Stadiums of the Future

What do the stadiums of the future look like? Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-hosts Gary O’Reilly and Chuck Nice, and Benjamin Brillat of IBM Sports investigate modern stadium design and tech including the new SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Welcome to StarTalk. Your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now. This is StarTalk, Sports Edition. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, coming to you from my office at the Hayden Planetarium, right here in New York City, at the American Museum of Natural History. Today's topic: Modern Stadium Design and the Tech That informs It. So, who do I have here? I've got Ben Brillette. Did I pronounce that right? You did, thank you. Ben, welcome. Thanks very much.

• 0:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You work for IBM? I do. You design stadiums? Wait, you've got a title here. Global Chief Architect for Sports and Entertainment Services. That's a lot of syllables to say you design stadiums. Well, I design technology for stadiums. Oh, gee. Yes. I don't want to cause any fights, so. Yeah, yeah, okay. All right. So, we'll get back to you in a minute. Gary? Yes. Always good. Good to be here. Gary O'Reilly. Chuck?

• 1:13Chuck Nice?

  Hey.

• 1:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're my people. Yes. My sports people. My sports people. So, recently, I visited the SoFi Stadium, just outside of Los Angeles. Absolutely. They're in the middle of building it. Yep. And I'm looking at the numbers, it's $5 billion. Mm-hmm.

• 1:26Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 1:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Since when do stadiums cost that much? Hmm, recently. Recently? Since 20 minutes ago? Just saying. 70,000 seats, opening summer 2020, and it didn't look like they're gonna be...

• 1:42Chuck Nice?

  You're saying they're not making it?

• 1:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm saying, I was there, I flew over it, it didn't look like... But anyhow.

• 1:49Chuck Nice?

  I'll tell you this much, they better be ready by August of 2020, because they already said goodbye to the old stadium last year.

• 1:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Otherwise, they're playing...

• 1:57Chuck Nice?

  For the football teams.

• 1:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're playing pickup game in the parking lot.

• 2:00Chuck Nice?

  Oh, that'd be hilarious.

• 2:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wouldn't it?

• 2:02Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my God, just like, you could tailgate and watch the game at the same time.

• 2:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And be in it. And be in it. Hey, you missed it, take it back.

• 2:10Chuck Nice?

  Little help? Yeah, that's great.

• 2:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, that stadium houses the L.A. Rams and the Chargers.

• 2:16Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 2:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, Ben, so we'll get back to that, I got footage of me visiting it. But Ben, how long has IBM had such a thing?

• 2:27Speaker 02

  IBM engagement started really with the Atlanta Olympics in the 90s.

• 2:31Chuck Nice?

  Oh wow, you guys been in the space for, in that space for a while.

• 2:35Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, wait, so you were the chief technology architect for the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta?

• 2:40Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 2:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But that was way after the Olympics.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. So totally different design.

• 2:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They didn't have the benefit of your brilliance?

• 2:46Speaker 02

  No, although some of the fiber infrastructure actually ended up being reused.

• 2:50Chuck Nice?

  Oh really? You mean recycled and reused?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Nope, nope. It was still there, still good.

• 2:55Chuck Nice?

  And you just absolutely, okay, well, way to save them some money.

• 2:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so how are you combining this sports and tech at IBM? Because in these stadiums where big muscle football players play, it don't look like you have ever played football in your life.

• 3:09Speaker 02

  No, I have not.

• 3:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So how, how do you land in that pot?

• 3:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, so IBM is approaching technology and stadiums really from two sides. The first is sort of the digital, where we're doing AI programs, and how can we help coaches make better decisions about players? How can we analyze? Yep, how can we analyze data, be able to take a coach and put them virtually after the game in a VR room, standing next to their player and say, can I understand better why he missed that, or why he made that? Can I watch this from a 3D perspective, things like that?

• 3:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why not put him in during the game? Wouldn't that be cool? You have a holographic coach on the field.

• 3:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 3:49Gary O'Reilly?

  I think that tech is almost around now. You can virtually, with only a few seconds delay, you can put someone back into the space and analyze that play almost real time.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  And that's where I come in, actually, is that the limitation now is the technology and the data bandwidth available on the field. How can we get enough antennas, enough kinds of radios to be able to move that information from the field to the stadium?

• 4:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In real time.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  In real time.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To make real time decisions.

• 4:14Speaker 02

  Exactly. And so I'm involved in all of the physical infrastructure, the antennas, the cellphone radios, the wifi access points, the security cameras, all of the physical tech that makes the digital tech possible.

• 4:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I just got, I just got to tell you, I'm really feeling good listening to you. Because I, I led a geeky life, but it was early enough in the geek timetable that we all, not I, because I was bigger than others, but most of my geek friends all got beat up by, by the football players.

• 4:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay? Until!

• 4:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The football players needed the geeks to help them with their computer homework.

• 4:53Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Right.

• 4:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So the balance of power changed. And so now you are enabling professional sports.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 5:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And now you are like a patron saint of what enables them to do what they do. You have, now you have sports people as your protectors.

• 5:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we want that data. We want them healthy. We want to know where they were. We want to know that predictive insights in the injuries.

• 5:17Chuck Nice?

  That means he's never gotten a wedgie.

• 5:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, well, that's, but.

• 5:20Chuck Nice?

  Well, that, that may be true.

• 5:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bring a football player.

• 5:22Chuck Nice?

  However, this isn't the show to explore that. Is the one thought that's still in my mind.

• 5:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All me, all my people got wedgies. Right. Coming out.

• 5:33Chuck Nice?

  I think what Neil is saying is before you leave here.

• 5:36Speaker 02

  I, I mean.

• 5:36Chuck Nice?

  Uh, yeah, just watch yourself.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  I got a linebacker on speed dial.

• 5:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There you go.

• 5:41Chuck Nice?

  But that is a cool thing, because you can just be like, yo, bro, one line of code, and I can make it so that you.

• 5:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  One line of code. Oh, that's, that'd be a great name of a company, One Line of Code. One Line of Code. Oh, man. That's all the difference. So, at what point are you, are you brought in? So I'm rich and I want to build a stadium. At what point do I call you?

• 6:01Speaker 02

  The earlier the better.

• 6:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Oh.

• 6:03Speaker 02

  So we started in Atlanta when it was still a hole in the ground, uh, literally, still there, because the technology, particularly as we start to talk about, of course, Atlanta's a 4G stadium, but as we look at 5G, more.

• 6:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Damn.

• 6:18Speaker 02

  More and more antennas means more and more wires to the antennas.

• 6:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 6:22Speaker 02

  And so we actually have to bury conduit in the concrete before it even gets poured. So you have to have a design for that ready to go right from day zero.

