Menu
Media

Tablets will make debut in MLB dugouts

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.

BOWMAN
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.”

— John Ourand

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/Journal/Issues/2015/03/30/Media/MLB-tablets.aspx

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

https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2015/03/30/Media/MLB-tablets.aspx

CLOSE