December 4, 2023 • 33 mins
Revisionist History heads to Las Vegas for the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix, courtesy of T-Mobile for Business. Malcolm talks with T-Mobile and Las Vegas Grand Prix executives about how 5G technology is changing professional sports — from how athletes compete, to how fans watch and even find their seats.
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Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin. This episode is a paid partnership with T Mobile
for Business. I've always loved things that go fast, fast runners,
fast cars, you get the picture. So I've been a
fan of Formula one racing since about the same time
(00:35):
I got interested in running track, which is to say,
a very very long time ago. I still have Niki
Lauda's epic showdowns with James Hunt seared in my memory,
not to mention my favorite driver of those years, the
great Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi. So nearly half a century later,
when I heard about Formula One's plans for a ginormous
(00:57):
racetrack laid out in Las Vegas, of all places, I
needed to know more more about how exactly one hosts
a race and one of the busiest entertainment centers in
the world, let alone a race stretching nearly four four
miles in length, accommodating cars that can reach speeds of
two hundred and twenty miles per hour. It's an incredible
(01:17):
technological challenge coordinating event operations and hundreds of thousands of
fans across that massive area, which is already chock full
of people. That's why the Las Vegas Grand Prix partnered
with T Mobile for business because over the last few years,
T Mobile has been helping other sports entities connect teams
and fans with technology, particularly five G technology. They used
(01:42):
five G technology to bring Major League Baseball fans at
the All Star Game an app that showed three D
visuals of the field overlaid with stats like ball distance,
launch angles, and an interactive strike zone. And they're helping
sail GP, a global sailing competition, transmit three hundred thousand
(02:03):
data points per second from ships racing at nearly sixty
miles per hour. So when T Mobile offered me a
chance to record a conversation with members of their leadership
team and the Las Vegas grumd Prix group in Las
Vegas during a race week, how could I say now?
So I headed out to Las Vegas for a conversation
(02:25):
with Calli Field, president of T Mobile Business Group, alf Ewoldson,
president of Technology at T Mobile, and Emily Praser, chief
commercial officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Coming into
the strip that day, my cab drove along the actual racetrack.
I kept telling my driver, speed up, speed up. Hello everyone.
(02:50):
My name is Malcolm Gladwell. I am the host of
the Revision's History podcast, and I am here in Las
Vegas with three very interesting people. Kelly Field, the president
of T Mobile Business, alf Ewoltson, the president of Timobile Technology,
an Emily Praser, who is the chief commercial officer for
the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Which is the reason that
(03:13):
we're all here. It is we are in the Marque
nightclub overlooking the course, and we're here to discuss the
role that technology can play is playing in transforming not
just a fan experience, but also the sport itself. And
this is a topic of special interest to me because
(03:35):
I was and remain a huge F one fan, and
I was just talking to Golf about how as a
kid in the seventies I fell in love with James
Hunt and Niki Lauda and Emerson for Thepaldi and Jody Schechter,
that whole era of F one. But the F one
that we're talking about today bears no resemblance to the
(03:58):
F one of the seventies. And that's what I want
to discuss, is like, what are we changing about this sport,
how we're making it better? What role does technology play
in in transforming this into a very different kind of experience.
But before me I started, I wanted let's start by
(04:18):
talking about the old F one. So the F one
I grew up with. When we look at that, back
at that, what are the things that needed improvement? Why
do we have to bring in technology into a sport
like this? Who wants to go there? Oh? Well, I start.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I grew up with the same experience Malcolm, and watching
it on television was probably at that time the probably
the best experience. It was really.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Hard to follow.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Cars and drivers were on their own, they made their
own decisions, it was all It was all a sports
where it came down to the engines and the power
and the drivers making all this. But today, with technology,
it's transformed dramatically, and I would say what Timbobo is
doing here at the Las Vegas Grand Prix is to
(05:07):
bring that experience. So first of all, a lot more
viewers in a completely different way.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I just want to dwell on this point for a moment.
So the fan experience back then was at a remove.
It was relatively opaque, hard to figure out what's going on,
and so that necessarily limited the size of the audience.
Is that what we were saying, you'd have to be a fan.
I read I read about F one every month, and I.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Think about it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
You know, we used to participate, or fans could enjoy
sports sitting around the radio, and then TV brought the
ability to visually experience and celebrate and participate. And then
if you're not able to be in person at the event,
what five G is bringing to the to F one
(05:59):
and to Major League Baseball or to even cel GP
is accessibility. It democratizes the access for people to feel
like they're a part.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Of the event.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You can put on an Oculus headset and you can
ride the track around which most people don't get the
opportunity to do that, and you can get a sense
for what speed around each corner is like. And technology
allows you to have a very different kind of experience
with the sport we will.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That's another thing I want to dig in more, but
I just want to explain a little bit about the
technology itself before we go any further. First question is
five years ago, could we have done the exact thing
we're doing here Las Vegas? I mean, was the technology
there five years ago? No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The generations of mobile technology has developed further and further,
and for the fifth generation is really about sensors, low
cost visual experience. If you look at the typical smartphone
today has cameras that are just extraordinary good. They have
(07:09):
processing power that is just amazing in terms of rendering
and putting things up for viewage and all that comes
with these generations and why it becomes so affordable is
because the technology is standardized. So we create this ecosystem
of technology that all the phones in the world are
using the same standard, and that brings down the costs
(07:30):
so dramatically, and that's what's really happening. So we get
we're able to put sensors where we could never put
them before they were too costly.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I'd also say, just if I could add the one
hundreds of thousands of sensors that are around, whether it's
for this sporting event or CELGP or for MLB, the
amount of data that's coming from those sensors. The way
that technology has evolved. What five G allows us to
do is take you know, in CELGP with hundreds of
(07:58):
sensors on boats, three hundred thousand data points that were
able to center the cloud and have real time experiences
drivers the fleets that are on the boats. They're able
to get that data and information has there in the
middle of doing sixty nights. We didn't before five g
we weren't able to get that kind of data real time.
(08:20):
To me, that's one of the exciting things because we
now have this speed and the latency where we can
actually participate real time.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Emily, Has there ever been a Grand Prix event that
approaches this Las Vegas One in terms of the kind
of technological sophistication.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
No, I mean back to your original point around the seventies. Obviously,
Formula One in the Eccleston era was a technology broadcast
and media company. At it's heart, they are their own broadcasters.
