NFL coaches have made a habit of decrying the practice restrictions implemented by the collective bargaining agreement that went into effect before the 2011 season which, at least according to talk radio pundits, has been the culprit for a perceived deterioration in quality of play. For entrepreneurs Jim Pietila and Carlson Bull of Maryland-based Mixed River, however, that created a business opportunity through the use of mixed-reality technology.
The tech executives developed a program, Pre-Game Prep, that deploys holographic opponents that line up in formation and run plays, helping players get rapid mental repetitions in a non-contact environment. Their first football client is the Baltimore Ravens, who have signed on for a year but are being guarded about how exactly they are using the program.
“Why not capitalize on the off-field time?” Pietila said. “Let’s optimize what you have with the the off-field time. Instead of sitting in a conference room with a PowerPoint or just doing film study, why not bring that content to life and create holographic figures out of it? That was the genesis of it.”
Well, most of it.
“Plus, being big Ravens fans,” Bull added with a laugh.
The hometown team was the first to sign on, but Mixed River has been making the rounds to give demonstrations. While visiting one prospective college football team recently, they handed the requisite Microsoft HoloLens glasses to a senior safety and cued up the program. He asked, “Can I move?” When assured that he could and should, he immediately got down into his stance, started back pedaling in coverage, then stopped to make a call, pointing and yelling out the receiver formation, “Trips!”
Afterwards, the player returned the HoloLens and said, “This is going to change the game.”
“There’s immediate understanding of what it is and what it can be used for,” Bull said.
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Pietila, whose corporate background is as a software account executive and company president, serves as the chief executive officer while his co-founder, Bull, is a CEO of a different sort — the chief experience officer — as his background is in animation. Mixed River produces content in augmented, virtual and mixed reality, and its other client is a non-sports global company that uses a virtual reality platform. VR has already made some inroads in the NFL, and the league has even invested in California-based STRIVR, which was founded by former Stanford kicker Derek Belch.
While Pietila and Bull believe VR has its place as a teaching tool, they believe mixed reality is better suited for sports because the athletes aren’t encapsulated in a VR device and instead are more mobile and interactive within the tech-aided environment. While VR relies on a 360-degree camera anchored in one place, mixed reality enables different vantage points. Also, the plays created with the Unity 3D gaming engine come to life in minutes rather than staging and filming plays. (The trade-off, of course, is that plays are run by holograms rather than human beings.)
“The way we’re building it, you can be anywhere on the field, and you can have all 11 guys with the mixed-reality headset,” Bull said, adding: “There’s a level of flexibility there.”
Pietila was a Marine pilot before joining the corporate world and recalls the extensive training he’d do at home because time in the expensive flight simulators was limited. He recalled sitting at home, holding an unconnected joystick or reasonable replica thereof, and go through his mental checklist of gauges while looking at a blank wall.
“Anytime you’re having an engagement that requires a lot of mental preparation ahead of time, that is the thing mixed reality can really help with,” he said. “If you can see the outside world as well as see the holograms in front of you, you get that sense of awareness and space.”
The ability to create scenarios and plays rapidly is a particular selling point to ensure football players get more repetitions ever since the NFL players union negotiated restrictions for player safety: reduced offseason practice time, scrapped padded practice two-a-days and limited the number of full-contact sessions during the regular season, too.
“It’s the rapid reps that the players can get in a non-contact environment,” Pietila said. “It’s the ability to get those mental reps — and physical. As opposed to sitting at a desk, if you’re physically moving off of something you see in front of you, [you gain] a small amount of muscle memory.”