• 6:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Enough conduit to future-proof it. So we got, we got some footage of me at the SoFi Stadium. Right. Outside of, outside of Los Angeles. The LA, the, the Chargers and the Rams. Correct. Both will play there. That's right. And obviously, unless they play each other. Right. Unless they play each other. There you go. Then they do play on the same day, in the same stadium. That'd be kind of cool. I'll go to that game. You'll go to that game? Alright. So, um, so I, I visited, and one thing I couldn't help notice is just the enormous roof. A lot of thought went into that roof. So let's, let's check out this high-tech roof.

• 7:08Speaker 04

  What is that transparent roof made of? It's called an ETFE system. How transparent is it? About sixty percent, from what I understand. Oh, so what you're saying is it'll block out about sixty percent of sunlight that could come in? That's what I understand. Either reflect it or do something else with it? That's correct. Okay. So those are sixty foot by sixty foot grid areas. I see him. And then what we do is we build that frame on the ground outside the building. And as we load this diaphragm in place, we go ahead and put those in and we pull the ETFE system over. How long does it stay transparent? It'll stay transparent from the time we finish the project on. Not as long as birds poop on it. You got a way to clean that off? There is a way to clean it. How do you do that? And they'll go up there. I don't see any way anybody's going up there to clean bird poop.

• 7:53Speaker 04

  There is access up there and there is a gutter system up there to go ahead and allow for washing down and also for rain. She can hose it off. That's one thing we can do as far as the bird's hose, also use a falcon ear. So you can actually have falcons that come around here to keep birds away. Does that help? I'm trying to be as smart as this man. That's very National Geographic, right?

• 8:14Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, you're glad you turned up for this show? All right, so there's a little insight, I want to say window, but I've done it now, on to what's going on in this twenty-first century stadium. What else could we build into a roof like that? Because that's a massive expanse.

• 8:33Chuck Nice?

  And by roof, he means bird toilet.

• 8:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, so I mean, is it so, are we going to have solar panels? Because California, I think every new construction has to have solar panels.

• 8:43Chuck Nice?

  Thank God.

• 8:45Gary O'Reilly?

  Can we use it like a TV screen? Can we project things out? What could we do to play with this and make it just more than just a roof?

• 8:52Speaker 02

  I mean, you'd love to, right? The technology for solar panels, I mean, the problem is the weight today, right? Can you make it light enough to be able to cover the surface and still have it span that enormous distance which it now spans? We've moved from stadiums where you used to have, you know, limited sight view seats to stadiums where there's no such thing in the entire place because these roof materials have gotten so light that now everyone can see from everywhere. So the more technology you want to put up there, of course, the heavier it is. We actually had problems.

• 9:21Speaker 04

  But just to be clear, heavier roofs require more structures to hold it up that would block your view.

• 9:27Speaker 02

  Potentially.

• 9:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A light roof, you don't have to hold up the roof.

• 9:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, you can stand further away.

• 9:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Stand further away, so that's what you meant.

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Fulcrum.

• 9:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you, okay, I was just trying to follow that. Okay, go on.

• 9:35Gary O'Reilly?

  It becomes a span.

• 9:36Speaker 02

  Exactly. So how much distance are you trying to span? How light do you need that material to be in order to make the span? So that you don't have a blocked view.

• 9:43Gary O'Reilly?

  How does a roof like that affect what you would be able to do in the stadium?

• 9:48Speaker 02

  You know, it's interesting, the, in Atlanta, and presumably they'll have the same problem in Los Angeles as well, the fact that these materials are now plastics. You know, if we look at an older building, like if we're in the lower levels here, concrete, rebar, iron, the RF energy of the city.

• 10:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Radio frequency.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yes, the radio.

• 10:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  To be clear.

• 10:09Speaker 02

  Uh, doesn't make it into your basement here, right? Whereas when you build out of these new materials, these hyper-thin plastics, transparent materials, one of the challenges we're actually having is that all of the RF energy of the city is penetrating into the building now, so.

• 10:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you don't want that.

• 10:27Speaker 02

  You don't want that.

• 10:28Chuck Nice?

  Does that create interference?

• 10:29Speaker 02

  Absolutely, yeah. How can you deliver cell service to 80,000 people sitting in the space which need low signal strength because they're not that far from the antenna?

• 10:38Chuck Nice?

  But wouldn't you want to not provide them cell service? Wouldn't you want to block their cell service and provide them your own particular frequency? Because then you can determine what they're going to watch, see, hear, and how they're going to interact with the stadium and other people? Because you're the puppeteer electronically at that point.

• 11:01Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely, that's.

• 11:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who do you work for? Are you an IBM operative on the?

• 11:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Captain Verizon.

• 11:09Speaker 02

  Well, it sounds like you work for a DAS company, a distributed antenna system, which is the local cellular system in a stadium. And the problem with that is we want to run our DAS in a stadium and not have it leak out into the city and not have the city leak in. So these new materials are really creating challenges in how we can do that successfully.

• 11:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can't you put wires in it and turn it into a Faraday cage?

• 11:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, you, you could, but again.

• 11:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You know about Faraday cage?

• 11:34Chuck Nice?

  Please, we would like to know about a Faraday cage.

• 11:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It has nothing to do with prisons or anything.

• 11:39Chuck Nice?

  Oh, thank gosh.

• 11:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Faraday is credited with this, so if you have something that conducts electricity, like wire or any kind of metal. And you surround yourself in it.

• 11:49Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 11:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Then electromagnetic energy cannot penetrate that surface. Because it tries to get through and it gets conducted into the surface and it never goes inside. And if, so for example, you can walk out in a lightning storm and if you're surrounded by one of these cages, lightning will hit, it will never go inside your bubble.

• 12:07Chuck Nice?

  And the aliens can't read your thoughts.

• 12:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That too. Hence the aluminum foil hat.

• 12:13Chuck Nice?

  Exactly. It's just nothing more than an aluminum foil hat. That's really what it is.

• 12:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's exactly what it is. Okay, sorry, go on.

• 12:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 12:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pick it up.

• 12:21Speaker 02

  So with these new materials, the, it's just become very difficult to create the separation that we need to deliver that kind of service. So that's meaning new antenna designs, new antenna placements, more antennas. In fact, in Atlanta, we have a first of a kind deployment of the cellular phone antennas are actually under the seats in the upper levels of the stadium.

• 12:43Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Because what we want is very low signal power. To only go a few meters to the nearby seats.

• 12:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it sterilizes your gonads.

• 12:53Chuck Nice?

  I don't feel warm right now.

• 12:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What am I doing? Oh, that's so that you get strong signal.

• 12:59Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 12:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't you want that? Ticket sales have just gone down at Atlanta. We did a lot of testing.

• 13:05Speaker 02

  All right. Yeah, a lot of engineering went into making that.

• 13:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, another interesting fact that we don't think about much here on the East Coast, but on the West Coast, it is in every design point. What do you do about earthquakes?

• 13:17Chuck Nice?

  Ooh.

• 13:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can you earthquake proof a stadium?

• 13:20Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 13:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So at the SoFi tour that I took, I had to ask him about it. Let's check it out.

• 13:26Speaker 04

  This bowl structure is a separate element to the roof structure.