So we're a very different business to say the NFL
or the NBA, where we do all of our own cameras,
we do all of our own filming, We have our
own if so everything that you see in Vegas this
weekend is actually being filmed locally by the Formula one
(09:02):
team is sent back to our offices in Biggin Hill,
Kent in London and projected out to our one hundred
and seventy broadcast partners global. So we're already quite technologically
advanced with respect to how we operate as a business.
So from that point of view to already a question
around how the sport has evolved. Formula one was bought
by Liberty Media in twenty seventeen and the brief was,
(09:23):
we want to take this up and notch, we want
to take it to the next level. How do we
make sure that we create the ultimate fan experience. So
when I first moved here about two years ago and
started working on some of this stuff, we actually mapped
out who our ideal sponsors and partners would be to
create that fan experience, and at the top of that
list was T Mobile. You know, from a technology standpoint,
how do we get them to help us create this
(09:45):
experience of which we have fan connected events. And I
remember sitting in meetings in London saying, how do we
bring all of this together? How do we create an
application that's actually functional and good enough to get people
around a living and breathing circuit. But with respect to
this weekend, it's all been about, you know, selling the
benchmark for connectivity access. It's the first time that we've
done e ticketing as Formula one, and that is completely
(10:09):
impossible without a partner like T Mobile. So there's been
all of these different elements and then ultimately tapping into
the marketing power of a T mobile as it related
to you know, concerts, fan zones and engaging different audiences.
So for us, you know, it's been incredibly important and
something that we've needed to be able to be successful
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So let's dig into a little bit. Let's talk about
the fan experience. What is what sorts of things are
available to the fan watching this race that transformed the
experience from them. That's one question. But before he answer
that question, tell me what you learned from other sports?
What did you bring to this sport from because I
know you've done you mentioned baseball and sailing.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Well, el start just from a fan experience perspective with
sale GP. First of all, they did a lot of
things about the sport and the race to make it
more accessible so they could bring in more fans, and
they did that through technology. They did that by bringing
the races closer in to the water edge and then
(11:11):
providing through the hundreds of sensors on each each boat,
the fans are able to through the app or or
watching the live broadcast, be able to see how the
individual athletes are deciding to make a turn or all
jump over to the other side of the boat at
fifty knots.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I mean, I am I seeing what's going on? Yes, oh,
I have I have an image of life.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Real time, so you can see when the when the
captain of the boat decides to make a quick shift
and pivot the boat, you can see live from from
his or her camera. You can be in the race
with the athletes, and that's something that you wouldn't on
those types of boats. You would never get to have
(11:55):
that experience without that without technology.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So I'm interested in the when I said the lessons
that you learned from that? So what was what was
the reaction of fans? I mean, did you get the
expected bump that you you thought technology would bring you?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I think sale GP is a great example of bringing
in audiences that they're fascinated with the technology, They're fascinated
with the speed and the live experience of the race.
They start to really like who are these athletes and
learn more about them. I mean, it's a pretty incredible
(12:31):
league that has come from this investment in technology on
the boats. We have customers, business decision makers, CTO CIOs
that will come and look at the way that the
modems and the routers are installed, the sensors on the
boats and find business applications for their own critical infrastructure
(12:53):
or their own needs for super low latency. If you're
CIO of a hospital in healthcare. I mean, there's so
many things that they can extrapolate from what we're learning
in the live broadcasting, moving the data to the cloud,
and how that draws in more and more people. So
for broadcasting or even for ways that technologists might think
about ways that they need to get data sooner and
(13:15):
faster to either their employees or to their technicians, or
to their end users or customers overall. So to be
a spectator at the MLB, and you know, maybe you
get to sit in box, maybe you're sitting in the stands,
but with this technology, you can actually be the batter
seeing the ball coming at you. And that's a truly
(13:36):
unique experience for customers and fans alike.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I'll that'sch onto that because there's another thing you talk
about what we learned. So we see people who wants
to be on an onboard camera view or they want
to be experiencing and taking part of this and the
problem in the past as being capacity, so even during
Formula One races all over the world, it's been a
difficult part for the operators who are operating these networks
(14:02):
to actually be able to make it happen. It looks
really nice when nobody's there, and then you put one
hundred low yeah, buggie, But you put one hundred and
fifty thousand people there and it looks very different. And
just to give the scale of it, like this is
a three point eight mile track going through the center
of Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Cars
(14:23):
are going to go two hundred and twenty miles an hour,
and we have had to put in massive capacity. And
you know, we got about fifty different sites just covering
this track and we have speeds now two hundred and
three hundred megatives per second on average. We're putting in
just this massive capacity that five g gifts compared to
(14:45):
forty four gy couldn't add all to, Like it was
sort of a forty thirty to forty negatives per second thing,
and here we are like ten times more.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
When we first started looking at what we needed to
build this Grand Prix, a connectivity partner was number one
on our list because for us, having looked at this
through the lens of other races, we realized that being
in a living, breathing city like Las Vegas, it was
so imperative to ensure that people can speak to each other.
You know, everybody is coming here, they have fans in
(15:13):
different areas. They want to know where people's seats are.
I mentioned previously that e ticketing was such a big
focus for this event, and so making sure that people
can actually get to their seats and access their seats.
So we came to T Mobile with the solution and said,
we want to create this unbelievable app that means that
no different to ways or Google Maps or what have you,
that people it whilst the track is hot, so cars
(15:35):
are going around the track. You could say, I'm at
the bellagio and I need to get to the T
Mobile zone in this grandstand, and it creates a live
platform of which you know exactly the walking path, and
that's just not been done before, not just in a
normal circuit, but you know informula one generally, and when
you're here and everything is changing the whole time, the
routes change, so you need something live that means you
(15:56):
can literally get from A to B in the shortest
possible route.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
The connectivity challenge for us was really the size of
the event and also that we are in the middle
of a business city. It's all about you can hear
the busy scenes, but it's all about doing multiple things
here at the same time. One of course, fan experience,
t mobiles, customers, everybody who's here experiencing that. But it's
(16:22):
also about navigation, finding seats, being able to purchase items
out of points of sale, all of this on one platform.
