’s how you put the ingredients together, combining data and video capture. Then you have to overlay it all accurately, clearly, and quickly so people understand it. We’re committed to launching this year. We want to have a few eggs lying around, and we’ve got FIELDf/x already in a number of parks.

Q: At the conference, your CTO (Joe Inzerillo) said the system would be available “for baseball operations and some fan use for 2014.” How much access are we talking about? When exactly? And what will we get in 2015?
Bowman: We’ve talked to baseball ops people, letting them know that the path we’re going down is to make it available to everybody. ... It won’t be as granular as stats folks want initially, more like looking at the finished product rather than ingredients -- though ops people will see that granular data right away. Plus with only three parks this year, we wanted to make sure there was a proper sharing arrangement between all the teams, so even if your team doesn’t play in a particular park this year, that team still has access to the data coming out of it. Maintaining on-field competitiveness and fairness was important. We want to get it out in somewhat varnished form to the masses. But the goal is to also get it out in unvarnished form to people who want it eventually. That provides value, too, so that [analysts] can think of things that we haven’t thought of. Then there’s broadcast TV; we think this will be very interesting to fans, to be able to see the path a fielder takes, the line to the ball. ... We expect to have unvarnished data on March 30 to send to baseball ops folks. For regular fans ... you’ll start to see those in April of this year. It seems odd to have a whole season for a trial, but that’s what we’re doing. The goal is to put the product out this year, then get to all 30 parks, then release the data in unvarnished form in 2015.

Q: How do you plan to monetize the new system?
Bowman: 97 percent of TV broadcasts are using PITCHf/x in some fashion, and that’s sponsored -- though that revenue goes to teams; it doesn’t come directly to us. We’re capitalists at MLB.com, but frankly we haven’t given that much thought here. It’d be nice to get some return, but that’s not what’s driving us right now. This is something we think fans want, and we can deliver it, so that’s what we’re going to do (GRANTLAND.com, 3/4).

SBJ Morning Buzzcast: March 25, 2024

NFL meeting preview; MLB's opening week ad effort and remembering Peter Angelos.

Big Get Jay Wright, March Madness is upon us and ESPN locks up CFP

On this week’s pod, our Big Get is CBS Sports college basketball analyst Jay Wright. The NCAA Championship-winning coach shares his insight with SBJ’s Austin Karp on key hoops issues and why being well dressed is an important part of his success. Also on the show, Poynter Institute senior writer Tom Jones shares who he has up and who is down in sports media. Later, SBJ’s Ben Portnoy talks the latest on ESPN’s CFP extension and who CBS, TNT Sports and ESPN need to make deep runs in the men’s and women's NCAA basketball tournaments.

SBJ I Factor: Nana-Yaw Asamoah

SBJ I Factor features an interview with AMB Sports and Entertainment Chief Commercial Office Nana-Yaw Asamoah. Asamoah, who moved over to AMBSE last year after 14 years at the NFL, talks with SBJ’s Ben Fischer about how his role model parents and older sisters pushed him to shrive, how the power of lifelong learning fuels successful people, and why AMBSE was an opportunity he could not pass up. Asamoah is 2021 SBJ Forty Under 40 honoree. SBJ I Factor is a monthly podcast offering interviews with sports executives who have been recipients of one of the magazine’s awards.

Shareable URL copied to clipboard!

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/05/Media/Bowman-QandA.aspx

Sorry, something went wrong with the copy but here is the link for you.

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Daily/Issues/2014/03/05/Media/Bowman-QandA.aspx

CLOSE