Olympic babies in Beijing

In February, I mentioned that I would sadly be watching the Olympics from home. This turned out not to be the case, and I returned this past week from what has shaped up to be a fine par-tay in Beijing.

Now to explain the title: the good came in the hospitality aspect of the Olympics. All of China has come together in such a short amount of time to extend a warm welcome to everyone descending upon their rapidly-growing metropolis. You can read about some of their initiatives here:

“Beijing cheer permeates Olympic atmosphere”: http://www.meniscuszine.com/issue24/olympics2008/beijing-cheer-20080815/index.html

The bad? That would be the press tour that I went on organized by Cartan Tours, a legitimate operator that has had ties with the U.S. Olympic Committee. The logistical issues with Cartan’s operation contrasted sharply with my Olympic experience to the point that I would not recommend Cartan’s packages to any individual in the future. Since many other travelers had similar issues and planned to file complaints, I felt that it was important that fans considering Vancouver 2010 and London 2012 be warned well in advance:

“Cartan Tours turns Olympic dream into nightmare for travelers”: http://www.meniscuszine.com/issue24/olympics2008/cartan-tours-20080816/

It’s a long piece, but I hope that it is helpful. Given how long the company has been in business, it’s inexcusable that Cartan would miss the mark across the board when it comes to sports tourism, putting their travelers at risk in the process. If you’ve had a similar experience with these guys, feel free to share.

So in his retirement, the former cyclist now wanted to rack up a string of Webby Awards?

It turns out that has Interwoven sponsored Lance’s team at the Tour de France and other events, and that Armstrong first spoke at one of Interwoven’s conferences in 2000. His official Web site is actually a group of brands: LanceArmstrong.com, ThePaceline.com (Lance’s team), The Lance Armstrong Foundation (his non-profit organization promoting cancer awareness) and Team Discovery Channel (which goes straight to the Web site of his team’s main sponsor).

Sadly, Sportsbiztech was unable to obtain an interview with the seven-time Tour de France champion himself; Katherine McLane, the Foundation’s communications director, did the honors instead. Interestingly, they skipped my question about the Interwoven partnership but provided these answers to the rest:

Sportsbiztech: I noticed that you were recently involved with Omniture at their Summit in March. Can you talk about the extent of your partnership?

McLane: Lance recently spoke at the Omniture Summit, where he shared his story of surviving cancer and the history behind the LIVESTRONG movement. He also invoked upon the audience the notion of active citizenship and encouraged everyone to bridge the gap in society between what we know and where we actually are.

How have your various Web sites — personal/official, Foundation, ThePaceline — changed or influenced the way you do business?

The Internet has fundamentally changed the way we [at the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF)] do business. Most of our communication with constituents is now done entirely via e-mail and the Internet so we are able to reach more people in a wider geographic scope. We have also increased connectivity/interaction with the public through our newsletters, blog and Facebook and MySpace applications. Additionally, the LAF’s Web site has affected our fundraising by making it easier for people to make donations and purchase merchandise.

Are there any particular Web sites that you like to use for research and information-gathering, or as resources to promote your Foundation and other work? (social networking, other Web 2.0 initiatives, etc.)

We primarily promote the LAF through our Web site, livestrong.org, and our blog, livestrongblog.org. As previously stated, we also utilize Facebook and MySpace to reach a wider range of people.

* * *

Although we’re disappointed that we didn’t hear from The Man himself, it’s great to see Lance and his Foundation branch out into a number of social networking initiatives. Here are the links to Lance’s official MySpace and Facebook pages (beware of the many imposters on both!):

MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/lancearmstrongfoundation
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2407181412

Apr. 30 clarification: Edelman Public Relations wanted to clarify that the answers in the Q&A came from the LAF’s communications director, not themselves. This has been corrected above. Also, Edelman wanted to mention that the LAF is not involved with Interwoven, which is why that answer was omitted.