And that's why five year technology is good. It will
give you the opportunity to build apps that can connect
all kinds of stuff on this five year platform. That's
the challenge that we took and that's what we have
(16:42):
built here in Las Vegas at this Grand Prix.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know something that was funny that because it's now
real time and broadcasts and you're turning on the conversations
that they're having.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I mean, it's great for fans.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
They love it, but it's live broadcasts, yes, and so
if they're swearing, they get penalized.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And so there's like this constant to the athlete, like.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
You cannot swear in this live, high intense competition.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You know, I.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Just that Fortunately there's the terminology that people know about,
so I think box box has become like a globally
recognized term, which box box means pit stop. But it's
all part of the again, the strategy discussion of They
don't want it to become this whole conversation. So we'll
here a lot of the time when the drivers are
speaking with the team principles, you know, Plan A through
(17:30):
to Plan F. Obviously they get to pick each tire
compound and they make quite big decisions around that and
that's all run through tire blankets and heat technology and
the garages. So when you're building a racetrack the way
we have, and I don't know if any of you
have seen, but we've obviously built this new pit building,
We've put in really great technology, obviously really advanced services
(17:52):
from T Mobile to help us perform that, and that
building will be something that is a multifunctional facility year round.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So we've had to be very very flexible.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
But it all fits back to obviously, how do we
make sure that we're getting you know, even setting this up,
making sure that the right amount of cable to go
up into all the different hospitality suites to make sure
that the broadcast links the whole way through the circuit,
the fan TV, making sure that what's happening at the
T Mobile zone. So I think we've got J Balvin
performing on Saturday night is being shown on the big
(18:20):
screens in the main grandstand and linking that whole thing together.
So again, like I know, we're kind of jumping around,
but there is just so much bringing it all together.
And again it comes back to making sure that the
partnership here is just completely on point to make sure
that we've got things all in the right place.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
So let's just talk about the information that's being transmitted
from the car to the audience. So what am I?
What can I? What are those sensors telling a fan
about an individual auto and beile on the track.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Again, it really depends on the broadcast. But you'll see
that there's time, there's telemetry, there's the distance between each
of the different cars. It can come down to a
tenth of a second at points as to whether something happens.
Is speed data, there's win data.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So the idea though, is that the fan watching either
at home or here in Las Vegas will have their
phone open with the app, and on that app is
available a kind of it's almost like your own personal
color commentator or something, but it's data. It's it's data
commentary essentially on the race it is.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And I will just I mean, I'm a big Formula
one fan, so I've watched, I watched. I use the
app all the time, and what I use it for
is to know where all the drivers are. So for example,
you get this real time seed where you know exactly
where they are if they are overtaking events or something
exciting going on, and all that has to be really
real time because when you are watching this thing, they
pass you very very fast as cards, right, and you
(19:57):
have to be interacting with that.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
And F one F one TV app as well. So
that's the event app which tmobove helped us build. And
then we've integrated the F one TV so that to
your point, people can s in the groundstands. We don't
have to put up as many big screens all around
the circuit. So you go through to the F one
Las Vegas Grand Pri app presented by Tmobile. You push
a button takes you through to F one TV and
then you can watch the live race on your phone. Obviously,
(20:21):
F one is a very strange consumer watching sport to
the extent of which the car goes pass so quickly
that you want to see what's happening on the other
side of the circuit. So having that ability to see
what's going on whilst you're waiting for the car to
come background is really important.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, tell me a little let's talk a little bit
about we're going to get to the athletes. But I
wanted to pause a little bit and ask the two
of you, you to TEA mobilers, why what was motivating
Team Mobile to be involved with it? So you've, guys
have been involved with a bunch of different sports. I'm
(20:55):
guessing in a way that your competitors have not. Am
I right about this? Are you guys a sports leader
in five G?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I think for us, first of all, to be able
to build what we believe is not only the United
States best five G network, actually in the world the
best five G network. It's we are covering about three
hundred and thirty million of the US population ninety eight
percent with five G. A lot of that is covered
what we call the ultracapacity, and now it's get a
(21:24):
bit technical, but the ultracapacity is where you get ten
times fifteen times better, better experience and speeds. We are
looking for possibilities for this technology to transform things and
transforming what enterprises can do, and there is a massive
interest for how can this technology be used. Obviously, sport
(21:45):
is a great way to demonstrate that because here we
get both the sensor technology that we talked about, we
get all the visual experiences that we can create, the
evolution of smartphones being supported by completely new new stuff.
And the more we engage in these kind of events,
the more we also learn ourselves how we need to
(22:06):
set the networks up.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I mean, because I mean, let's let's be let's be honest.
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It's really cool to be able to bring fans in
and to and I said this earlier, but to like
democratize the experience for people who may not have access
or don't have whatever the limitation is, whether it's physical
limitations or whether it's financial limitations, but to be able
to bring people in and create community and excitement and
(22:34):
entertainment around sporting events that people love, where there's heroes
and losers and winners. I mean it's it's fun. From
a technology standpoint, what I find is CTOs CIOs are saying, look,
I've got major cost transformation that I need to go through.
I've got moving all of my data to the cloud.
And what's going to help me in my process of
(22:55):
digital transformation? And five G is the technology that solves
the cost and the data issues that are facing CIOs
and CTOs, whether it's sports or whether it's any other
vertical throughout industry. Being able to designate particular bands of
spectrum for particular experiences. We're the only one in the
(23:16):
US right now today that's able to do that. So
it means that this is an area where we can
come and play and deliver a live, real today experience,
not a theoretical one in the future. So I think
that puts us in a place where with the partners
like like Las Vegas Grand Prix, we're ready now and
we can make this experience come to life.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, it does. You know, that's funny because I was
watching not that long ago. I was watching a golf
match and there was a rain delay, and they had
that thing where they had those little risk monitors on
the golfers and they were trans they were transmitting the
data in real time to the TV audience, and Rory
(24:00):
McIlroy is just practicing his drives the tea, waiting for
the range layer to be over, and they're tracking his
heart rate and it is whatever it normally and then
suddenly it's spikes and you all of a sudden, I
had this insight into the athleteses, Like even Rory mclroy
has this surge of like something adrenaline, excitement, tension when
(24:22):
he's hitting a practice drive off the tee. Like, I
had that insight in this stuff. Really can it's giving
us It's not, it's adding a whole new dimension to
the to the fan experience. It's like a whole all
of a sudden, I have insight into his inner psychology,
inner psychology in that.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Moment, Think about your your runner. Think about if I
have access to your Strava app. I'm assuming Strata.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
My Strava's public.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, so think of what I.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Can know about how you perform on hills or particular
race runs.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I mean, connectivity.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Has allowed us to know and form community and even
compete if we're not professional athletes in a way that
we didn't get to before. What Faijib brings to it,
and what we hope is that in those times where
you want live data and interaction like you just described
watching Rory, that we can make that even more exciting
(25:19):
and accessible for people.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We'll be right back with more from Las Vegas. We're back.
