The following interview is part of our ongoing Expert Series that asks C-level professionals, team presidents, league executives, athletic directors and other sports influencers about their latest thoughts and insights on new technologies impacting the sports industry.
Name: Jason Coyle
Company: 120 Sports
Position: President
As the President at 120 Sports, a live streaming over-the-top platform, Jason Coyle is responsible for all aspects of business operations, development and monetization. At launch in early 2014, content partners included 120 Sports equity investor Time Inc. (owner of Sports Illustrated) as well as the NHL, NBA, MLB.com, NASCAR and leading collegiate conferences via Campus Insiders (a joint venture between IMG College and Chicago-based digital sports media company Silver Chalice).
A graduate of Harvard Law School, Coyle also co-founded Silver Chalice, LLC in 2008, with the goal of creating the preeminent sports media company for the digital generation. Silver Chalice is focused upon the creation and operation of video-driven sports properties in partnership with rights holders and other dominant players in the sports media industry, combining television-quality production values with a digital-only focus upon “new media” audiences and experiences, with properties exclusively created for and distributed across all digital platforms.
1) What utilization of technology in professional or college sports has recently blown you away and why?
Though it’s still in its early stages, I think that the seeds of something really special are planted in the multi-tiered conversation that Twitter has built around live sporting events over the past few months. I’m very impressed by the way that they are able to mix professional production quality with fan reaction in the moment.
2) If you had to invest in one technology that would alter the sports landscape, what would it be and why?
A customized, real-time, social viewing experience for live sports with self-selected small groups: think Google Hangout meets a live feed of game that you can experience with a group of friends or family anywhere in the world. We’ve seen a number of attempts in this direction but not yet a flexible and scalable solution.
3) If money were no object, what technology would you build or buy to help you do your job better?
I’d like more intuitive tools to better understand social conversation in real-time so we can improve the production of our live programming to react and interact with the social conversation. We are heading in this direction with our new show The Rally on Twitter but we’re just now scratching the surface of real-time polling and tapping into live social sentiment.
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4) As a sports fan, what sports-related service, app, product, etc., could you not live without and why?
I genuinely think the 120 Sports app is the best possible way to follow sports: real-time, highly personalized, official highlights and expert analysis all according to my favorite topics and teams.
5) If you had to project 20 years into the future, how will most fans watch their favorite sports teams?
It’s hard for me to project that far into the future but the answer probably lies at the intersection of VR and IoT.
6) Give us your bold prediction about a form of technology that will be integral to sports in general over the next 12 months and why?
Wearable technology and analytics will really take off in the next 12 months. I believe consumers will be able to monitor meaningful insights like their favorite athletes’ heart rates, muscle movement, respiration, nerve levels and more.