One of the ways that founder Robert DeNiro and Co. have shifted gears is to strike up a partnership with ESPN, which began last year, complete with sports-themed films, panels, contests, and an outdoor sports festival with celebrity appearances, games and promotional tie-ins with local teams. Dubbed the Tribeca/ESPN Sports Film Festival, co-founder Jane Rosenthal said at the time that “the films in this program not only tell the stories of athletes and competition, but highlight how sports can be a positive social force for bridging racial and political divides.”

At first, this convergence seemed to be a bit far-fetched, as there don’t seem to be many film snobs doubling as sports fans and vice versa. But a year later, it has suddenly made total sense. Growing up, I had always considered sports to be the original reality show, with competitive drama making much better theater than what currently passes as “reality” now. Magnify this reality on the big screen and, not surprisingly, film becomes a very appropriate technological medium with documentaries dominating the Tribeca/ESPN venture (nine out of 12 films this year, 11 out of 14 last year).

One of these is “Run for Your Life,” directed by Judd Ehrlich. The documentary focuses on Fred Lebow, the Romanian-born, disarmingly eccentric founder of what has become the New York Marathon. Completely devoid of narration, anecdotes from various friends, athletes, journalists, adversaries and even Fred himself piece together the tale of how the marathon came to be. The metamorphosis of Lebow’s escape from the Nazis to his adventures in the Big Apple is adorned with wonderful nostalgic shots of the city from the 1970’s. Lebow himself was not an athlete – “Fred ran like a duck, except he was slower than a duck,” a friend described – but was able to use his savvy to scrape together a global platform for his hobby, drawing from his experiences as a businessman in Manhattan’s Garment District and, believe it or not, his love for parties and young women.

The most pivotal and memorable part of the storyline is the buildup to the 1976 New York Marathon celebrating the U.S.’s bicentennial, detailing Lebow’s crucial decision-making as well as the involvement of the city to make the event a resounding success. After that, the story sags a bit like the middle of a long race: one too many first-person accounts and a couple of aspects of Lebow’s personal life are not necessary to the film. By the end, however, you’ll be cheering for Lebow as he literally crosses the finish line and appreciating what he did to transform the sport of running.

“Run for Your Life” screens five times at the Tribeca Film Festival (twice on Apr. 27 and once a day between May 1-3). For ticket information, go to www.tribecaespn.com.

But then the numbers for “category traffic” told an interesting tale. “Sports” is one of 172 different categories that Hitwise keeps track of, containing, at last count, 6,628 Web sites alone, according to Matt Tatham, the firm’s director of media relations. The percentage of category traffic from search engines for last month was just 12.93 percent, which was lower than categories like “Health and Medical” and “Shopping and Classified.” The Google numbers for the Sports category weren’t high either (for the full report, go to Hitwise’s Apr. 7 press release). Which begs the question: why?

“Search plays less of a role for the more popular sports like Football, Baseball and Basketball,” Tatham told Sportsbiztech. “We noticed that more of the outlier sports like Boxing, Soccer, Fishing, Track and Field, etc. are on average receiving more traffic from search engines year over year.”

In other words, if you’re a Yankees fan looking for the team’s official site, chances are that you pretty much already know which URL to go to without having to consult Google for help. Be afraid of the big brand. Be very afraid.

Usually Sportsbiztech is the one searching for stories, but a reader contacted us wanting to pitch a story idea. How exciting!

And it happens to be a good one too: Ideasforlife.tv, a video Web site that features scientific solutions for everyday problems across England’s West Midlands, has created a clip hosted by European 5000m record holder Dave Moorcroft touting the benefits of the Healus running shoes. A visual account can trump any text description that I will attempt to provide, so here’s the link to the video:

http://www.ideasforlife.tv/watch/40

The shoes, developed by Dutch marathoner Adri Hartveld with Staffordshire University in the UK, are heel-less in order to deflect the shock resulting from heels pounding the pavement. These seem to differ slightly from the Masai shoes that I wrote about last month. While the Masai shoes also have slightly curved soles, they are also being touted as casual as well as athletic footwear. This makes sense given that some of the runners that tried out the Healus shoes in the video felt like the curvature in the soles forced them to lean forward, ready to nudge them into a run.

