Cosmic Queries – The Joy of Tech

Neil deGrasse Tyson, co-hosts Chuck Nice and Gary O’Reilly, and Angela Ruggiero, Olympic Gold Medalist and CEO of Sports Innovation Lab, answer your fan-submitted Cosmic Queries on the past, present, and future of sports technology. NOTE: StarTalk+ Patrons and All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free here: https://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-the-joy-of-tech/

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. I'm your host Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist, and this one is Sports Edition. I've got with me Chuck Nice. Yes, sir. In the house. That's right. And Gary.

• 0:28Gary O'Reilly?

  Hey Chuck.

• 0:29Chuck Nice?

  Hey Neil. Just to confuse you.

• 0:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Just to right. Yeah, no, that doesn't, no.

• 0:34Chuck Nice?

  No?

• 0:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you can't do that.

• 0:35Chuck Nice?

  Can't do that?

• 0:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, no, no.

• 0:36Chuck Nice?

  Confuse you.

• 0:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But people get hurt for less than that.

• 0:39Chuck Nice?

  All right, you're starting with the pain early.

• 0:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You can't look at two black men and call them the same thing. Right, right, right. So Gary O'Reilly, former soccer pro. That's right.

• 0:51Chuck Nice?

  Good to be here.

• 0:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Footballer, as it were. Footballer. So today, our topic is gonna be on sort of technology as applied to sports, the future of tech.

• 1:01Chuck Nice?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And all that comes with it. Not only biologically, but technologically, and what might even be the interface between the two. Nice. That's all fair game, right? But none of us have any expertise in that. So, we've got live on video. Yes. Angela Ruggiero. Angela, welcome to StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 1:27Speaker 03

  Thanks for having me.

• 1:28Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're an Olympic hockey player?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, four times.

• 1:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, excuse me? Oh, yeah. Okay. All right. Wait, four times? How old are you?

• 1:35Speaker 03

  I was one of the youngest players on the first ever team in 98. We won a gold.

• 1:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yep.

• 1:42Speaker 03

  And then retired after the Vancouver Olympics, 2010.

• 1:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very cool. Very nice. There aren't many four-time Olympians in anything. In anything, yeah. Right, because you don't make it that far. Oh, that's why she's a Hall of Famer as well. Yeah, a Hall of Famer, very good. Mm-hmm. And we don't have you just because you only won medals for the Olympics. You're currently CEO of a company that specializes in the future of technology and sports? Tell us about that.

• 2:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, we're so when I retired, I was fascinated with tech's impact on sports, both on and off the field of play. And so started a company, Sports Innovation Lab, where we are research and strategy really focused on the future fan. So we empower brands, media partners, properties to really understand the future of sport through the lens of technology. Like, how do you leverage tech to do sport better, both on and off the field of play? So I was fascinated by tech as an athlete because it's so attached to, you know, understanding your body. And obviously, on the business side, we see its explosion everywhere. And, you know, sports is one industry that is obviously trying to wrap its head around this stuff as well.

• 2:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Now, you're up in Boston, which is quite the location for a high level university thinking. So are you there so that you can tap sort of the engineers and science that flows through that town?

• 3:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, it's actually one of the reasons we are. I mean, I actually went to Harvard undergrad, and I went to the business school here, saw the massive opportunity for talent recruitment. Biotech, fintech, I mean, sports tech is one area that I'd like to grow here in Boston. So there's the talent, there's the tech sort of focus here in Boston. But also, we got a great sports culture, you know?

• 3:26Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 3:26Speaker 03

  Love or hate the Patriots, the Red Sox, you know, the Bruins, we got, we have a nice sports culture here. And in addition, all the university sports that are putting on a great show. So we've got a nice blend here, I think, to really make sports tech a home.

• 3:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So nice sports culture is code for crazy sports fans?

• 3:43Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's what it is. That's like, that's like saying, that's like-

• 3:47Speaker 03

  You know, if you love it or you think we're crazy.

• 3:49Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, that's kind of like saying, Philadelphia fans are excitable.

• 3:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I was just, I forgot the occasion. I was channel surfing in some odd channel that had three digits behind it. And I saw an old hockey game from the 1960s, pro hockey and NHL. And nobody had on a helmet. The, the, the-

• 4:12Chuck Nice?

  Old time hockey.

• 4:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Not the players, not the goalie.

• 4:16Chuck Nice?

  Old time hockey.

• 4:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So back as in the old days.

• 4:20Chuck Nice?

  That's right. Where teeth were not optional. You didn't have them. And even if you came with teeth, we got rid of them before we let you on the team.

• 4:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So there was all this sort of shoulder gear and pads and everything, but there's little heads sticking out. So, so hockey has changed from back then.

• 4:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's, well, it's funny, back then, a lot less protection, obviously. I still have all my teeth, thank God.

• 4:46Speaker 03

  The game's gotten faster, quicker, like every sport, athletes are just better, they're, they're training more efficiently. So the game sped up, so you actually need really good equipment now to prevent, you know, concussions and, you know, the injuries that you might have seen in the past. But it's the goal, the fact that the goalies didn't have helmets, I think is the craziest thing. They, they put their face in front of the puck to save it and be proud of all the scars they had. I'm like, I didn't play that sport. I had full gear on.

• 5:13Gary O'Reilly?

  They're a different breed. Goal, goal, goalkeepers in football, soccer, gold miners in hockey.

• 5:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, that whole, the whole community of goalkeepers, that's a species, a subspecies.

• 5:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Oh, for sure. You gotta love them though, but they're a different thinker.

• 5:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, my brother, my dad were goal, you know, they were both goalies. They always say they're a little wacko to want to play that position. So that's just my personal bias.

• 5:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you guys solicited questions from our fan base on this very subject. So you're gonna take turns. Who goes first? Gary? Go for it, Gary.

• 5:41Gary O'Reilly?

  Okay, so just to put the cherry on the cake, I do believe Angela was voted by Forbes, one of the 25 most powerful women in sport.

• 5:48Chuck Nice?

  What makes you so powerful, Angela?

• 5:51Speaker 03

  Working it.

• 5:51Chuck Nice?

  All right. Welcome to the gun show.

• 5:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so I, I not only went to Harvard twice, I can also kick your ass. There you go. That's what that is. Right.

• 6:03Gary O'Reilly?

  As if you didn't know.

• 6:04Speaker 03

  I thought it was, you know, one thing I did when I transitioned from playing to, you know, obviously it's really hard for most athletes, I think, figure out what they have a passion for next. I was lucky, I got elected to be a member of the International Olympic Committee. So I spent eight years on the board there, I was on the executive board, got me exposure to global sport. My last role was with the LA 28 Olympic bid, so we were able to bring, you know, successfully bring the games back to LA in 2028. I was the chief strategy officer there, so. I really just thrust into the business of sports after I retired from playing. It's the only thing I knew. And that's again, what led me to founding Sports Innovation Lab is just this this desire to help the industry in general thrive and be better. And, you know, it gave so much to me as an athlete that I want to try to get back in some small way.

• 6:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you'll surely have opinions on any question that we hand you here.

• 6:53Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly.

• 6:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so what do you have, Gary?

• 6:55Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, let's kick off first. Brett M. six one five on Instagram. I am curious to know how and if new leaps in quantum computing technology, this is your field, dude, could affect the future of sports. Could AI offer alternative ways to fundamentally approach how certain sports are played?

• 7:13Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me offer that question in a, in a, in a different frame.

• 7:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Please do.

• 7:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So quantum computing would greatly speed up any computing that's currently going on right now. So let me ask you two questions. Is the role of a computer applied in whatever way it is to whatever sport? Is that something that you can say, you know, we just need that computer to go a little faster in what it's, in what it's delivering to us? Or is there something the computer isn't doing, can't do, because no one dreamt of how you might apply a super duper extra fast computer to, to a sport?

• 7:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I'd say on the field of play, it certainly could help. We see already with like NASCAR's example. They use AI to predict possible malfunctions in their cars. That's, it decreased the number of crashes by roughly 75%. That's a sport where AI, quantum computing could actually potentially help decrease injuries.

• 8:10Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, so you're saying, so cars have sensors then on all the things that could go wrong?

• 8:15Speaker 03

  Cars have sensors. You're increasingly see just athletes have sensors. There's a whole field of, we call it quantified athlete, companies that are monitoring, measuring, predicting performance, preventing injury. We talked about helmets and. You know, if you could actually detect impact and use quantum computing or AI to say, "Hey, this athlete's been hit too much. They need to get off the field. They're about to throw out their shoulder because they pitched too much this game." I mean, there's a whole body of work. Obviously, with a car, it's easier to quantify, but with humans, there are, you know, tons of these companies are coming out and quality of data, all that is questionable. But at least we see a massive increase in investment in this space because

• 9:00Speaker 03

  it'll extend into healthcare, you know, right? If you can actively predict when you're about to be dehydrated, you know, everyone would want to know that. Or when you're over, you know, you're tired and you need to get more recovery, you know, the human population would want to know, "Hey, I need to go to bed earlier" versus just an elite athlete. So quantum computing just on the field is absolutely a piece of this.

• 9:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're a commodity to the owner of the team, so they want to protect their investment in any way they can.

• 9:28Speaker 03

  Hundred percent. Yeah, at the end of the day, you're, I mean, your body is your business and they pay you for it to perform. If you're the, you're talking about cars or you are the car, you're the athlete, protecting that investment, that asset is, and I hate to express it like that, but you are a commodity, you are an asset. Athletes know that. They want to be empowered with that information to say, "Hey, I'm not going to throw another ball. I'm not going to go out on the ice today. I'm not going to get hit again. I got to protect my brand. I got to protect who I am." So certainly on the field of play, there's a ton of use cases for automated content production. If you think about replays and what that future fan would like to see when they're consuming sports, AI is like

• 10:11Speaker 03

  crushing it. You're using, you know, a lot of this to really personalize the experience for the fan. And we're really just in our early days of, you know, creating highlights and using AI to help service the fan in a more personalized way.

• 10:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Can you imagine, it could have happened by now, I don't see with, with GoPro technology, why doesn't every player have a little GoPro camera or whatever brand right at their point of view? And then maybe in the future of TV, you can select.

• 10:40Chuck Nice?

  Who's player's point of view you wanna you wanna follow during the game?

• 10:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You'll be able to do that, but.

• 10:45Speaker 03

  There's actually a lot of companies doing it not through the lens of the of the athlete because they, you know, the way and you know, you gotta deal with all the unions. But companies like Intel, volumetric video is an example. You could wrap cameras around a stadium. And right now, the producer gets to pick the angle that you get to watch at home and you have no agency. In the future, you're gonna be able to take those angles and actually zoom in, zoom out, pick the player perspective and literally watch sports through your own personalized lens and that.

• 11:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's pretty cool.

• 11:14Speaker 03

  Years off, but with quantum computing, AI, like that is what the future holds.

• 11:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Very cool. I love that.

• 11:20Gary O'Reilly?

  With fiber technology, you should be able to get something.

• 11:22Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What kind of technology?

• 11:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Fiber.

• 11:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Fiber, uh huh.

• 11:24Gary O'Reilly?

  So maybe you'll be able to get a camera fitted into a very small.

• 11:27Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  A small, so it's not.

• 11:27Gary O'Reilly?

  So it's not, it's not gonna be involved. You're not having a weight issue. It's not intruding on anything.

• 11:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Don't they kind of already do that with NASCAR? There's some cameras on the side of the car.

• 11:34Chuck Nice?

  Or the driver in the in the car, out on the side of the car, yeah.

• 11:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 11:40Speaker 03

  The NASCAR is an easy one. You just bolt it onto the, you know, to the car itself. If you're trying to put something on a person, you know how hard it is as an athlete. I don't want the extra weight, bulkiness, like if it's gonna get in the way. And then a big question we see with just data coming off the athlete is, um, who owns the data?

• 11:57Gary O'Reilly?

  Right.

• 11:58Speaker 03

  If you're gonna sell this for fan engagement, I want my upside.

• 12:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, of course.

• 12:02Speaker 03

  Hey, you're gonna be able to tell the fans what's going on, which the fans absolutely wanna know, both on and off the field. They wanna know more about those athletes, like maybe I wanna share everything I'm doing every day, every night, every second. Um, so there's this tension right now and quality control where who owns the data? Where does it go? Do I even trust the data coming off the athlete?

• 12:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 12:21Speaker 03

  I wanna own as an athlete and sell it, make my upside versus putting the properties on it.

• 12:25Chuck Nice?

  Not to mention the manipulation of that data too, which which will be an issue at hand. Because the, once data exists, the fact is you can do stuff with it. So it's not even a matter of just consuming it. You're gonna have like, for instance, when you talk about the wraparound stadium, what you'll be able to do is remix games so that the NFL game that you saw on Sunday through Fox. Somebody else will come in and remix that game so that it's a completely different experience for other people to see. And then it's like, wow, who owns that? And what happens with the YouTube viewers? It's a whole big thing, man.

• 13:01Speaker 03

  User-generated content, you know, hey, I can do it better than Fox or NBC. Like, look at the angles I found. I mean, that is a big form of engagement in the future. So, you know, who owns the data? Who owns the feeds? Who can do it better? Like, we call them fluid fans at Sports Innovation Lab. Fluid fans want control, agency, personalization. So, yeah, who owns it and how can we use it? And not to see seen as like a limitation, but an opportunity to engage your fans is I think the future.

• 13:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And that's going to be worth something financially.

• 13:32Chuck Nice?

  Absolutely.

• 13:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The fan will pay for that, and then you want the player.

• 13:36Gary O'Reilly?

  It's another layer of.

• 13:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another layer.

• 13:38Gary O'Reilly?

  Of income revenue.

• 13:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Another economic layer.

• 13:40Gary O'Reilly?

  But the biggest problem, and Angela, you'll know this as an athlete as well, I don't want my personal biodata out there because I might have an injury that I've been coping with privately that I don't want a team that might buy me as an athlete to know about, and therefore I get a reduced contract offer in the future. So there's all those sort of, and that's where the players' unions, I'm sure, are in.

• 14:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Or you could be injured in some way that you've been hiding, and another player knows that, and then they'll check you on that shoulder.

• 14:06Gary O'Reilly?

  See what I'm saying? See what this is? This is love.

• 14:10Speaker 03

  No, it's a good point, though, because the athlete, but also might have the opportunity to sell that data to sports bettors now.

• 14:18Chuck Nice?

  That's right.

• 14:19Speaker 03

  Again, that's a whole other industry. Hey, I want to use that for social media, so my fans actually know me, and I'm willing to give you my heart rate and things that, you know, maybe I'm not going to sell to these companies or the league, so.

• 14:32Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I won't give you my heart, but I'll give you my heart rate.

• 14:36Gary O'Reilly?

  Ah, just in time for Valentine's. Here's my BPMs, baby.

• 14:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So Angela, we got to wrap up this segment, but a quick question. Did you play hockey for Harvard?

• 14:45Speaker 03

  I did.

• 14:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so you must know Oliver Barrett.

• 14:48Speaker 03

  I don't.

• 14:52Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  He was, that's the character in the movie Love Story.

• 14:56Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, yeah, I know Love Story.

• 14:57Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course. So he played hockey for Harvard. And the reason why I'm even bringing this up is there was an innovative camera angle in one of his hockey games where they put the camera at the base of the, of the hockey stick. And you were with the puck as he maneuvered the puck down. I think that's the open, actually. Down the ice. So what, so think about, if you haven't done it already, of all the points of view in a game you're gonna watch, one of them might be the puck.

• 15:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, actually, the NHL has invested in player puck tracking. So you can track the puck now and the player and the angles that they're getting, both from, like, it's gonna help the teams understand strategy, but now the fans are gonna better understand the sport. It's a whole new investment. If, if you haven't seen it, they, you know, the NHL is just launching it, but it's exactly that. You put a chip in puck and follow the players with cameras. And that will, again, enhance the, the viewing experience and, and obviously impact strategy down the line. So player puck tracking is a thing.

• 15:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Of course, that movie was.

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Love Story, yes.

• 16:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That movie was 50 years ago, so I, you know. They had movies 50 years ago? We're gonna wrap up this segment. When we come back, more StarTalk's Sports Edition, The Future of Technology in Sport, with our special guest, Angela Ruggiero. Stay tuned.

• 16:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  StarTalk, we're back. Sports Edition. Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly. We've got on a live video Angela Ruggiero, a multi-four-time Olympian. She's CEO of her own company up in Boston that's studying the future of tech and sports as it applies to the sport itself, the players, and even the fans. So, it's a Cosmic Queries edition. So Chuck, you're next up.

• 17:06Chuck Nice?

  All right, so this is-

• 17:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  By the way, the first segment, we only got through one question, so-

• 17:10Chuck Nice?

  That's fine.

• 17:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's all right, okay. With one brilliant answer.

• 17:12Chuck Nice?

  Angela gives wonderful information. In that one answer, we covered so much ground.

• 17:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:19Chuck Nice?

  So-

• 17:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Give it to me.

• 17:20Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, anybody who has a problem with it, you know what? Shut up, hockey puck. All right. Shut up, you hockey puck. All right, here we go. This is AskForSigurVincent, um, and he's a Patreon patron, which means that-

• 17:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You better pronounce his name right. Try again.

• 17:35Chuck Nice?

  Um, that's his name. AskForSigurVincent. Yeah.

• 17:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:39Chuck Nice?

  I'm good with the Nordic names.

• 17:40Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:41Chuck Nice?

  It's the regular names I have a problem with.

• 17:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right.

• 17:43Chuck Nice?

  Like, you know. Uh, he says, "Could AI and big data one day be viewed as an unfair advantage? Now, only to the teams stupid enough not to use it."

• 17:53Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah, yeah, so Angela, what about how level the playing field is? If one team decides they're not going to invest in a gym with exercise equipment, well, they will, but not as much as some other team, and they put the extra budget into AI, big data, tech to analyze performance to boost their competitive advantage? Is that, is that an unfair, is that a non-level playing field?

• 18:16Speaker 03

  It's already, it's already happening. And teams that aren't investing it are already losing ground. I mean, you, I think you expect as an athlete, uh, you know, we, VR, AR is an example. VR is a big thing. You know, it's fun, but there are companies now saying, "Hey, we don't want the reps on the body of the athletes. Give them some virtual training where they can practice scenario analysis without the impact on them as a person." So we're already seeing investments in these kind of technologies that, again, uh, level the playing field in some cases, but give a, give a massive, um, advantage to, to, to- Look, every team is different. Some are making decisions on their guts still and they get in the gym and work harder, not smarter.

• 18:59Chuck Nice?

  Yeah, well, they're stupid.

• 19:00Speaker 03

  You know, that's unfortunately the case, but the the smartest companies, or excuse me, teams are saying, why not take advantage of all this personalized tech to give, again, a personalized experience? And that's about understanding who you are. I played hockey. There's five, six people on the ice, different positions, different ages, different injuries, different requirements, positions. We shouldn't train the same exact way. The investments in that that personalized training is is where we see a lot of the investment being made.

• 19:29Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So you're saying a headset can replace some training where you're getting your brain familiar with setups and configurations on the ice or on the field?

• 19:41Chuck Nice?

  Not just some.

• 19:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And without putting your body at risk, because it's still, even if it's softer contact, somebody's still hitting you.

• 19:47Chuck Nice?

  It's not just some. I mean, I'm not speaking as an expert, but I just read an uh an article in Scientific American about um.

• 19:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're so proud of you, Chuck.

• 19:55Chuck Nice?

  Thanks, man.

• 19:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But uh. Angelo, you proud of him? He's our in-house comedian and he comes to my house saying he's reading Scientific American. I'm proud of you, Chuck.

• 20:03Chuck Nice?

  I I have a subscription. But neurologically, what happens is the visual cortex is engaged in such a way that experientially, your brain is going through that experience.

• 20:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 20:15Chuck Nice?

  So you are literally in the game.

• 20:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 20:18Chuck Nice?

  As far as your brain is concerned, when you are training visually with these headsets.

• 20:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You're in the matrix.

• 20:25Gary O'Reilly?

  So the thing is, Angelo, this this has this virtual reality that's constructed is brilliant for quarterbacks that are sort of third and fourth string. They don't get game time. They're not gonna get reps. So that but they are learning to to, this is game development. So they bring up their game to a speed without getting smashed to bits. Now, the also thing in soccer, they use it for a coaching aid, where a coach can take himself into a game. And realize why a player made a certain decision. Same with ice hockey. Why did that pass go there? Why did that happen here? Now, that's a now. Where do you see this evolving? Where do you see the next iteration of this going?

• 21:05Speaker 03

  I think it's just, it'll be the, the bare minimum that you're gonna, again, have use and application of all these technologies to give you table stakes. We talked about the 10,000 hours to be an elite athlete. And that required getting on a car, driving to practice. Like, maybe you can accelerate those 10,000 hours because you're doing some of it virtually. In the future, now you're focused more on the skills components and the personalization versus, you know, just pounding the pavement and getting your reps in. But, you know, the thing I'm most excited for outside of just the athletes is actually the fans. So those that are using, you know, technologies that are gonna give you a more personalized experience as a fan, maybe personalized chatbots, they know kind of, I walk in the door,

• 21:50Speaker 03

  they know who I am, what I like, what I, you know, what kind of athlete, they're personalizing my, the jersey they send to my house, the beer that I like to drink while I'm there. They, literally everything. I mean, that, I think, is one thing I'm really excited for. Because you can make money by winning championships or just having a killer fan journey.

• 22:08Gary O'Reilly?

  Fan experience. So let me ask you, what's, what is it happening?

• 22:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's kind of already, they've already been trying to do that at stadiums.

• 22:15Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I was about to say, what's happening now at stadiums to, to increase the fan experience? I haven't been to a stadium in a while, so that's why I'm asking. It's been a while since I've been to any.

• 22:26Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Especially since, what is your urge to go to a stadium if you can stay home with an 85-inch flat panel monitor?

• 22:31Gary O'Reilly?

  Guilty as charged.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  That's the, that is the tension in this world right now is the majority of fans can stay home, have a great experience, have 10 screens open, a second screen, a third screen, watch multiple sports, personalize their content. Like, so what's the impetus to get up and have that hassle to get to the stadium and the cost? To do that and bring your family and it's all about that smart venue is what we call it at Sports Innovation Lab. It's about creating a personalized experience. Maybe you're, you don't have to deal with security now because you, you know, think about Clear. You guys use Clear?

• 23:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I use Clear, yeah, I use Clear.

• 23:10Speaker 03

  I love it. They're coming into stadiums now. So now you use your biometrics, you walk right in. Maybe now your identification is attached to that. So you're using your thumbprint and your eyes to order, you're over 21, you can order food. Maybe you have a tab now. Oh, Angela's in the venue. Again, I may bring up beer. Huh. They know I like IPA. So they're gonna flash some, you know, coupon or free drink, some sort of engagement around the kind of food and beverages I like. And you know who my favorite athlete is as a, as a venue, as a, as a property owner. And now LeBron James gives me a ride home from the stadium. Nah. You just have to do more to service this, you know, fluid fan, we call it. And that is the big hurdle that a lot of these properties are trying to figure out. Like,

• 23:54Speaker 03

  you can't just rely on the field anymore. If you're winning, fantastic. But the majority of teams do not win. They don't win the championship. So what are you gonna do to get them off their butts, get in the stadium and make them have a great experience?