• 13:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 13:30Speaker 04

  And it's separated by what's called an MSC wall, Mechanical Stabilized Earth Wall. So it's panels that go in. So if you were to walk through the rest of the stadium, you'd go to a back area that has about 12 foot of gap in between so that this stadium can change.

• 13:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It can move independently.

• 13:46Speaker 04

  It can move independently. And then the blade columns support the roof structure that actually go to butterfly caps and struts and to dead men. And that acts independently with ice. ...at the top that can move up to eighty-one inches.

• 13:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, you can sustain an earthquake, it sounds like?

• 14:03Speaker 04

  Yes, we can.

• 14:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's code for, this, the stadium can shake and bake.

• 14:09Speaker 04

  It can shake and bake.

• 14:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's got a little bit of, a little bit of movement to it.

• 14:12Speaker 04

  It does?

• 14:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you got it.

• 14:14Speaker 04

  And you wouldn't even know, because as you walk in, we have a moat lid. So there is a moat that goes all the way around that most people don't know.

• 14:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A moat?

• 14:22Speaker 04

  A moat.

• 14:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  M-O-A-T.

• 14:23Speaker 04

  M-O-A-T.

• 14:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With crocodiles.

• 14:24Speaker 04

  Exactly. It could be. It could.

• 14:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because, I mean, the history of learning about earthquakes and other sort of issues is, you don't want movement over here to have to be felt in the rest of the structure.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  No.

• 14:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right? Because that could take down the whole structure.

• 14:39Speaker 04

  Correct.

• 14:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So everything can have some independence.

• 14:42Speaker 04

  Right.

• 14:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then it just lives as almost an organic element.

• 14:46Speaker 05

  And you have these, almost like these cut lines.

• 14:49Speaker 04

  Yes, expansions.

• 14:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah. The usual. There'll be thermal expansions and things.

• 14:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Ben, you, working in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta just a few years ago, did they have to put in any sort of disaster-proofing? If not earthquakes, some other kind of protection?

• 15:04Speaker 02

  I mean, it has to be built for the environment it's in, right? So Atlanta is a very wet, very windy place. You know, the movable roof is there because Atlanta has quite a lot of days when it's rainy. So the tech-

• 15:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't play football in the rain anymore. In my day, you couldn't even see the gridiron. That's how much snow would be on the field and they'd still play.

• 15:25Gary O'Reilly?

  Right. How many fans were there?

• 15:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know. But in my day-

• 15:28Gary O'Reilly?

  It's about the fans. The fans don't want to sit there.

• 15:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In my day, we played football with a baseball bat. That's right. That's how tough it was.

• 15:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sorry. Continue.

• 15:38Gary O'Reilly?

  I know you're not apologizing to me.

• 15:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's right.

• 15:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, all of the facilities are instrumented throughout. So within the roof, within the columns that support it, the structural steel, the structural concrete, there's instrumentation throughout all of it, which today is more wires that we have to bring to be able to measure the, the stresses that are on a given piece of steel.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  When you say instrumentation, you mean diagnostic tools?

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 16:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you always know the structural health of your facility?

• 16:08Speaker 02

  Yeah. So in Atlanta, there are pedals that open and close to move the roof. And you want to know the health of the pedal system. So, all of that is instrumented so that you know that it's in balance and all of the motors are operating correctly.

• 16:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So you're not, so you wouldn't be taken by surprise?

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 16:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If anything was about to fail?

• 16:25Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 16:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Thinking about what you said about footballers can't play in this rain, da-da-da-da-da. So when you or someone like you is involved in design in a stadium, who are you looking to please? The owners? The coaches? The players? The fans?

• 16:42Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 16:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Yourself?

• 16:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why would that be mutually exclusive?

• 16:47Gary O'Reilly?

  No, I'm just wondering. Is there, you know, the owner says, "I want it done this way", and the owner's the guy with the paycheck, therefore the owner gets what he wants? Or is there...

• 16:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Even if that might conflict with something else?

• 16:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Correct.

• 16:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it.

• 16:58Speaker 02

  I think it starts with the fans, right? Because...

• 17:00Chuck Nice?

  Because they're paying.

• 17:01Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 17:02Chuck Nice?

  They're paying the owners.

• 17:03Speaker 02

  They're paying, right. They are the source of...

• 17:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The owner works for the fans.

• 17:05Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  That's right. They're the source of revenue for everything else that comes after it. And what you want to deliver is a great experience for them. And with stadiums, huge stadiums, they're getting bigger, they're getting more complex, because you have to compete with the fact that it's not that expensive to buy an 85-inch television with 4K Ultra HD and put it in your man cave.

• 17:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I did.

• 17:26Chuck Nice?

  All right, hey man, you're working against yourself there, Ben.

• 17:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what I did.

• 17:30Gary O'Reilly?

  No, that's got to be the thought process of every owner.

• 17:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. How do we get you out? We want you out of your house.

• 17:36Chuck Nice?

  Right on.

• 17:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, you can give crappier television coverage. That's why I missed that. We got to be at the game.

• 17:42Chuck Nice?

  That's true.

• 17:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're going to show the replay only at the game.

• 17:45Chuck Nice?

  There you go.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Well, we want to do both, right? We want to have you have fun on the days you can make it, have fun on the days you can't make it. You want to have everything, bringing together best possible experience. But the stadium itself is really competing for that. Let me get you out of your house in Atlanta or in Los Angeles to come in to the stadium.

• 18:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We got to take a quick break. When we come back, more on the innovative designs of modern stadiums on StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 18:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Startalk, we're back. Startalk Sports Edition. Gary O'Reilly. Yep. Former footballer. Apparently. You keep telling yourself that. Yeah. Chuck. Yes. Who do we have here? Ben. Brillat. Brillat.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  Thanks.

• 18:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  IBM. None of us even knew that such a person as you existed. The tech geeky person who empowers modern stadiums to do and be what they need to be to satisfy the fans, the owners, the players, all of the above. The great and wonderful Oz of stadiums. That's what that is! That's what you are, man. That's what that is!

• 19:13Speaker 02

  I mean, we hope it's that way, right? If it... we don't want to be too noticed, right?

• 19:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man! Right on. So, as you know, we're featuring my footage from my visit to the SoFi Stadium under construction. They're not even built. Outside of Los Angeles. It's great because one of the landing routes and takeoff routes from LAX goes right over the stadium, so you just look out the window, there it is, very cool. That is cool. That's why I know it didn't look like they'd be ready when they said they'd be ready, I'm just saying. I'm just saying.

• 19:38Speaker 02

  A lot of late nights coming up.

• 19:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's the exterior design, but there's also what's going on on the inside. And as you said, the user experience comes first. That resonates with what I learned from the designers of this stadium. Let's check it out.

• 19:52Speaker 04

  The Oculus will actually start over here in this corner.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So what is the Oculus?

• 19:55Speaker 04

  So the Oculus is actually the TV screens and/or scoreboard, everything that'll be announced.