Let's switch gears and talk a little bit about what
this means for the for the drivers and their team specifically,
(25:43):
so not the fan experience, but how does this kind
of five G connectivity change what the teams themselves are doing.
What are the opportunities here?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
It is really about that latency and giving information that
any sports has never really have access to before. It's
just going to push the boundaries on performance and being
able to do things that people have not been able
to do before. We love it because it dems. Give me.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Give me a for example of how a bit of
data might push a boundary of performance. To use the
sailing example, I could collect every bit of data about
the performance of my boat, the win, the speed of
the real time.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
So the coach for the team actually is on the shore,
and then the captain receives instructions from the coach, so
they'll take a number of I mean it's just a
complex amount of data, whether it's win speed, or whether
it's where the other boat is situated, or something that
they know in particular about the team. Hey, this team
really struggles whenever you're at fifty knots and you've got
(26:43):
to do a quick turn. So we're going to give
them the data that they need in order to you know,
not overcare.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I have done a moment. I've done an analysis beforehand
of my competitors based on data collected in right of
my competitors' tendency strengths, weaknesses, and then I'm feeding that
data back into the stream that's coming in real time
and helping.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, and we're just learning how AI.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
We're just learning how AI can help us get better
and better at taking I mean, three hundred thousand data
points is a lot for even if you're the most
dedicated coach and team to go through. But we're just
learning like how to how to use AI to be
able to give you the very best kind of critical
data points for instruction and for coaching. We're doing the
same with with PJ of America, so they're working with
(27:31):
T Mobile to take all of the data about the
mechanisms of a of a golfer and using AI in
the practice facility, in the in the studio to give
them much better understanding about how you perform while you're
actually competing, how you perform in your practices.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Where there's differences, you get.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
To pick another sport that would benefit as much or
or even more from being souped up with five with
T mobile five g what would be your where would
you go next? Like wave a magic wand which one
do you want to?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Well, we we do a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I think the coolest ones is where we actually have
a larger area, a coverage thing going and and and
and Cali mentioned the golf, for example, is a good experience.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
A marathon is a great example of.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Because a large area.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And the TV experience is so subpar. You can only
ever the New York Marathon there are two women were locked.
They were flat out even with eight hundred meters to go,
and they cut away to show the man who was
like two miles in the finish and had two minutes
(28:52):
up on his competitor. And I was every running fan
in the world just said, what are you? But that's
what they have only one Yeah, they have opportunity and
with what you. What we needed was an app which
allowed us to move around and see who we wanted
to see. And that's right. Could anyone could you clear
a situation if you have ten thousand winners in the
(29:12):
field where if they wanted to, every athlete could have
a little have censors so their family could watch them
throughout the entire race on it. Yeah, with five UK
you could do that.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, this massive capacity, what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
What?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
How huge?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Is this is gonna It's going to change. It's going
to change a lot of sports events. And I believe
and Kelly said very well about the democratzation. It's really
going to happen through events that are not only super
super events, but even smaller like local events are going
to change.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah. I watched a friend's kid run across country the
other day with a drone. The school cross country meet
had a drone just fault. It wasn't I mean it
wasn't the school event. I mean it was school event.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
There's a company out of Tel Aviv that has a
sort of plug and play solution for parents to be
a to set up through sixty cameras at their kids
sporting events and then gives them also so the connectivity
and the data to be able to get the capture
the whole event, and then gives them the ability to
(30:23):
kind of build their own broadcast, build their own production
of what that sporting event looks like, and then they
can they can create their own video and then they
can send it to friends and family or to college recruiters.
You know, obviously they can't get to all the games
or if you're from a small town, you've.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Got the superstar kid. And I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Is this an excuse so that parents never have to
go to games again? You could? This could this will
this will improve American productivity by life. Yeah, on that note,
I think we should. That's a great way to end.
But this has been really fun and incredibly illuminating, and
(31:07):
it's just I think it's so exciting to say about
how you know, we're present at the creation here in
Las Vegas. This is the dawn of a completely new
era in the in the fan experience. Thank you all
so much.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
One more thing. Before I left, they surprised me with
a sneak peek of the racetrack on the Oculus VR headset.
It's a three hundred and sixty degree immersive view of
the Las Vegas Grand Prix Street circuit that fans will
be able to see on the app. This footage is
filmed in eight K using five G connected cameras. It's
(31:48):
incredibly realistic to be in the driver's seat as the
car goes around the circuit. All right, put putting this
on hold on, hold on, Okay, it's just starting up.
Oh my goodness, we have to turn, so we're we're
behind the pace card at the moment. Oh my god,
(32:10):
I can look down. I'm looking down at his head.
The drivers. It good.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's so weird, and we backhauled that whole experience.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
It was.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It was produced on a vehicle that was moving on
the track, and then we took it out over the
five D network.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Left unchecked. I'm just going to watch this forever. All right,
I'm going to give up, really shorty, but this is D.
That was my first ever. I've never done that. Oh,
really done that before. First time for everything. This episode
was made in partnership with T Mobile for Business and iHeartMedia.
(32:55):
Special thanks to Kelly Field, President of T Mobile Business Group,
off Evelson, President of Technology at T Mobile, Emily Praser,
Chief Commercial officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and
the entire production crew at iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Ben Adaf Haffrey and Tally Emlin, editing by Sarah Nix,
(33:17):
engineering by Nina Lawrence, and mastering by Jake Gorski. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Kira Posey.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
Pushkin. This episode is a paid partnership with T Mobile
for Business. I've always loved things that go fast, fast runners,
fast cars, you get the picture. So I've been a
fan of Formula one racing since about the same time
(00:35):
I got interested in running track, which is to say,
a very very long time ago. I still have Niki
Lauda's epic showdowns with James Hunt seared in my memory,
not to mention my favorite driver of those years, the
great Brazilian Emerson Fittipaldi. So nearly half a century later,
when I heard about Formula One's plans for a ginormous
(00:57):
racetrack laid out in Las Vegas, of all places, I
needed to know more more about how exactly one hosts
a race and one of the busiest entertainment centers in
the world, let alone a race stretching nearly four four
miles in length, accommodating cars that can reach speeds of
two hundred and twenty miles per hour. It's an incredible
(01:17):
technological challenge coordinating event operations and hundreds of thousands of
fans across that massive area, which is already chock full
of people. That's why the Las Vegas Grand Prix partnered
with T Mobile for business because over the last few years,
T Mobile has been helping other sports entities connect teams
and fans with technology, particularly five G technology. They used
(01:42):
five G technology to bring Major League Baseball fans at
the All Star Game an app that showed three D
visuals of the field overlaid with stats like ball distance,
launch angles, and an interactive strike zone. And they're helping
sail GP, a global sailing competition, transmit three hundred thousand
(02:03):
data points per second from ships racing at nearly sixty
miles per hour. So when T Mobile offered me a
chance to record a conversation with members of their leadership
team and the Las Vegas grumd Prix group in Las
Vegas during a race week, how could I say now?
So I headed out to Las Vegas for a conversation
(02:25):
with Calli Field, president of T Mobile Business Group, alf Ewoldson,
president of Technology at T Mobile, and Emily Praser, chief
commercial officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Coming into
the strip that day, my cab drove along the actual racetrack.
I kept telling my driver, speed up, speed up. Hello everyone.
(02:50):
My name is Malcolm Gladwell. I am the host of
the Revision's History podcast, and I am here in Las
Vegas with three very interesting people. Kelly Field, the president
of T Mobile Business, alf Ewoltson, the president of Timobile Technology,
an Emily Praser, who is the chief commercial officer for
the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Which is the reason that
(03:13):
we're all here. It is we are in the Marque
nightclub overlooking the course, and we're here to discuss the
role that technology can play is playing in transforming not
just a fan experience, but also the sport itself. And
this is a topic of special interest to me because
(03:35):
I was and remain a huge F one fan, and
I was just talking to Golf about how as a
kid in the seventies I fell in love with James
Hunt and Niki Lauda and Emerson for Thepaldi and Jody Schechter,
that whole era of F one. But the F one
that we're talking about today bears no resemblance to the
(03:58):
F one of the seventies. And that's what I want
to discuss, is like, what are we changing about this sport,
how we're making it better? What role does technology play
in in transforming this into a very different kind of experience.
But before me I started, I wanted let's start by
(04:18):
talking about the old F one. So the F one
I grew up with. When we look at that, back
at that, what are the things that needed improvement? Why
do we have to bring in technology into a sport
like this? Who wants to go there? Oh? Well, I start.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
I grew up with the same experience Malcolm, and watching
it on television was probably at that time the probably
the best experience. It was really.
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Hard to follow.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Cars and drivers were on their own, they made their
own decisions, it was all It was all a sports
where it came down to the engines and the power
and the drivers making all this. But today, with technology,
it's transformed dramatically, and I would say what Timbobo is
doing here at the Las Vegas Grand Prix is to
(05:07):
bring that experience. So first of all, a lot more
viewers in a completely different way.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I just want to dwell on this point for a moment.
So the fan experience back then was at a remove.
It was relatively opaque, hard to figure out what's going on,
and so that necessarily limited the size of the audience.
Is that what we were saying, you'd have to be a fan.
I read I read about F one every month, and I.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Think about it a little bit.
Speaker 4 (05:38):
You know, we used to participate, or fans could enjoy
sports sitting around the radio, and then TV brought the
ability to visually experience and celebrate and participate. And then
if you're not able to be in person at the event,
what five G is bringing to the to F one
(05:59):
and to Major League Baseball or to even cel GP
is accessibility. It democratizes the access for people to feel
like they're a part.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Of the event.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
You can put on an Oculus headset and you can
ride the track around which most people don't get the
opportunity to do that, and you can get a sense
for what speed around each corner is like. And technology
allows you to have a very different kind of experience
with the sport we will.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
That's another thing I want to dig in more, but
I just want to explain a little bit about the
technology itself before we go any further. First question is
five years ago, could we have done the exact thing
we're doing here Las Vegas? I mean, was the technology
there five years ago? No, it wasn't.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
The generations of mobile technology has developed further and further,
and for the fifth generation is really about sensors, low
cost visual experience. If you look at the typical smartphone
today has cameras that are just extraordinary good. They have
(07:09):
processing power that is just amazing in terms of rendering
and putting things up for viewage and all that comes
with these generations and why it becomes so affordable is
because the technology is standardized. So we create this ecosystem
of technology that all the phones in the world are
using the same standard, and that brings down the costs
(07:30):
so dramatically, and that's what's really happening. So we get
we're able to put sensors where we could never put
them before they were too costly.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
I'd also say, just if I could add the one
hundreds of thousands of sensors that are around, whether it's
for this sporting event or CELGP or for MLB, the
amount of data that's coming from those sensors. The way
that technology has evolved. What five G allows us to
do is take you know, in CELGP with hundreds of
(07:58):
sensors on boats, three hundred thousand data points that were
able to center the cloud and have real time experiences
drivers the fleets that are on the boats. They're able
to get that data and information has there in the
middle of doing sixty nights. We didn't before five g
we weren't able to get that kind of data real time.
(08:20):
To me, that's one of the exciting things because we
now have this speed and the latency where we can
actually participate real time.
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I think that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (08:28):
Emily, Has there ever been a Grand Prix event that
approaches this Las Vegas One in terms of the kind
of technological sophistication.
Speaker 5 (08:39):
No, I mean back to your original point around the seventies. Obviously,
Formula One in the Eccleston era was a technology broadcast
and media company. At it's heart, they are their own broadcasters.
So we're a very different business to say the NFL
or the NBA, where we do all of our own cameras,
we do all of our own filming, We have our
own if so everything that you see in Vegas this
weekend is actually being filmed locally by the Formula one
(09:02):
team is sent back to our offices in Biggin Hill,
Kent in London and projected out to our one hundred
and seventy broadcast partners global. So we're already quite technologically
advanced with respect to how we operate as a business.
So from that point of view to already a question
around how the sport has evolved. Formula one was bought
by Liberty Media in twenty seventeen and the brief was,
(09:23):
we want to take this up and notch, we want
to take it to the next level. How do we
make sure that we create the ultimate fan experience. So
when I first moved here about two years ago and
started working on some of this stuff, we actually mapped
out who our ideal sponsors and partners would be to
create that fan experience, and at the top of that
list was T Mobile. You know, from a technology standpoint,
how do we get them to help us create this
(09:45):
experience of which we have fan connected events. And I
remember sitting in meetings in London saying, how do we
bring all of this together? How do we create an
application that's actually functional and good enough to get people
around a living and breathing circuit. But with respect to
this weekend, it's all been about, you know, selling the
benchmark for connectivity access. It's the first time that we've
done e ticketing as Formula one, and that is completely
(10:09):
impossible without a partner like T Mobile. So there's been
all of these different elements and then ultimately tapping into
the marketing power of a T mobile as it related
to you know, concerts, fan zones and engaging different audiences.
So for us, you know, it's been incredibly important and
something that we've needed to be able to be successful
in Las Vegas.
Speaker 1 (10:27):
So let's dig into a little bit. Let's talk about
the fan experience. What is what sorts of things are
available to the fan watching this race that transformed the
experience from them. That's one question. But before he answer
that question, tell me what you learned from other sports?
What did you bring to this sport from because I
know you've done you mentioned baseball and sailing.
Speaker 4 (10:51):
Well, el start just from a fan experience perspective with
sale GP. First of all, they did a lot of
things about the sport and the race to make it
more accessible so they could bring in more fans, and
they did that through technology. They did that by bringing
the races closer in to the water edge and then
(11:11):
providing through the hundreds of sensors on each each boat,
the fans are able to through the app or or
watching the live broadcast, be able to see how the
individual athletes are deciding to make a turn or all
jump over to the other side of the boat at
fifty knots.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
I mean, I am I seeing what's going on? Yes, oh,
I have I have an image of life.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Real time, so you can see when the when the
captain of the boat decides to make a quick shift
and pivot the boat, you can see live from from
his or her camera. You can be in the race
with the athletes, and that's something that you wouldn't on
those types of boats. You would never get to have
(11:55):
that experience without that without technology.
Speaker 1 (11:57):
So I'm interested in the when I said the lessons
that you learned from that? So what was what was
the reaction of fans? I mean, did you get the
expected bump that you you thought technology would bring you?
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Well?
Speaker 4 (12:10):
I think sale GP is a great example of bringing
in audiences that they're fascinated with the technology, They're fascinated
with the speed and the live experience of the race.
They start to really like who are these athletes and
learn more about them. I mean, it's a pretty incredible
(12:31):
league that has come from this investment in technology on
the boats. We have customers, business decision makers, CTO CIOs
that will come and look at the way that the
modems and the routers are installed, the sensors on the
boats and find business applications for their own critical infrastructure
(12:53):
or their own needs for super low latency. If you're
CIO of a hospital in healthcare. I mean, there's so
many things that they can extrapolate from what we're learning
in the live broadcasting, moving the data to the cloud,
and how that draws in more and more people. So
for broadcasting or even for ways that technologists might think
about ways that they need to get data sooner and
(13:15):
faster to either their employees or to their technicians, or
to their end users or customers overall. So to be
a spectator at the MLB, and you know, maybe you
get to sit in box, maybe you're sitting in the stands,
but with this technology, you can actually be the batter
seeing the ball coming at you. And that's a truly
(13:36):
unique experience for customers and fans alike.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
I'll that'sch onto that because there's another thing you talk
about what we learned. So we see people who wants
to be on an onboard camera view or they want
to be experiencing and taking part of this and the
problem in the past as being capacity, so even during
Formula One races all over the world, it's been a
difficult part for the operators who are operating these networks
(14:02):
to actually be able to make it happen. It looks
really nice when nobody's there, and then you put one
hundred low yeah, buggie, But you put one hundred and
fifty thousand people there and it looks very different. And
just to give the scale of it, like this is
a three point eight mile track going through the center
of Las Vegas for the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Cars
(14:23):
are going to go two hundred and twenty miles an hour,
and we have had to put in massive capacity. And
you know, we got about fifty different sites just covering
this track and we have speeds now two hundred and
three hundred megatives per second on average. We're putting in
just this massive capacity that five g gifts compared to
(14:45):
forty four gy couldn't add all to, Like it was
sort of a forty thirty to forty negatives per second thing,
and here we are like ten times more.
Speaker 5 (14:53):
When we first started looking at what we needed to
build this Grand Prix, a connectivity partner was number one
on our list because for us, having looked at this
through the lens of other races, we realized that being
in a living, breathing city like Las Vegas, it was
so imperative to ensure that people can speak to each other.
You know, everybody is coming here, they have fans in
(15:13):
different areas. They want to know where people's seats are.
I mentioned previously that e ticketing was such a big
focus for this event, and so making sure that people
can actually get to their seats and access their seats.
So we came to T Mobile with the solution and said,
we want to create this unbelievable app that means that
no different to ways or Google Maps or what have you,
that people it whilst the track is hot, so cars
(15:35):
are going around the track. You could say, I'm at
the bellagio and I need to get to the T
Mobile zone in this grandstand, and it creates a live
platform of which you know exactly the walking path, and
that's just not been done before, not just in a
normal circuit, but you know informula one generally, and when
you're here and everything is changing the whole time, the
routes change, so you need something live that means you
(15:56):
can literally get from A to B in the shortest
possible route.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
The connectivity challenge for us was really the size of
the event and also that we are in the middle
of a business city. It's all about you can hear
the busy scenes, but it's all about doing multiple things
here at the same time. One of course, fan experience,
t mobiles, customers, everybody who's here experiencing that. But it's
(16:22):
also about navigation, finding seats, being able to purchase items
out of points of sale, all of this on one platform.
And that's why five year technology is good. It will
give you the opportunity to build apps that can connect
all kinds of stuff on this five year platform. That's
the challenge that we took and that's what we have
(16:42):
built here in Las Vegas at this Grand Prix.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
You know something that was funny that because it's now
real time and broadcasts and you're turning on the conversations
that they're having.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
I mean, it's great for fans.
Speaker 4 (16:52):
They love it, but it's live broadcasts, yes, and so
if they're swearing, they get penalized.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
And so there's like this constant to the athlete, like.
Speaker 4 (17:04):
You cannot swear in this live, high intense competition.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
You know, I.
Speaker 5 (17:10):
Just that Fortunately there's the terminology that people know about,
so I think box box has become like a globally
recognized term, which box box means pit stop. But it's
all part of the again, the strategy discussion of They
don't want it to become this whole conversation. So we'll
here a lot of the time when the drivers are
speaking with the team principles, you know, Plan A through
(17:30):
to Plan F. Obviously they get to pick each tire
compound and they make quite big decisions around that and
that's all run through tire blankets and heat technology and
the garages. So when you're building a racetrack the way
we have, and I don't know if any of you
have seen, but we've obviously built this new pit building,
We've put in really great technology, obviously really advanced services
(17:52):
from T Mobile to help us perform that, and that
building will be something that is a multifunctional facility year round.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
So we've had to be very very flexible.
Speaker 5 (18:00):
But it all fits back to obviously, how do we
make sure that we're getting you know, even setting this up,
making sure that the right amount of cable to go
up into all the different hospitality suites to make sure
that the broadcast links the whole way through the circuit,
the fan TV, making sure that what's happening at the
T Mobile zone. So I think we've got J Balvin
performing on Saturday night is being shown on the big
(18:20):
screens in the main grandstand and linking that whole thing together.
So again, like I know, we're kind of jumping around,
but there is just so much bringing it all together.
And again it comes back to making sure that the
partnership here is just completely on point to make sure
that we've got things all in the right place.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
So let's just talk about the information that's being transmitted
from the car to the audience. So what am I?
What can I? What are those sensors telling a fan
about an individual auto and beile on the track.
Speaker 5 (18:54):
Again, it really depends on the broadcast. But you'll see
that there's time, there's telemetry, there's the distance between each
of the different cars. It can come down to a
tenth of a second at points as to whether something happens.
Is speed data, there's win data.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
So the idea though, is that the fan watching either
at home or here in Las Vegas will have their
phone open with the app, and on that app is
available a kind of it's almost like your own personal
color commentator or something, but it's data. It's it's data
commentary essentially on the race it is.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
And I will just I mean, I'm a big Formula
one fan, so I've watched, I watched. I use the
app all the time, and what I use it for
is to know where all the drivers are. So for example,
you get this real time seed where you know exactly
where they are if they are overtaking events or something
exciting going on, and all that has to be really
real time because when you are watching this thing, they
pass you very very fast as cards, right, and you
(19:57):
have to be interacting with that.
Speaker 5 (19:59):
And F one F one TV app as well. So
that's the event app which tmobove helped us build. And
then we've integrated the F one TV so that to
your point, people can s in the groundstands. We don't
have to put up as many big screens all around
the circuit. So you go through to the F one
Las Vegas Grand Pri app presented by Tmobile. You push
a button takes you through to F one TV and
then you can watch the live race on your phone. Obviously,
(20:21):
F one is a very strange consumer watching sport to
the extent of which the car goes pass so quickly
that you want to see what's happening on the other
side of the circuit. So having that ability to see
what's going on whilst you're waiting for the car to
come background is really important.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
Yeah, tell me a little let's talk a little bit
about we're going to get to the athletes. But I
wanted to pause a little bit and ask the two
of you, you to TEA mobilers, why what was motivating
Team Mobile to be involved with it? So you've, guys
have been involved with a bunch of different sports. I'm
(20:55):
guessing in a way that your competitors have not. Am
I right about this? Are you guys a sports leader
in five G?
Speaker 2 (21:02):
I think for us, first of all, to be able
to build what we believe is not only the United
States best five G network, actually in the world the
best five G network. It's we are covering about three
hundred and thirty million of the US population ninety eight
percent with five G. A lot of that is covered
what we call the ultracapacity, and now it's get a
(21:24):
bit technical, but the ultracapacity is where you get ten
times fifteen times better, better experience and speeds. We are
looking for possibilities for this technology to transform things and
transforming what enterprises can do, and there is a massive
interest for how can this technology be used. Obviously, sport
(21:45):
is a great way to demonstrate that because here we
get both the sensor technology that we talked about, we
get all the visual experiences that we can create, the
evolution of smartphones being supported by completely new new stuff.
And the more we engage in these kind of events,
the more we also learn ourselves how we need to
(22:06):
set the networks up.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
I mean, because I mean, let's let's be let's be honest.
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (22:13):
It's really cool to be able to bring fans in
and to and I said this earlier, but to like
democratize the experience for people who may not have access
or don't have whatever the limitation is, whether it's physical
limitations or whether it's financial limitations, but to be able
to bring people in and create community and excitement and
(22:34):
entertainment around sporting events that people love, where there's heroes
and losers and winners. I mean it's it's fun. From
a technology standpoint, what I find is CTOs CIOs are saying, look,
I've got major cost transformation that I need to go through.
I've got moving all of my data to the cloud.
And what's going to help me in my process of
(22:55):
digital transformation? And five G is the technology that solves
the cost and the data issues that are facing CIOs
and CTOs, whether it's sports or whether it's any other
vertical throughout industry. Being able to designate particular bands of
spectrum for particular experiences. We're the only one in the
(23:16):
US right now today that's able to do that. So
it means that this is an area where we can
come and play and deliver a live, real today experience,
not a theoretical one in the future. So I think
that puts us in a place where with the partners
like like Las Vegas Grand Prix, we're ready now and
we can make this experience come to life.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, it does. You know, that's funny because I was
watching not that long ago. I was watching a golf
match and there was a rain delay, and they had
that thing where they had those little risk monitors on
the golfers and they were trans they were transmitting the
data in real time to the TV audience, and Rory
(24:00):
McIlroy is just practicing his drives the tea, waiting for
the range layer to be over, and they're tracking his
heart rate and it is whatever it normally and then
suddenly it's spikes and you all of a sudden, I
had this insight into the athleteses, Like even Rory mclroy
has this surge of like something adrenaline, excitement, tension when
(24:22):
he's hitting a practice drive off the tee. Like, I
had that insight in this stuff. Really can it's giving
us It's not, it's adding a whole new dimension to
the to the fan experience. It's like a whole all
of a sudden, I have insight into his inner psychology,
inner psychology in that.
Speaker 4 (24:40):
Moment, Think about your your runner. Think about if I
have access to your Strava app. I'm assuming Strata.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
My Strava's public.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, so think of what I.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Can know about how you perform on hills or particular
race runs.