To learn more about the shoes, go to the corporate Web site at www.healus.co.uk. One slight problem, though. The site claims that the shoes can be purchased at Bourne Sports in Stoke-on-Trent, but they don’t appear to be sold on the Bourne retail site…

Now I think I know why there has been a total lack of response.  On Tuesday night, before the sun set, I took the subway down to Wall Street solely to take pictures of the museum, which I expected to have, at a minimum, a façade or the shells of some very cool exhibits and displays.  At 26 Broadway, directly across from the famed Wall Street bull, was this:

Oh, so it is still “scheduled” to open this month, even though the Web site says May 7.  I walked towards the back of the building, and let’s just say that past 7 p.m. on a Tuesday night, the construction workers hadn’t called it a day:

So until the end of the month or the next or whenever the museum is actually supposed to open, the most that I can do is to regurgitate some of the features included in Cisco’s press release, such as the “Stadium of the Future” that will provide visitors a “sneak peek at the Cisco technologies that will make the experience of the game more intimate, interactive and immersive for fans.”

As if that weren’t ambiguous enough, the museum promises a social networking component on its Web site at www.sportsmuseum.com, but other than the occasional chat session with a prominent athlete, it remains to be seen how this can compete with the likes of already-established sites like Facebook and MySpace.  The most promising feature is Cisco’s “TelePresence Experience,” which uses high-definition video for visitors to talk directly with celebrities.  This technology will double as a hosting solution for special events held by prominent sports figures.  On the surface, it sounds like fancy-talk for video conferencing equipment, but Cisco seems to amp this up a few notches with its digital component.

All of this is fine and dandy, but until something goes up, I’ll believe it when I see it.  At least there are other options in the area, such as taking the Staten Island Ferry, visiting the Museum of the American Indian, or taking the boat out to Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty…

Computer as scout and statistician: The NBA uses it, and now college hoops will too.  That service is Synergy Sports Technology, which provides detailed information on players’ performances but takes the extra step of linking all the information to digital video.  You can read more about the product at the company’s shockingly bare Web site at http://www.synergysportstech.com/.  Should someone tell the Patriots?

Computer as fantasy sports guru: No, the Logistic Regression Markov Chain is not a strand of Kasparov’s DNA.  It’s a calculation system designed by three engineering professors at Georgia Tech that has correctly picked 30 of the 36 Final Four teams in the past nine years of NCAA Basketball Tournaments.  The Chain processes data in three different ways stemming from basic scoreboard stats, but the difference between the three is how the margin of victory is calculated into the equation.  If you click on the aforementioned link, look who they just so happen to have as Nos. 1 and 2: tonight’s championship opponents, Kansas and Memphis…

Computer as fitness trainer: As if tennis, golf, bowling and other sports games for the Wii aren’t enough, Nintendo launches Wii Fit in the U.S. on May 21.  It looks like a white plastic board, but it’s actually a wireless device that you stand upon while doing yoga, aerobics and other exercises.  The device then detects your movements and senses whether you are off-balance.  The London Telegraph is not convinced about Wii Fit at all, simply because it feels less like a game, and more like an exercise in mental stamina and patience (mainly in how to work with the unit).  Still, it might convince a couch potato like me to give it a whirl.  Here’s a cheeky video about how it works:

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR): You’re probably already, unfortunately, acquainted with this thanks to automated voice messages whenever you call a customer service line. Thankfully there are positive uses to IVR, which provides answers to your voice responses, such as the MySportsPulse site that I mentioned in an entry last week. Assimakopoulos provided a non-sports example: 1.800.GOOG.411. Yes, Google has done it again, providing yet another free tool that will change your world, in this case, providing 411 services for free. The advantage for marketers is that they can link your cell phone number to targeted search results (although in my case, I don’t know how well that would work because I have a Virginia cell phone number in New York).

