How Sony is changing the game for the NFL

Sony Sports CEO Rufus Hack joins TheStreet to discuss how what the company has in store for the National Football League.

Transcript

00:00Sony recently became the official technology partner of the NFL.

00:04What new opportunities does this unlock for the league?

00:11So we're incredibly privileged within our Sony sports business to work with 23 of the top 25

00:17sports leagues globally and extending our partnership with the NFL is something we're

00:22incredibly excited about. The NFL obviously being one of the iconic global sports properties,

00:29we're really excited to help them across a number of things. So firstly we're going to be

00:33installing our optical tracking cameras in all 32 of the NFL stadiums. And what's that going to

00:41mean? That means that we can effectively collect sub one second latency skeletal data of all of the

00:48NFL matches from next season. We'll be using that for a variety of things. The first thing that

00:54we're going to be really focused on is how can we help to improve the product on the pitch

01:00through making the game fairer, safer and in many cases quicker. And so the first application of

01:07that is going to be around automating the line to game. So we're effectively going to be able to

01:13automate whether a first down was made and whether the full 10 yards has been achieved. But then

01:21once we actually collect the skeletal data and the ball tracking data, there's huge

01:28other ways in which that can potentially be used. So that can potentially be used to look

01:34about whether a player was in bounds when they caught a touchdown pass. It can be looked to see

01:38whether there was interference on the quarterback. And so we're very excited about how we can

01:44continue to build on this relationship with the NFL to really roll out new ways, as I said,

01:50to make the game fairer, safer and quicker. As part of this partnership, Sony is also

01:56developing headsets for team coaches. How will these headsets enhance the game? And when can

02:04we expect this to roll out? So you're exactly right, Conway. We're going to be introducing

02:12the Sony headsets from still to be exactly finalized, but likely from the start of next

02:18season. So we have Sony headsets for all of the coaches and obviously improving the audio quality

02:26and the speed of transmission. But there's lots of other things that we're doing as part of this

02:32wider strategic partnership. We touched on some of the officiating improvements that we're looking

02:38to work with the league on. We're obviously doing the headsets, as you referenced, but we're also

02:43looking to use this data that's collected for really new immersive fan engagement experiences.

02:48So I think that you're aware that we did something last season with the NFL for one

02:54of the London series games where we recreated one of the games in Toy Story IP. And the numbers

03:01around that were quite incredible. We had over 4 million views on ESPN and Disney Plus with an

03:07average of over a million. The average age of the viewer was actually 14 versus whatever it is,

03:13mid 50s on CBS or NBC. And actually, 62% of people had never seen the game and never watched

03:20the game before. So it was genuinely additive. And so we're actually looking to do that again

03:26over the next month or so. But actually, this game is going to be recreated. One of the Cowboys games

03:31at the start of December is going to be recreated in Simpsons IP. So really trying to use the data

03:37and working with the league for how do you create new, more immersive and participative

03:43sports experiences for younger sports fans.