• 20:02Speaker 05

  The world's largest scoreboard.

• 20:03Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And where's it gonna... Is it gonna be in the middle or somewhere else?

• 20:06Speaker 04

  No, it actually follows the line of all this. So right where that green box is, that hydraulic box, imagine about eight feet away from that, we start building sections of it. And we start building sections and we stack sections on it.

• 20:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Such as this one too, on this side as well?

• 20:21Speaker 04

  All the way around the entire bowl.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Uh huh.

• 20:23Speaker 04

  And then we go ahead and put a strand jack similar to this assembly up here. And we introduce load, we pulled out, it pulls on the roof. It weighs 2 million pounds when it's completed with components. We assemble it here, we commission it here, and we take it all the way up.

• 20:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And you hoist it up.

• 20:39Speaker 04

  And we hoist it up. So when you're standing on level 8, you see that guy there in the yellow?

• 20:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, I see him.

• 20:43Speaker 04

  That's level 8, and then level 9 above.

• 20:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mm-hmm.

• 20:45Speaker 04

  You'll actually be staring right out at that Oculus.

• 20:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Got it.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  So you're gonna have those type of seats in those fields.

• 20:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But he can still see the field.

• 20:51Speaker 04

  Still see the film.

• 20:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. Still see the field.

• 20:53Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So that, that was access for cheap, the cheap seats.

• 20:57Speaker 04

  The cheap seats.

• 20:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Helping those guys out.

• 20:58Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 20:58Chuck Nice?

  It seems to be there's an arms race with stadiums now for the world's biggest, uh, like Jumbotron or fan screen.

• 21:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Jumbotron, that's so 80's, dude.

• 21:08Chuck Nice?

  I know, I haven't been to a game in a long time, can you tell?

• 21:13Speaker 02

  Absolutely, I mean, Atlanta's the current record holder, so there...

• 21:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They're trying to beat Atlanta.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 21:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Over at SoFi.

• 21:19Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 21:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, oh, see, he's, he's like...

• 21:22Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, and you're...

• 21:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You see him?

• 21:24Chuck Nice?

  You're feeling it.

• 21:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He did.

• 21:25Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 21:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  His face got a little red.

• 21:27Chuck Nice?

  He pumped up a little bit.

• 21:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, he got a little puff.

• 21:28Chuck Nice?

  A little chest beating going on right there. I got you.

• 21:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So now, this will definitely be the world's largest screen in, or fan screen in the world after it's done?

• 21:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the new Oculus here has screen services.

• 21:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here in SoFi.

• 21:42Speaker 02

  In SoFi, has screen services on both sides of the circle. So, it's not just a single ring, there's display elements on both sides of the circle that's hanging down.

• 21:54Chuck Nice?

  Ooh, so it's a double-sided screen?

• 21:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's inside, outside, it's a Kandinsky painting of jumbo screens, oh! Kandinsky, man, he's, damn, Chuck.

• 22:05Chuck Nice?

  He's on something today.

• 22:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Man, Chuck!

• 22:07Chuck Nice?

  So...

• 22:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't know who said that.

• 22:11Chuck Nice?

  All right, let's play the game here. What other tech could you introduce to improve something like this Oculus? What could then take it to another level? Because this seems, as Chuck says, a bit of an arms race.

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the Holy Grail really is to have VR players on the field, right?

• 22:32Chuck Nice?

  Oh, my.

• 22:32Speaker 02

  Projected augmented reality more than VR, really.

• 22:35Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  But augmented reality players projected onto the field. We're still some ways away from that.

• 22:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But what would...

• 22:41Chuck Nice?

  That would be so cool.

• 22:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't get it.

• 22:42Chuck Nice?

  So check it out. So an instant...

• 22:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I asked him, please.

• 22:45Chuck Nice?

  Oh, I'm sorry.

• 22:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who am I...

• 22:47Chuck Nice?

  I know who you're interviewing there.

• 22:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you there? Do you work for IBM? No.

• 22:51Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, let's just take this example. If you are an Atlanta fan and your team is playing in Los Angeles, you want to be able to go to Atlanta and watch that game on that field in front of you in your home stadium.

• 23:05Chuck Nice?

  As a matter of fact, they do that now.

• 23:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, so I could be in the field. They don't see me, but they run through me.

• 23:12Speaker 02

  Well, you could have that, maybe. You could also have just an away game played at home.

• 23:16Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 23:16Speaker 02

  You could have...

• 23:17Chuck Nice?

  So like they have viewing parties now for the playoffs?

• 23:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 23:19Chuck Nice?

  Like your team goes to another city, right?

• 23:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you all put on VR and you're all in this, in their stadium?

• 23:23Chuck Nice?

  And now you're in...

• 23:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In their place.

• 23:25Chuck Nice?

  But you're in your stadium, watching the game on your field.

• 23:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh!

• 23:28Chuck Nice?

  Yeah. So here's the thing, as a stadium owner, you gotta love this. Because that means everybody's got to buy hot dogs and...

• 23:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true.

• 23:37Chuck Nice?

  And their soft drinks.

• 23:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's true. And not watching on the 85-inch.

• 23:39Chuck Nice?

  And not watching. They're actually watching the field, just like a regular game.

• 23:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give them a reason to get out of home and come to the stadium. No, get out of home and go to the bar and put on your...

• 23:49Chuck Nice?

  Because you know, the truth is, no, actually Neil makes a really good point. The truth is, if you bring that technology to a stadium, it will only be a very short period of time before bar owners bring that technology to their venue.

• 24:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They get a miniature version of the stadium.

• 24:05Chuck Nice?

  A miniature version and then basically you'll be watching.

• 24:07Speaker 02

  More work for me.

• 24:08Chuck Nice?

  You say that works for you too.

• 24:11Chuck Nice?

  He's like, hey, guess what? I'm good. Right.

• 24:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, so is that real? Is that, I mean, we're really going there?

• 24:15Speaker 02

  Not yet, not yet. The display projection technology is the problem.

• 24:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Pokemon Go.

• 24:21Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 24:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If they can just show up in places.

• 24:23Speaker 02

  So, so we could do it today with looking through your phone, right? But that's not the best experience. You want to be able to look at it in a seamless way. So there's a couple of barriers, one of which we're about to solve with 5G, which is the ability to get that data out of the field, real time, uh, recording, uh, what they're really called voxels, the volumetric image data, so that you can project from any position.

• 24:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So three dimensional pixel.

• 24:47Speaker 02

  Three dimensional pixel and get that out of the current stadium. So 5G will help with that. Where we're falling, uh, a little short still is in the display technology. So right now you need something like maybe Google Glass.

• 24:58Chuck Nice?

  Right, I was gonna say.

• 24:59Speaker 02

  Um, an augmented reality display to look at it. Eventually we'll be, be able to project it in fog or something like that. You know, that technology still weighs off, but I mean, they're working on it.

• 25:10Chuck Nice?

  Man, that is so cool. I mean, like. How big are your Google specs though? Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's play this out just for a second now. Cause see, if I'm an NFL player and I'm smart and I hear you say what you just said, you're no longer my friend that helps me. You are now my competition and now we go back to where jocks beat the hell out of geeks.

• 25:35Chuck Nice?

  Okay. Because.

• 25:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The biggest regressives.

• 25:38Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 25:39Speaker 02

  All right.

• 25:39Chuck Nice?

  Because let's be honest, what you just said there, um, is one step away. Instead of an augmented reality, which is basically the real time transmission of data.

• 25:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:52Chuck Nice?

  To, why do I need that? I'll just create the data myself and transmit it so that you're seeing a game that is really an algorithm that even though it may be predetermined, it's still a game that happens, right? And you can watch football. Nobody gets hurt. Nobody gets, it's AI football.

• 26:13Speaker 02

  AI football.

• 26:14Chuck Nice?

  AI football. Well, it is, yeah. No, it's not John Madden because see John Madden, you're playing. Whereas this would be, would be an indeterminate algorithm that where, where, where, where, so none of the outcomes are predetermined and you would see a real game.

• 26:29Speaker 02

  We're gonna pick Watson up against Siri, right?

• 26:31Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 26:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So in this next clip, I snared one of the engineers to ask him, is there any other technology that the public doesn't see that might be going on, on the field? With like with the players or the coaches? Let's check it out.

• 26:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In modern times, football teams keep track of their players. And with high-tech monitoring systems and GPS, how far they've moved. Will there be any sort of high-tech sensor systems?

• 26:59Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 27:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That can be invoked at field level?

• 27:03Speaker 05

  It's actually not GPS-based, it's ARM-based.

• 27:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 27:07Speaker 05

  So we have a ring of basically sensors around. So when the players walk out of the dressing room, they have a chip in their pads. It gets turned on basically when they exit the locker room. And then, uh, within the playing surface, basically, uh, they track the movements. They can then figure out things like velocity and top speed and all.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. So, but that's not unique to the stadium, if everyone has a chip in the modern NFL.

• 27:35Speaker 05

  The league basically mandates that system and...

• 27:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Plus for the health and well-being of the players, too, right?

• 27:41Speaker 05

  You can track how far they run, how fast they run, how much they're on field, etc.

• 27:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That means you can also measure how fast they decelerate in a block. Like you're running, and I run at you, and I got your speed, all of a sudden, bam! You go from 20 miles an hour to zero in...

• 28:00Speaker 05

  In a meter or whatever.

• 28:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right. So Ben, why are they using RF technology if 5G is basically available?

• 28:09Speaker 02

  So it depends, what is that sensor trying to accomplish? So, on a high school field, you have GPS. You're out in the air, you can see the satellites, the GPS trackers will fit in their pads.

• 28:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  More importantly, the GPS satellites can see you.

• 28:22Speaker 02

  The GPS.

• 28:24Speaker 02

  No, but that's okay. And indoors, now you have, again, the roof, which is blocking those signals. You need to provide some sort of local system that can now provide that location data.

• 28:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. So 5G is not a local system?

• 28:37Speaker 02

  Well, 5G is a local system and there...

• 28:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I mean, even within the stadium, local?

• 28:43Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 28:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 28:44Speaker 02

  To that technology of DAS that I mentioned earlier. We have to build our own 5G network inside of a stadium to meet the density of people who are there. You know, 80,000 devices in, well, we might even call 160,000, uh, if you've got a watch and a phone, right? Devices in a small space. Now you need dedicated electronics, uh, dedicated antennas and radios just for that stadium by itself.

• 29:08Speaker 02

  But that tracking versus making phone calls, all different kinds of 5G that are starting to come to life. And the density, the number of devices as we look at IoT, and really those sensors are IoT, is just gonna balloon as we start.

• 29:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What IoT stands for?

• 29:24Speaker 02

  Internet of Things. So.

• 29:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what that, that's what that abbreviates?

• 29:29Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Internet of Things.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Things should never be abbreviated. Yeah. That word, it's not important enough. Thanks for clearing it up.

• 29:35Speaker 02

  So.

• 29:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Internet of stuff, I don't know what it is.

• 29:39Gary O'Reilly?

  As I, as I sit here and listen to you explain that, Ben, my, I'm looking at my mo, my cellphone is dating and out of date within two years.

• 29:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:49Gary O'Reilly?

  So how do we future-proof? What's coming that we can do that you are, that you're gonna be able to jump on and utilize?

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, how about 7G, 8G, 10G?

• 30:01Speaker 02

  It'll all be there.

• 30:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 30:02Speaker 02

  The way that we future-proof in our architecture is we say we don't have a crystal ball, the only thing we can do is put more pathways for more antennas. Make sure that you have the ability to put, today you have one antenna in this room, tomorrow you have two, four years from now you have four or five.

• 30:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I got, I gotta, I gotta interrupt you. Okay. And Back to the Future 2, which took place in 2015 or 16, I forgot, somewhere in our past right now, back when it was made, people had fax machines, okay? That was the thing. Oh, that's cool, that's how you send, so they imagined in that distant future that households would have multiple fax machines. Of course. So when Marty was fired from his job, it was sent to him by fax, and every fax machine in his house out came with the thing, you're fired. And he said, wow, that's the future. Right. We'll have more than one fax machine. So, isn't that a little bit short-sighted to say, let's just put more of what we already

• 31:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  have?

• 31:06Speaker 02

  No, we're not so much putting more, we're putting more capability, but just the path. We don't know what kind of cable will go in it, we don't know what kind of antenna will be there.

• 31:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you assume it needs a path?

• 31:15Speaker 02

  You need to have a spot to put it, right. And that's becoming particularly challenging because architects also want their stadiums to be beautiful, right? You want to experience the technology but not have to see it. So you need to really design in from day zero, the ability to put all of this electronics there and be able to hide it.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Tell me about helmet cams. That would be another, I'd be first, it would be interesting just to monitor helmet concussion, the forces that operate on a helmet.

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 31:44Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You should be able to do that. If my iPhone can measure accelerations no matter what I'm doing, a helmet could do that too.

• 31:50Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 31:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, but not only that, just point of view cameras. Like, suppose I'm gonna experience a game as a, as a, as a fan, and I could flick on, let me see what the quarterback is looking at, let me see what the center, let me see what the wide receiver, and that's their camera.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 32:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What's, what's, how about that?

• 32:07Speaker 02

  So, with, with 5G, we will be able to do that, especially in a sport like football, where you have a lot of room to put the heavier batteries and the, the camera sensors, things like that.

• 32:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like, oh, this is too heavy!

• 32:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, but...

• 32:20Chuck Nice?

  But that's a baseball player.

• 32:21Speaker 02

  Right. As a soccer player.

• 32:25Speaker 02

  The good news, yeah...

• 32:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You guys, when you get clipped on the side, oh!

• 32:28Chuck Nice?

  Oh, man, that's it.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I can't get up!