• An increasingly engaging experience at the stadium: Kangaroo TV (http://www.kangaroo.tv/) seems to be leading the way in this area, providing handheld devices that emit DirecTV signals to fans at events like NASCAR and Formula One races, and soon the NFL. Instant replay, real-time statistics and more are available through a handset that the fan can operate right at the event. So if a favorite driver or runner only crosses your path every lap, a fan can still track his or her progress (just don’t look at the handset too much or you’ll miss all the live action).

• Creative forums for social networking communities: Traditional fan sites are a thing of the past, with previously far-fetched ideas and campaigns now gaining steam online. One of these is NYCforLeBron.com, which collects money to buy LeBron James incentive gifts like Yankees season tickets in the hopes that he’ll join the New York Knicks in 2010 if he opts out of his contract with Cleveland. If he doesn’t join? He doesn’t get the loot, and all the money goes to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Another site is www.yooknew.com, a sports ticket stock market site developed by an MIT graduate that takes wagers on future match-ups with tickets serving as the prizes. The site resembles a large database, so the basic gist is this: Let’s say that that the Yankees will play the Cubs (I know, it won’t happen, but work with me here) in the 2011 World Series. If I put down $1 and I’m right, I can win a ticket to go to the 2011 World Series…for just $1. It’s an innovative take on what is referred to as the “secondary ticket market,” and it certainly beats some of the high prices on StubHub.com and similar sites.

Patton also compared sports to social networking, indicating that the success of combining both worlds was due to the fact that sports already provide a “pre-populated social network without technology,” making it that much easier for advertisers to determine which segments to target. How true this statement is. How many times have people immediately bonded upon learning that the person they just met is or isn’t a Red Sox fan?

Nestled in the corner, away from the bar and on the periphery of the lower floor of a two-floor golf course, was a familiar sight: a computerized golf simulation contraption that I had tried out at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year.  Optronics Ltd., based in Salt Lake City, manufactures Par T Golf (get it?), a “golf simulator” that allows Tiger Woods-wannabes to practice their tee shots indoors by hitting balls against a large cloth screen.  (You didn’t think semi-drunk corporate types would tee it off on the putt-putt golf course, did you?)  A projector displays a faux landscape depicting a real golf course as well as an estimated yardage based on the swing and trajectory of the ball.

But enough of my description.  See for yourself how Par T Golf works…or maybe not because, as a non-golfer trying to hit the faux fairway in the middle of skiing season, even my yardage was better than these folks’:

Now Washington, D.C., has the Nationals – thanks to the Montreal Expos – and its own stadium. Opening Day is Sunday, but attendees at the Sports Events Marketing Experience Conference being held in D.C. were the first ones treated to a tour and a peek of the team’s batting practice at the new US$611 million Nationals Park. Located in a part of the Nation’s Capital that I’d previously never be caught dead in (i.e., anywhere with an address other than NW), the area is quickly being revitalized and is scheduled to look very different in three years’ time. (Go to halfstreet.com and you’ll see what is in store.)

Of course, no modern-day stadium would be complete without technology, although parents buying tickets for their kids had better watch out for the souped-up section for kids bored of trying to figure out how many outs are left in a game. This area includes a playground, a “Build-A-Bear Workshop” store and…a Sony PlayStation pavilion. Yes, Sony inked a deal with the Nationals, and here’s what the pavilion looked like as it was still being put together:

So instead of paying for a ticket to go watch the game, you can pay for a ticket to go play…Gran Turismo 5 on a Sony flatscreen.

However, Sony was not responsible for providing the huge video display in the park. Those honors went to Mitsubishi Electric, whose Diamond Vision LED display is quite a sight:

According to our tour guide, this whopping 1,347-inch diagonal, 4,800 sq. ft. screen is the largest HD video display of any ballpark in the U.S. (the Atlanta Braves’ display is larger but is not in high-definition).

And finally, while this isn’t tech-oriented, I just can’t get over the cheesy, politically-themed names for the concession stands. This is probably the worst offender: