STADIUM


Michigan State vs Penn State: Streethub Still The Way To Score Tickets

Posted by admin in INTERNET, STADIUM on 11-23-09    No Comments


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As much as we love to talk up the virtues of online ticket exchanges, it is still worth noting that the good old fashioned scalper in front of the gate will not be going away anytime soon.. We spent the afternoon here getting into the game day mood for the Michigan State Penn State game and all our attempts to score tickets online led to naught. Iphone Apps we could not make work. Online exchanges could not get us tickets in the lot where we were tailgating. And with 13 minutes to game time, we went old school, hustled up an undergraduate and pro scalper into a price war . And wound up with field level, 20 yard line for $30 each. No fee. No tricky forms. No hassle. We have got to say, the human element is a beautiful thing.




Ticket Exchange Makes Hot Market Online

Posted by admin in STADIUM on 10-23-09    No Comments


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If TicketMaster and the NFL’s new Ticket Exchange is anywhere near half correct, the Web is making a heck of market in  NFL games. We have been spending some time tinkering with the leagues new ticket service. The NFL got tired of competitors like StubHub and others taking the aftermarket ticket business from them. So the major players came together to create a service. And it seems to be making a relatively liquid market: For sure, using Ticket Exchange is not cheap. TicketMaster is not shy about banging you for fees, taxes and all that nonsense. But there is something fascinating about looking at what is for sale and for what games. As of post time 2500! tickets are available for Cardinals/Giants this weekend at home at Giants Stadium. With good seats in the $85 range. Dolphins/Patriots have 62 tickets available up in Foxborough starting at about $120. And Vikings Steelers have 200 some tickets available. No game seems totally sold out. And many smaller market teams like the Raiders/Jet game out in Oakland appear to have only a few hundred tickets available. Do ticket sellers just give up trying to sell those tickets? Or is demand still high even for less than first rate games?




When is a black out not so black? When the NFL does it.

Posted by admin in STADIUM, TELEVISION on 10-07-09    No Comments


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You really got to hand it to the NFL when it faces a tricky problem. League management is not afraid of throwing in some Reggie Bush corner cutting to move the ball a couple of yards: Faced with declining attendance, many struggling franchises — including Jacksonville, the Chargers, and the Lions — have been forced to black out games in their local broadcast markets creating a major PR issue, especially in places like Detroit that have been hammered by the economy. And last week there was much hoopla about Jacksonville lifting its blackout for a game that sold out. But if you look carefully at the event, you will see that owners covered seats, not sold them to get under the blackout limits. So the Jaguars “sell out” happened even though many seats remained empty.

And there is hanky panky going on the better markets as well. Luxury and box seats for example are simply being ignored by the NFL as far as blackouts go. So major new stadiums like the ones for the Cowboys and the Giants — where seats are reaching $700 each — there will be lots of open seating come game time.

Why we tech types care is, of course, online streaming. As of now the NFL only allows games to be streamed at midnight on Sunday. But with attendance falling, and other leagues beginning to ramp up their their online packages (MLB in fact cut MLB.com package pricing at the end of the season to lure some business.) It is fair to wonder if the NFL is backing from their no blackout, no simultaneous streaming policy, particularly in troubled markets. Think about it: Opening the games up to a pay online tier is the fastest way around the blackout/sell out issue. Free TV stays off air. But Web users can see even lightly attended games for a low price.

Streaming is going to be happening sooner rather than later.




Brazil Olympics: Just Call It The Anti-Beijing

Posted by admin in GENERAL, STADIUM on 10-02-09    No Comments


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Clearly the IOC’s has had enough of uptight cities strutting their stuff at the Olympics. The choice for Rio de Janeiro as site for the 2016 Summer Olympics was all about the partying and some sort of ball or another. But probably not so much about the tech.

At least at first blush Rio ain’t gonna be getting the sports geek on. As far as sports facilities goes, you can forget the Bird’s Nest or swimming cube or whatever. Rio is pretty much plain vanilla for venues. There is the old Maracana Stadium, that is the largest in South America with 89,000 capacity which is being renovated to hold 120,000. The new Estdadio Olympica Joao Havelange that seats about 44,000, which looks like something the Brewers might play in honestly. And the HSBC Arena which houses basketball games — and Rod Stewart concerts. And that is about it, apart from the tremendous sailing venue, which will be a welcome change. And oh yea the beach volleyball, which by our humble estimation will be the sport to watch.

But seriously, at least from here, 6 years out, the story is exactly one word: Soccer. With essentially five major local professional teams feeding players into the Brazilian Olympic squad. And a country of football maniacs who expect nothing less than a gold medal. Expect a riot and a contraction in GDP — nobody will go to work for a month — if they don’t take down the gold. Now that we think about it, this sound great: Loud, disorganized, and crazy unruly, and tons of fun. We are booking out tickets now.




Takin’ a Virtual Look Around the new Giants Stadium

Posted by Dan in STADIUM on 09-21-09    No Comments


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giants stadium

Nothing like the Giants victory in Dallas to get the old building envy thing going. New York Giants LLC, (not to be confused with the New York Football Giants, who are not to be confused with the baseball New York Giants) have begun to amp up the hype machine on their new building. Its looming like the mother shop from Sector 9 out over the Meadowlands here in NYC. The organization has put up a fancy  Website to highlight all the new features of Giants Stadium. Definitely check out the site because with PSL getting up to $20,000 (!) and a season worth of tickets running up to $ 5,600, we wont be stopping down anytime soon. Anyway, technologically  speaking there seems to be a lot to like, including the 16,720 foot scoreboard area, up about 8 times from the current board and 2,500 HD monitors that will be run all over the joint. A massive great wall images will greet fans as they enter. Best of all there is a rail line connection to NJTransit.



The Hawk-Eye Couldn’t of Helped Serena

Posted by Dan in EQUIPMENT, STADIUM on 09-17-09    No Comments


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Hawk Eye at work.By now you have probably heard all about Serena Williams meltdown at the US Open on a foot fault at the US Open.  We we wondering about why the vaunted Hawk-Eye system that watches the balls on the lines wasn’t called in to see if her foot was over the line?  I looked into it to see exactly how the Hawk-Eye system actually worked and it tuns out that Hawk-Eye is looking for foot faults but it watching everything else. 

The Hawk-Eye Officiating System made its debut fortnight at the 2007 Wimbledon Championships. It uses 6 or more high speed cameras.  First it works in 2D on the XY access, vision processing is used to identify the center of the ball within each frame of each camera. Camera movement is compensated for by also tracking the lines of the court. Second, it adds a third axis for 3D, the system triangulates the information from each calibrated camera to provide the 3D position of the ball. Third, they add trajectory as another axis. This process is repeated for each frame so that the 3D positions of the ball can be combined to produce a single trajectory of the flight of the ball.




Looks Like Cowboys Stadium is One Big PC

Posted by Dan in STADIUM on 09-09-09    No Comments


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windows problems at Cowboys stadium

As if things couldn’t get worse at the new Billion dollar Cowboys stadium, it looks like they are having some computer problems as well.




Everything Is Bigger in Texas

Posted by Dan in STADIUM on 08-20-09    No Comments


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Jerry shows off his new toy.

Jerry shows off his new toy.

Jerry Jones and the Cowboys are going to host a pre-season football game in the new Cowboys Stadium tomorrow night.  The new $1.2 Billion Cowboys stadium.  This thing is chock full of tech.  It has the usual bells and whistles, retractable roof, bars, wi-fi, blah, blah, blah.  What I’m most excited about  are the 2 high definition video boards that run all the way from one twenty yard line to the other.  These things are 25 yards tall and the equivalent to about “2000 52-inch TVs”.




Red Bulls Getting High Tech Pen

Posted by Dan in STADIUM on 08-18-09    No Comments


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The MLS’s worst team is about to get the league’s best stadium. After a miracle run to the championship game last year Red Bull New York, the NYC Metro area’s MLS soccer team has spent this year at the bottom of the table, winning only 4 games in league and CONCACAF Champions League play. Right now they are playing in Giants Stadium and usually have trouble getting more than 15,000 fans to come out. This leaves about 70,000 empty seats. The new stadium will seat 25,189 and will hve a translucent roof that protects the stands. Kinda like the hole in Texas stadium but larger. At this point I guess I have to confess that I am a season ticket holder, but at least next year we will be comfortable watching this crap-tastic team. Check out the new stadium website, where you can get more details.