• 32:31Chuck Nice?

  The weight's too much.

• 32:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm falling, I can't get up! You soccer players, what the hell is wrong with y'all?

• 32:37Speaker 02

  Well, we got good news for...

• 32:38Chuck Nice?

  They're precious.

• 32:38Speaker 02

  We got good news for soccer, football.

• 32:40Chuck Nice?

  Have you?

• 32:41Speaker 02

  Is that with... My team gonna win. Well, with the 3D, with the 3D volumetric pixel imaging, it's now possible computationally to recreate any view from an array of, say, 32 cameras around the stadium.

• 32:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  This is like bullet time.

• 32:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 32:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like in The Matrix, where you can get any camera angle.

• 32:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you, as a viewer, could pick, you wouldn't even have to be limited to a specific helmet cam, you could pick the view right in between the two helmets, and have that computed for you dynamically from the images that are already taken.

• 33:12Chuck Nice?

  That's pretty wild.

• 33:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's bad, that's badass right there.

• 33:15Chuck Nice?

  See, now, once again, it seems like you're working, okay, so this would be, see, that's something that you wanna keep to an in-stadium, uh, experience, right? Because, to be able to come and look on your phone and see a completely different game than you're actually watching on the field.

• 33:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why be limited to some cameraman who's parked on some spot on the sideline?

• 33:36Chuck Nice?

  You, you can actually curate your own game in real time as you're sitting there. Let me see that replay, you know, that, that's kinda cool.

• 33:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, you could end up, you know, with Twitch-style re-edits of the game, yeah.

• 33:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We gotta take a break, can you hang around for like, the third segment?

• 33:52Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 33:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because normally, we just sort of, you know, chew the fat, but I wanna chew the fat with you in the room.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  Sounds great, thanks.

• 33:57Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that'd be cool.

• 33:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, this is StarTalk Sports Edition. We'll be right back.

• 34:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back, StarTalk. We have a special guest brought in from central Pennsylvania, where this dude lives. Nobody's out there.

• 34:33Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, no, he's here.

• 34:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was the only one there, now he's here. Ben Brillatt. Thanks for hanging on. Normally, we just sort of chew the fat this segment, but I want you there. Thanks. While we chew the fat. Sounds good. So, I just, I'm curious about something. I'm looking at the rate at which stadium design is changing. And that always tells me things. It says if the rate is changing rapidly now, we can praise any newly opened stadium.

• 35:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But if the rate is fast, it means in five years, that's going to be an old stadium. Just like technology itself. Technology itself. You're actually... So, how you feel about this?

• 35:15Speaker 02

  I mean, it's good news for me, right? The more tech changes...

• 35:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Job security.

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, job security.

• 35:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But now, do you build that into your design? Yeah. Because you have to. He future proofs by putting conduits and places where you would put stuff. Okay.

• 35:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, there's capitalization terms for all of these things. You want to be sure you get your money's worth out of it. You need to be able to...

• 35:36Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially when it's $5 billion worth of your money.

• 35:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 35:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But go ahead.

• 35:39Speaker 02

  But it is a big challenge. What can you do? How far into that crystal ball can you see? And, you know, we make our best attempts at it, but, you know, some...

• 35:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary, reflections.

• 35:47Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so, we touched on augmented reality. Now, I'm just thinking, if we really throw it a long way away... Do we actually need stadiums? Because you're gonna sit there with your VR goggles and I'll give you an immersive suit so you can actually feel the hits yourself while you're sat there.

• 36:05Chuck Nice?

  That's too much.

• 36:07Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, you can dial it up.

• 36:08Chuck Nice?

  That's too much.

• 36:08Gary O'Reilly?

  It just depends, you dial it up or you dial it down.

• 36:10Chuck Nice?

  Oh, dial it down, yeah. Can I dial it down to a relaxing massage?

• 36:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, if you want.

• 36:16Chuck Nice?

  Negative three.

• 36:18Gary O'Reilly?

  We're talking about we gotta get people out of their homes, we need to, you know, our competition isn't this, this, this, it's getting people away from their TV sets and into the arena. But is it just gonna come down to let's save the money and put it all into the fan experience?

• 36:33Speaker 02

  You know, you'd think that would have happened with video gaming, but what has actually happened is that e-gaming is now become

• 36:41Chuck Nice?

  A spectator sport.

• 36:42Speaker 02

  A spectator sport segment.

• 36:44Chuck Nice?

  Watching other people play their e-game.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  But in a stadium. You go to a stadium to watch on the big screen, video games get played.

• 36:53Chuck Nice?

  It's true.

• 36:54Gary O'Reilly?

  Don't look at me like that. So are you doing it?

• 36:55Chuck Nice?

  We're all sitting in this room looking at each other the same way. It's like, what? Which is what the hell is wrong with these people? But it's a huge thing.

• 37:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is that Gen X? Is that Gen Y? Is that millennials? Let's get to the bottom of this.

• 37:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it is.

• 37:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Who's doing this?

• 37:07Speaker 02

  The under 25.

• 37:10Chuck Nice?

  It is, yeah. My son is totally into it and I was completely

• 37:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He's 12.

• 37:15Chuck Nice?

  And, right, and I was completely against it until I found out that these so-called e-athletes, many of them have seven-figure deals.

• 37:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 37:26Chuck Nice?

  And now he gets home and I'm just like, you better get upstairs and play that video game. Get those thumbs, get those thumbs moving, boy, what's your problem?

• 37:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't read a book.

• 37:35Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Are you reading? Oh my God, are you reading?

• 37:43Gary O'Reilly?

  Our fans, the whole thing here now. We, stadiums were built to honor the gladiators and the athletes. Now, we are seeing a shift away to the fan, the spectator, the person who provides the income as being the point of view that is the most interesting. Where can we take that? Where can IBM, where can the stadium builders and architects of the future take that?

• 38:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the fans, what we're trying to do with technology is deliver a better game through improved insights into how the players are moving their physio mechanics, the

• 38:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's a word.

• 38:24Speaker 02

  Coaching calls.

• 38:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Physio mechanics?

• 38:26Speaker 02

  I hope so.

• 38:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I like learning new words. Okay, alright, alright.

• 38:32Speaker 02

  And help the coaches to be able to make the best decisions that they can, help the players to be able to get the most that they can out of their own body, to put it into an ever more entertaining game, right? So I think everybody is benefiting, you know, we talk about the greatest players of 60 years ago versus, you know, sort of your mid-tier players today. The mid-tier player had so much more information available to them to help them train exactly the right muscle, rest on exactly the right rest day, you know, the, the level of play is just going up, up, up.

• 39:02Chuck Nice?

  Alright, so let me ask you this, with that in mind, talking about the fan, let's talk about the owner for a second, because here's the way I'm thinking, I spent all this money, I got this high-tech stadium, how am I gonna make even more money off of all of this 5G capable technology?

• 39:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, what's the business model?

• 39:23Chuck Nice?

  Where's the business model?

• 39:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  How's the money come back into his pocket?

• 39:25Chuck Nice?

  Right, I'm coming, I need that money to come back to me. So am I gonna be charged to see like, certain replays that nobody else can see, or, I mean, what, because you know, no fan-

• 39:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of paywall are you gonna put up?

• 39:37Chuck Nice?

  Right, there's no fan experience that's complete without an owner saying, nah, you gonna have to pay for that.

• 39:42Speaker 02

  I mean, all of that is possible, right? You can have, you know, premium subscriber level features, you can have entry features, you can have features you can only get if you are actually there. That happens today a lot because of TV licensing agreements, we can do more when you're physically in the stadium than we can outside.

• 39:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can I give an example of that, a really lame but heartfelt example? When I was nine, we went to the Bronx Zoo, and we, we were very frugal as a family. I saw other rich kids, they could buy the elephant key. There's a plastic key and the elephant's nose sticks out, and at every cage, back when animals were in cages, there was an, an information recording, and you put the key in and turn it, and you get a narration about the animal.

• 40:28Chuck Nice?

  Right, but you had to buy that key.

• 40:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You had to buy the key!

• 40:30Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And we didn't buy the key, so-

• 40:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, I would just stand next to the rich kids.

• 40:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mommy, why does this black kid keep following me everywhere?

• 40:42Chuck Nice?

  I'm sorry.

• 40:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So I, so I, I felt, I didn't feel like I was a part of the experience.

• 40:48Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And it didn't feel good to me, even though I paid, we had paid admission to the zoo itself. It was, I, I felt left out.

• 40:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just because I couldn't afford it. And that was a visitor experience in 1968, 67, that was its version of what you're describing.

• 41:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:06Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so picking up on your elephant key analogy.

• 41:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, by the way, I still own that elephant key. Just want you to know.

• 41:11Speaker 02

  For real, for real.

• 41:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'll bring it in.

• 41:12Speaker 02

  You did get one.

• 41:13Gary O'Reilly?

  The elephant in the room.

• 41:16Gary O'Reilly?

  The elephant in the room or, or the stadium. Gambling. When you've got all of this ability to stream and do stuff.

• 41:25Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god.

• 41:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's a lot of money.

• 41:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Pop, pop, pop. Yeah?

• 41:28Chuck Nice?

  So now you're talking about.

• 41:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There's more money.

• 41:29Chuck Nice?

  There's more money in gambling than any of it.

• 41:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Than any of it.

• 41:32Chuck Nice?

  Oh my god, Gary, you are brilliant. How do we get in on this right now? Because I'm telling you.

• 41:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Shut off the cameras.

• 41:38Chuck Nice?

  Yes.

• 41:40Chuck Nice?

  Let me tell you something, real time betting? While you're in a stadium? That's a money maker.

• 41:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Shake it.

• 41:47Speaker 02

  It, it happens a lot more overseas than it does here. We have stronger laws.

• 41:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Anti-gambling.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:52Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:53Gary O'Reilly?

  But if I've spent $5 billion to create my stadium entertainment palace, I'll be pushing really hard to get the gambling laws changed in the state of which.

• 42:03Chuck Nice?

  Oh, without a doubt.

• 42:04Gary O'Reilly?

  For sure.

• 42:05Chuck Nice?

  Every state, yeah.

• 42:06Speaker 02

  Now, I mean, we're seeing data that comes just for fantasy football, right? So fantasy football, fantasy baseball, the decision-making data that's available to you for your own fantasy league is, would probably knock the socks off of a coach from, you know, 1955.

• 42:21Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 42:22Speaker 02

  To have access to the kind of information that you're.

• 42:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, 1975, 1985, that's the kind of data they have.

• 42:27Gary O'Reilly?

  So going back to your point of what else happens? How does, how does the owner, you, the owner, make money? I put a massive big. Complex of theaters, show movies. I have shopping malls.

• 42:41Chuck Nice?

  I was about to say that. How, why aren't stadiums, when we were about to come out of it? Why don't stadiums have, um, multiple use built into? It's like the stadium sits empty for most of the time. But this is the whole deal with SoFi.

• 42:55Speaker 02

  SoFi is a great example.

• 42:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so, okay, but, alright, so SoFi, so a professional football schedule today is sixteen games. If you don't go into playoffs, correct? Okay, so most football, pure football stadiums are used sixteen weekends out of fifty-two. Period. Then I noticed ten years ago, twenty years, they tried to turn them into, uh, conferencing centers and things. Get a little extra money on the side, but still, what are you doing?

• 43:20Chuck Nice?

  Hold your event here.

• 43:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Maybe hold a rock concert, okay? So with SoFi, it has two teams interlaced, so now it's thirty-two weekends. That's way better than sixteen out of fifty-two, but still, you got another twenty weekends where nothing's happening. Is the business model so lucrative that you can go unused for twenty weekends?

• 43:42Speaker 02

  No, you need to drive that attendance up and the use of your facility. So in Atlanta, they have also Atlanta United, the MLS soccer team.

• 43:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Mercedes facility?

• 43:51Speaker 02

  So the Atlanta United MLS soccer team has games that are played there also. So that has really driven up, yep, really driven up the usage of the building.

• 44:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then all the immigrants come in, they get something to watch, right?

• 44:04Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 44:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because all the immigrants play soccer.

• 44:06Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 44:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Every, every last one of them.

• 44:08Gary O'Reilly?

  They've put seventy thousand fans in the Atlanta stadium for MLS soccer.

• 44:13Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 44:14Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 44:14Chuck Nice?

  It's a huge draw.

• 44:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And not an American emoji.

• 44:16Chuck Nice?

  It's a huge draw.

• 44:16Gary O'Reilly?

  There's more.

• 44:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'm just kidding.

• 44:18Chuck Nice?

  Nah, no, but in a way, you're right. When the World Cup is on and you walk around Manhattan.

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It is so, people so indifferent to it.

• 44:24Chuck Nice?

  It's, it's, it's like people don't care, and then you look in every bar and it is filled to the brim.

• 44:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 44:29Chuck Nice?

  You know, and, and, and none of them are Americans.

• 44:34Speaker 02

  Atlanta's culture is changing with the Atlanta United, actually. The Atlanta United are driving fans into that sport at a rate that is just crazy. Yeah, I mean, you walk by bars in Atlanta and there is an Atlanta.

• 44:45Gary O'Reilly?

  United flag, there are kids going to it.

• 44:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fantastic. Okay, alright, so, so, America might come around on this.

• 44:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 44:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The soccer thing. Yeah.

• 44:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, you're getting there, you're getting, but I think the footprint of the SoFi Stadium, I think, is greater than Disneyland in.

• 44:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, including parking.

• 45:01Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 45:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Are you for, but, is this multi-use district? What else is there? What else is in that stadium?

• 45:08Gary O'Reilly?

  They're building in the, the multiplex movie theaters. Hotels, oh, hotels, everything, shopping.

• 45:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, oh, that's what you mean. So the idea is, right, it's to make it a destination, area, the area becomes a destination. Gotcha. And then the game is just one other thing you do.

• 45:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, something to do that you can walk to, yeah.

• 45:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wow, okay, cool.

• 45:26Gary O'Reilly?

  Because there's a finite amount of people that can go and watch a game, but they wanna come and enjoy the experience, so you will build fan parks outside.

• 45:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, I got, I have an obscure, geeky, sciency comment.

• 45:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay.

• 45:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  If I may.

• 45:39Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm ready.

• 45:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Um, if you're charging a battery, either an electric car or any kind of rechargeable battery, the, if it's dead and you start charging it, like, the first 20% happens very quickly. And then as the battery gets more and more charged, the rate at which it reaches the top gets slower and slower and slower. So that last 5% takes almost as long as the previous, all the time it took to get to that 95%. Okay, do you know why? No!

• 46:10Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay. I'm about to find out.

• 46:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The analogy is a stadium parking lot.

• 46:20Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because in a dead battery, you have all these electrons in the wrong place. Mm-hmm. Okay, they done served you, now you gotta punch them back to, so that they can serve you again. They gotta swim upstream and they gotta park on the other side of that battery. But they can only park in pre-designated places. Oh, so that. So, if you're the first electron upstream, you park anywhere. I'm by the door! Yay! So, in a stadium, if I'm early at the stadium, I can park anywhere, I can park within seconds.

• 46:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Yep.

• 46:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The later I come, even if there is a parking spot for me,

• 46:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  it'll take me longer to find it. So that when the parking is almost entirely full and only five slots left, it could take me a half hour to find a parking spot after looking for those spots. That's why it takes longer to charge the last part of your battery than the first part. Because of the parking lot problem.

• 47:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Have you solved the parking problems?

• 47:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, we we have. Uh, smart parking systems.

• 47:19Chuck Nice?

  Smart parking?

• 47:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it turns out.

• 47:21Chuck Nice?

  Assigned parking? Predetermined assigned parking?

• 47:23Speaker 02

  We have assigned parking predetermined. We also have smart parking systems. If you've been like in Heathrow Airport, uh, with red and green lights over every single parking spot. So you can look down a hallway and see if there's a green light.

• 47:34Chuck Nice?

  Oh, what a hidden spots.

• 47:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, signs that tell you how many are left on each level. Turns out this is a huge source of pollution in cities too. So there's companies working.

• 47:43Chuck Nice?

  But not just in parking lots, period.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 47:46Chuck Nice?

  In every metro place.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Driving around looking around parking.

• 47:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Eighty percent of all cars that are in motion that are not taxis are looking for parking.

• 47:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, so this this company is trying to solve this now to be able to help you. Uh, there's some new deployments out in Europe of smart parking systems in cities. So that you can know where to go.

• 48:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That you could just see above all the car and the green one is right there.

• 48:04Speaker 02

  Yep, and simple.

• 48:05Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's some little car that's hidden behind the SUV.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 48:08Chuck Nice?

  Yes, well, it's by the way.

• 48:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Angry when it happens?

• 48:09Chuck Nice?

  I always flatten their tires.

• 48:13Gary O'Reilly?

  So now, how many people are now looking for a space? And there's only one green light?

• 48:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, then it no.

• 48:20Gary O'Reilly?

  And then they all converge on the same space.

• 48:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The lights break out. Right, how fast can you drive up to that?

• 48:27Gary O'Reilly?

  See, this is LA, so Larry David's gonna be the gonna be there. You know that.

• 48:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Larry David.

• 48:32Gary O'Reilly?

  You know, he's gonna be there with his little electric car.

• 48:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of Curb Your Enthusiasm.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we can actually fol- using cameras, we can actually follow your car through the parking garage and provide you individually appropriate signage at every turn for where you should go to your parking.

• 48:46Gary O'Reilly?

  Can you talk to the car at turn left, you idiot?

• 48:48Speaker 02

  Well, you can change a sign that they can read.

• 48:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Talk to the thing and I'm gonna sit back.

• 48:52Chuck Nice?

  And that, you know, that's exactly, that's where it's actually going. The car park its own name.

• 48:55Speaker 02

  There you go.

• 48:56Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 48:56Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 48:57Chuck Nice?

  Dude, that is super cool.

• 48:58Gary O'Reilly?

  I'm watching the game, you park yourself.

• 48:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:59Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, so final thoughts, Chuck, what do you have?

• 49:01Chuck Nice?

  Um, you know, I'm gonna go to a game, uh, and and probably be disappointed because none of the cool crap we're talking about is gonna be there.

• 49:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  It's not yet.

• 49:07Chuck Nice?

  It's not happening yet.

• 49:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He'll call, get his phone number, he'll call you.

• 49:10Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely, we'll go together.

• 49:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Gary?

• 49:12Gary O'Reilly?

  I think it's great. I think it's brilliant because everybody wins. The players are gonna win, the coaches, IBM could become the best football coach ever. Right? All the biodata, all the telemetrics, all the players are gonna win and the fans are gonna get better experience. So it's a win, win, win. Brilliant.

• 49:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, what thoughts do you have at night before you go to sleep about all this?

• 49:33Speaker 02

  I wanna make sure that my son, when he goes to have, he's four now, when he goes to a game, that he will be able to have the experience that he is imagining when he gets there. So, his world, his world already, he can talk to the house, right? And have the lights turn on, he can type because he just talks to his computer. The information in the world is at his fingertips.

• 49:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Is he your four-year-old child?

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, fifteen years from now, when he's there.

• 50:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Your four-year-old child's running the house with his apps.

• 50:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 50:04Gary O'Reilly?

  Alexa, change the locks.

• 50:08Speaker 06

  Ha, take that dad. Try to get in the house now.

• 50:14Speaker 02

  He, he hasn't found that command.

• 50:18Gary O'Reilly?

  You better get some really good parental guidance.

• 50:24Speaker 02

  You know, the world that he imagines is different than I can imagine and I want him to have a great experience that keeps his attention and keeps him going, so.

• 50:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Here's what I look forward to, cuz I think about this all the time.

• 50:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I'd like imagining tomorrow's technology

• 50:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  for many reasons, but including the fact that if it's good enough, it will make everything I think is modern today look old.

• 50:48Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh.

• 50:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, in the future, I want the technology to not even be anything you are projecting for it. I want it to benefit from innovations, may I say, out of left field. Something you didn't even know was on its way in, that lands in your lap technologically and you say, oh my gosh, that's a game changer. And with that, there's a future experience for the player, the visitor,

• 51:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 51:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  the coach, that today we can yet imagine.

• 51:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Sweet. Be great. Revenue sharing. Looking forward to it. That's what I... That's a cosmic sports perspective. Dude, thanks for coming. Thanks very much. Chuck, Gary. Mm-hmm. Always good. Yep. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This has been StarTalk Sports Edition. And as always, I bid you to keep looking up.