How Sony is powering automation in pro sports

The Street

Rufus Hack, CEO of Sony Sports, joins TheStreet to explain.

Transcript

00:00Do you think Major League Baseball is inching closer to incorporating Hawkeye's technology

00:06and automate balls and an automated balls-and-strike system?

00:12I think there is a direction of travel that we're seeing in all sports.

00:15It's happening in cricket, in tennis, in soccer, in all of the big U.S. sports where people

00:20recognize that at an aggregate view, the technology can make better decisions than individuals

00:31or than humans.

00:33And so ultimately, there is an ambition from all of the world's top sports to make their

00:38sport quicker, fairer, and more balanced.

00:45And so I think the application of these technologies is a direction of travel.

00:50Now we need to be very sensitive to that, that it's done in an incremental way and that

00:55it doesn't upset the speed of the game, the traditions of the game, or how people, fans

01:01in particular, really love the passion of the game.

01:04But for us, what we're seeing is a real movement in that direction.

01:09I mean, we've been doing this through Hawkeye for 20 years.

01:12We started doing line calling in tennis 20 years ago.

01:16We started doing decision review systems in cricket 18 years ago.

01:20This has been a long journey for us where we've incremented to introduce automated officiating

01:26in lots of sports.

01:27And I think we're now seeing this being really taken up by the U.S. sports.

01:32And as I said, we're having the conversations with the NFL about automated line to game

01:36and other applications.

01:38We're having the conversations with the NBA about how they can use it potentially around

01:43the goaltending side of things.

01:44We're having conversations with hockey around automating offsides.

01:48There's conversations, as you say, with the MLB around how they think about automated

01:54balls and strikes.

01:55And for us, this is a direction of travel that sport is moving.

01:59We never want to take away the passion of the game and the things that make the game

02:03so special.

02:04But if technology can play a small part in making the game quicker and fairer, then for

02:09us, that's the real privilege for us to play that role.

02:12So for you, the slower movement toward this is not really about the argument about retaining

02:20human element or the fact that the technology is up to par for you.

02:26It's really about maintaining the integrity of the sport or not getting fans upset?

02:32I think it's a bit of both.

02:34I mean, we're now in a position where we're able to capture in sub one second latency

02:4029 skeletal parts, body parts on the athletes, which is through no wearables, purely through

02:48optical tracking, through having cameras in the stadium.

02:51So that technology has come on a lot.

02:53And we now have 400 people globally in our product development teams who are building

02:58out computer vision, AI and machine learning technology in order to get there.

03:02So the technology is coming quickly.

03:04But obviously, the sport has to be ready for the application of that technology.

03:10We started working with FIFA about eight years ago or so, where we introduced, it was

03:17actually in 2018 World Cup, where we introduced VAR with FIFA.

03:23And that was effectively looking to make the process of offsides clearer.

03:29But that was actually a 90 second latency.

03:32We then in the 22 World Cup introduced alongside them semi-automated offside, which was a circa

03:3930 second latency on the offside decisions.

03:44We are now working with them about introducing automated offside, which is on a one second delay.

03:48So effectively, you can see the increment over the last six to eight years where the speed of

03:54decision making has got quicker.

03:56The accuracy has got quicker and we've been able to automate a lot of that.

03:59And ultimately, I think that's the journey that a lot of the U.S.

04:03sports are now moving on, where they look to automate some of this.

04:06But as we said, you really do need to be sensitive to your phrase coming, to the integrity of the

04:12sport and make sure it matches the product on the field.

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