Speaker 3 (24:56):
I mean, connectivity.
Speaker 4 (24:58):
Has allowed us to know and form community and even
compete if we're not professional athletes in a way that
we didn't get to before. What Faijib brings to it,
and what we hope is that in those times where
you want live data and interaction like you just described
watching Rory, that we can make that even more exciting
(25:19):
and accessible for people.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
We'll be right back with more from Las Vegas. We're back.
Let's switch gears and talk a little bit about what
this means for the for the drivers and their team specifically,
(25:43):
so not the fan experience, but how does this kind
of five G connectivity change what the teams themselves are doing.
What are the opportunities here?
Speaker 2 (25:53):
It is really about that latency and giving information that
any sports has never really have access to before. It's
just going to push the boundaries on performance and being
able to do things that people have not been able
to do before. We love it because it dems. Give me.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
Give me a for example of how a bit of
data might push a boundary of performance. To use the
sailing example, I could collect every bit of data about
the performance of my boat, the win, the speed of
the real time.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
So the coach for the team actually is on the shore,
and then the captain receives instructions from the coach, so
they'll take a number of I mean it's just a
complex amount of data, whether it's win speed, or whether
it's where the other boat is situated, or something that
they know in particular about the team. Hey, this team
really struggles whenever you're at fifty knots and you've got
(26:43):
to do a quick turn. So we're going to give
them the data that they need in order to you know,
not overcare.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I have done a moment. I've done an analysis beforehand
of my competitors based on data collected in right of
my competitors' tendency strengths, weaknesses, and then I'm feeding that
data back into the stream that's coming in real time
and helping.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
Yeah, and we're just learning how AI.
Speaker 4 (27:07):
We're just learning how AI can help us get better
and better at taking I mean, three hundred thousand data
points is a lot for even if you're the most
dedicated coach and team to go through. But we're just
learning like how to how to use AI to be
able to give you the very best kind of critical
data points for instruction and for coaching. We're doing the
same with with PJ of America, so they're working with
(27:31):
T Mobile to take all of the data about the
mechanisms of a of a golfer and using AI in
the practice facility, in the in the studio to give
them much better understanding about how you perform while you're
actually competing, how you perform in your practices.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
Where there's differences, you get.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
To pick another sport that would benefit as much or
or even more from being souped up with five with
T mobile five g what would be your where would
you go next? Like wave a magic wand which one
do you want to?
Speaker 3 (28:09):
Well, we we do a lot.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
I think the coolest ones is where we actually have
a larger area, a coverage thing going and and and
and Cali mentioned the golf, for example, is a good experience.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
A marathon is a great example of.
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Because a large area.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
And the TV experience is so subpar. You can only
ever the New York Marathon there are two women were locked.
They were flat out even with eight hundred meters to go,
and they cut away to show the man who was
like two miles in the finish and had two minutes
(28:52):
up on his competitor. And I was every running fan
in the world just said, what are you? But that's
what they have only one Yeah, they have opportunity and
with what you. What we needed was an app which
allowed us to move around and see who we wanted
to see. And that's right. Could anyone could you clear
a situation if you have ten thousand winners in the
(29:12):
field where if they wanted to, every athlete could have
a little have censors so their family could watch them
throughout the entire race on it. Yeah, with five UK
you could do that.
Speaker 2 (29:21):
Yeah, this massive capacity, what are you doing?
Speaker 3 (29:24):
What?
Speaker 1 (29:27):
How huge?
Speaker 2 (29:28):
Is this is gonna It's going to change. It's going
to change a lot of sports events. And I believe
and Kelly said very well about the democratzation. It's really
going to happen through events that are not only super
super events, but even smaller like local events are going
to change.
Speaker 1 (29:46):
Yeah. I watched a friend's kid run across country the
other day with a drone. The school cross country meet
had a drone just fault. It wasn't I mean it
wasn't the school event. I mean it was school event.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
There's a company out of Tel Aviv that has a
sort of plug and play solution for parents to be
a to set up through sixty cameras at their kids
sporting events and then gives them also so the connectivity
and the data to be able to get the capture
the whole event, and then gives them the ability to
(30:23):
kind of build their own broadcast, build their own production
of what that sporting event looks like, and then they
can they can create their own video and then they
can send it to friends and family or to college recruiters.
You know, obviously they can't get to all the games
or if you're from a small town, you've.
Speaker 3 (30:39):
Got the superstar kid. And I thought that was pretty cool.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
Is this an excuse so that parents never have to
go to games again? You could? This could this will
this will improve American productivity by life. Yeah, on that note,
I think we should. That's a great way to end.
But this has been really fun and incredibly illuminating, and
(31:07):
it's just I think it's so exciting to say about
how you know, we're present at the creation here in
Las Vegas. This is the dawn of a completely new
era in the in the fan experience. Thank you all
so much.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
One more thing. Before I left, they surprised me with
a sneak peek of the racetrack on the Oculus VR headset.
It's a three hundred and sixty degree immersive view of
the Las Vegas Grand Prix Street circuit that fans will
be able to see on the app. This footage is
filmed in eight K using five G connected cameras. It's
(31:48):
incredibly realistic to be in the driver's seat as the
car goes around the circuit. All right, put putting this
on hold on, hold on, Okay, it's just starting up.
Oh my goodness, we have to turn, so we're we're
behind the pace card at the moment. Oh my god,
(32:10):
I can look down. I'm looking down at his head.
The drivers. It good.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
It's so weird, and we backhauled that whole experience.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
It was.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It was produced on a vehicle that was moving on
the track, and then we took it out over the
five D network.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
Left unchecked. I'm just going to watch this forever. All right,
I'm going to give up, really shorty, but this is D.
That was my first ever. I've never done that. Oh,
really done that before. First time for everything. This episode
was made in partnership with T Mobile for Business and iHeartMedia.
(32:55):
Special thanks to Kelly Field, President of T Mobile Business Group,
off Evelson, President of Technology at T Mobile, Emily Praser,
Chief Commercial officer of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, and
the entire production crew at iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
by Ben Adaf Haffrey and Tally Emlin, editing by Sarah Nix,
(33:17):
engineering by Nina Lawrence, and mastering by Jake Gorski. Our
executive producer is Jacob Smith. Special thanks to Kira Posey.
I'm Malcolm Gladwell.
Host
Malcolm Gladwell
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