• 24:06Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  The majority of teams do not win championships.

• 24:08Speaker 03

  That's right. Exactly.

• 24:09Gary O'Reilly?

  See, someone you'll know, is it John Ledecky at the Islanders?

• 24:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:14Gary O'Reilly?

  They're building this new arena in Belmont on Long Island and he's, he was describing-

• 24:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Belmont Racetrack?

• 24:20Gary O'Reilly?

  Yes.

• 24:21Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  At the area there.

• 24:22Gary O'Reilly?

  Exactly what you've just described, where you get face recognition, they welcome you, your family, who are your guests, and they know what you ordered last time. And they're saying, would you like to repeat that order? And he said, what, what we want to try and do is rather than have you sat in traffic an hour or however long it takes to, once you leave the arena, he said, build areas where you could go and watch things, be entertained, have free wifi, and you can spend that hour enjoying yourself, not sat in your car. So that's the thinking that's currently coming through.

• 24:50Speaker 03

  Threefold increase in the last 10 years in what we call these entertainment districts. So you don't build a stadium anymore, you build a district. Cause everyone can't get in, they can't afford to get in, maybe don't want to get in, they just want to be a part of the atmosphere. They could care less about the sport. It's about entertainment. It's about, again, you're capturing more of their, their wallet share and their time share at the end of the day. I think that is the most important thing I've learned at Sports Innovation Lab. We are in the attention economy. Sports is awesome. I love it. I played it. I want people to love- But we cannot drop the ball and not take advantage of tech and all these amazing innovations to get people engaged. Now, that's what Belmont is doing. They're saying,

• 25:27Chuck Nice?

  Cool.

• 25:27Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 25:27Speaker 03

  Alright, maybe you don't want to go to the game and watch the Islanders, but you want to be a part of what everyone else is doing.

• 25:33Chuck Nice?

  You know what? That, that basically sums up what the Super Bowl is. The majority of people watching the Super Bowl on Super Bowl Sunday are not football fans. They just want to be a part of the Super Bowl cultural experience.

• 25:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right, right.

• 25:51Gary O'Reilly?

  Cool.

• 25:51Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, next question.

• 25:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Alright, let's go. So, we've got David John Chase on Facebook. "Is there any thought as to how strategies or techniques suggested by a computer analysis affect the entertainment value of sport?" So, in other words, I'm guessing-

• 26:07Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Interesting.

• 26:07Gary O'Reilly?

  "Should, should we now, as an entertainment business, be constructing plays that are more entertaining than plays that are just there to outright win?"

• 26:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I love that question.

• 26:17Speaker 03

  That's a, that's a really interesting question. I mean, I'd say if you own the team or you want to win because you make more money when you win.

• 26:25Chuck Nice?

  Exactly.

• 26:26Speaker 03

  But I think what I'm seeing more of here at Sports Innovation Lab is, is what are the ways we can create more shoulder content, more, maybe not on the field of play, we can control it, but to your point of the Super Bowl, everyone knows that J-Lo's gonna be, you know, the halftime show and people wait to see the commercials and they want to know about what the athletes are doing 24/7 now and like, a small fraction of what we consume as sports fans now is actually the game. A lot of it is all the stuff that surrounds it and that's where maybe the investment dollars should be thought to, to go as opposed to, you know, manipulate the game. I don't know as a purist if I'd ever want that to happen.

• 27:06Chuck Nice?

  I don't think it would happen anyway because quite frankly, most fans are interested in winning more. What entertains a fan, if you're that fan, is seeing your team win?

• 27:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well, I, I, let me give an example.

• 27:17Chuck Nice?

  Go ahead.

• 27:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. I'm on a basketball court and I break away. And I know I got a teammate right behind me, okay? I'm, I could make the easy layup, but I do not. I toss it- Against the backboard.

• 27:29Chuck Nice?

  Alley-oop.

• 27:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You bounces off the backboard and the guy behind me catches it in midair and slams it. And I am on SportsCenter that night.

• 27:37Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 27:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And plays of the day.

• 27:38Chuck Nice?

  Because you're showboating.

• 27:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Well.

• 27:40Chuck Nice?

  That's what you're doing. You're a showboat.

• 27:42Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, so we analyze it and say, that gives extra fan engagement, extra social media.

• 27:46Chuck Nice?

  You're right.

• 27:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Repostings.

• 27:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 27:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, so that makes sports that much more of an entertainment commodity than simply, are you making the shot?

• 27:56Chuck Nice?

  Right, well, let me just, and I'll let Angela get in on this too. But what you just said is more of a jazz-like improvisation than it is a designed play that's put into the game for the purposes, express purpose of entertaining the fan.

• 28:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  But at some point, somebody had to invent the alley-oop, alright?

• 28:12Chuck Nice?

  Alright.

• 28:12Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I would bet that half the alley-oops ever done were completely unnecessary. Because the person who tossed the alley-oop probably could have taken the shot themselves.

• 28:23Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 28:23Gary O'Reilly?

  Probably was a shot.

• 28:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Initially, it was a shot. So, Angela, what is your sense of that? And I'll lead with another example. Because I remember, I was alive and aware in the early days of computing when this happened. Jugglers, the three-ball juggle, where you can toss one into another like this, and another one is they go in a circle. There's a juggle sequence that a computer discovered that no one had ever thought of before. And then it got introduced into the juggling repertoire.

• 28:56Chuck Nice?

  Mm-mm.

• 28:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And so, this would be computing saying, you know, here's a thing you've never done before on a hockey field, right?

• 29:04Chuck Nice?

  Is there any usage of artificial intelligence in play design?

• 29:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Play design, there it is.

• 29:09Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah.

• 29:10Speaker 03

  So, we're seeing, obviously, if the alley-oop isn't going to affect the outcome because you're going to score one way or the other, like, that makes sense, of course. Like, the NBA is all about entertainment. There's more opportunity for entertainment with individual athletes than with team sports. I mean, even going into the locker room and getting access, like, that's a cultural shift to allow fans to engage in that way. I don't know if... You know, I'm not seeing anything prescriptively about on the field of play. We're seeing a ton about fan engagement off the field of play. So not as bullish, obviously, on changing plays or changing techniques, you know, AI affecting. Now, AI is absolutely affecting predictive analytics.

• 29:55Speaker 03

  Again, back to sports betting.

• 29:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 29:57Speaker 03

  Um, we know that, you know, there's, there's been some simulations around EA Sports and Madden, and they've, they've actually predicted 10 of the last 15 Super Bowl victories based on video game simulations.

• 30:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh.

• 30:10Speaker 03

  So that's like, okay, they're using it to predict outcomes, but they're not actually, it's, it's not the coach sitting there saying, hmm, what's, now, there's, there's football leagues being designed. York Hall Football, Fan Control Football, which are saying, hey, fans, pick which one you want. And so the coach says, here are four different options. You go online and pick and because of low latency, you can see the play in real time and, and actually have impact in what play that, that coach will call. Of course, they can override it in certain cases. They're like, you fans are idiots. I know what's going to win the game.

• 30:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  But for the most part, that is fan engagement and it's based on this, which is crazy.

• 30:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 30:48Speaker 03

  I just don't know, again, is that what the future holds? Are people going to say, I want to sit back and relax and just watch?

• 30:54Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right. What else am I paying for? For you to make the decision.

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 30:58Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  As I can. We got to take a break. We'll come back with our third segment of StarTalk Sports Edition.

• 31:25Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition, Cosmic Queries.

• 31:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Angela on the line, hockey great.

• 31:32Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:34Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  CEO of.

• 31:36Chuck Nice?

  Was it Sports Innovation Lab?

• 31:38Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Innovation Lab, Olympian, gold medalist and Hall of Famer.

• 31:44Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 31:44Gary O'Reilly?

  And the right person for this show.

• 31:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And she has all her teeth.

• 31:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow.

• 31:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's, that's the most, forget the medals, she's got all her teeth.

• 31:51Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 31:52Gary O'Reilly?

  Yeah, I think everybody in this conversation is pleased with that.

• 31:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Alright, so in this last segment, let's see how many, if we can get more questions squeezed in.

• 32:00Chuck Nice?

  Okay.

• 32:00Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So we tighten up the question and the answer, what do you have?

• 32:02Chuck Nice?

  Alright, here we go, here we go, this is Michael Tobias from Patreon. Uh, he says, hello Dr. Tyson, uh, and Angela. One day will advancements in sports technology eventually lead to athletes not requiring as much talent.

• 32:16Gary O'Reilly?

  Ooh.

• 32:17Chuck Nice?

  To be considered exceptional. Uh, and as for fandom, will advancements in sports watching technology lead to nobody wanting to then, uh, attend events in person? We kinda touched on that just a second ago.

• 32:30Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 32:30Chuck Nice?

  But I like this idea of, could it lead to a decrease in necessary talent? Kind of like the Moneyball thing, you know, where you're going after such specific skillsets that maybe this guy doesn't have to be an all-around ball player, all-around skater, all-around hockey player. I just need you to do this one thing. I- i- is that, is there any fear of that?

• 32:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, specialization is always, I think, um, part of what sport, we're all trying to perfect, you know, our output at the end of the day. I think it'll make us smarter in our choices of who we select to be on teams. Um, it'll be less based on gut and more based on this Moneyball. What does the data say? Um, at the end of the day though, you can't measure heart. You can't look at, you know, something like a skill-based sport through the lens of tech. I mean, there's certain things that you can learn more about, but you need the athlete to, to deliver on. But say those skill-based things and like performance in the clutch. So I still think sports will always be, have the human element, but it certainly will make it smarter in ways that will again, prevent injury and,

• 33:39Speaker 03

  and allow the right talent to be selected for the right roles.

• 33:43Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I, I, I'd like that answer because what it puts right out up front is, at the end of the day, the elite athlete is not simply the person who's physically fit. Cause you can, that's a dime a dozen, it's the person whose brain, whose mind can take them to a new place. And be and perform in the clutch, perform under pressure, perform with fans screaming, perform. That's not any old person. That's that's the rare.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  That's the elite. At the end of the day, it's the mind. It's like you get to the Olympics and everyone's good. And it's who's gonna show up on that one day and perform and.

• 34:18Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  With their game and play. Yeah.

• 34:20Chuck Nice?

  By the way, Angela, I just got a text from my cardiologist. He says, yes, Angela, yes, you can measure heart.

• 34:32Gary O'Reilly?

  Why is your cardiologist listening to? Right. Okay. Next one. All right. Andrew Sediger on Facebook. He's got two daughters who are speed skaters. So kind of in your realm of expertise. I know there's been some huge advancement in skin suits, materials and technology. I dream the day when the suit will provide real time data on athletes' performance. Isn't that already out there in terms of the suits?

• 34:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  These are these are suits that monitor you medically, I guess, right?

• 34:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, it depends on the sport, but we're seeing that, you know, increasing, you know, investment in in getting data coming off the athlete because if you can know in real time, hey, this athlete's overheating, this athlete's tired due to injury, you can track just their speed alone. You're talking about speed skating. I mean, so much better than a stopwatch, you know, coach on the corner doing this or so if if you can get down to the the millisecond, again, usually there's technologies in the skate. And that's how they review, you know, who won the the race, so to speak, but the but having something on your body is so accurate and it's going to allow in the future a lot more different data points. And data for data's sake, not good. It's the analysis that we always sort

• 35:42Speaker 03

  of skip over. It's like, what does that tell you? What does that mean? How do you change your training regimen based on that?

• 35:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Right.

• 35:48Chuck Nice?

  Wow. Cool.

• 35:49Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That'll separate the clever people from the people who just want to get data because it sounds like it's a cool thing to get data. Yeah. At the end of the day, is what is your understanding and interpretation of the data? Well, that's true in science and all of science. Yeah. Yeah. Data's cheap. It's the analysis and understanding that separates what you do with it. All right. Give me another one, quick.

• 36:06Chuck Nice?

  All right. Here we go.

• 36:09Chuck Nice?

  Rajtilak Kapoor says.

• 36:11Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  I don't believe any of these names you're reading.

• 36:13Chuck Nice?

  Listen, man.

• 36:14Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's what's there.

• 36:15Chuck Nice?

  It's right there, Rajtilak.

• 36:16Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  You just sound like you don't know what you're reading, but go on.

• 36:19Chuck Nice?

  No, it's such a common Indian name. What's up, Raj?

• 36:24Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Go.

• 36:24Chuck Nice?

  All right, here we go. He says, hey, hey, StarTalk team. Thanks for continuing your amazing work in making science inspirational. My question is this. Almost every competitive sport has its own version of the argument of who is the greatest of all time. Will the application of AI and other technologies finally be able to give us a definitive answer of who is the greatest of all time in any sport?

• 36:46Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So this would be, you'd have to, and often is the case, someone from yesteryear who excelled, could they beat someone today kind of thing? Yeah. So does that go on? And it's certainly a fan interest topic, whether or not, you know, the athletes themselves give a rat's ass, but fans argue about this all the time.

• 37:07Chuck Nice?

  By the way, yes, they do.

• 37:08Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  In bars.

• 37:09Speaker 03

  Someone's going to come up with some algorithm that, you know, they're going to claim or definitively say who's the best athlete. I think it's even just within a sport, the debate is so incredibly hard because we just talked about performance technology on the athlete. You know, you've got better ways to train now through technology. You've got better analytics on, you know, you know, better bats, better balls. And so athletes in general have more resources at their fingertips. So they should be getting better, faster, stronger, more efficient, more lean. But then to compare by sport, I mean, someone's going to have to do the weighting and say, well, hockey player has X, Y, and Z, and we should weight relative to a swimmer. That I think is all subjective. I don't believe

• 37:53Speaker 03

  whoever's going to rank it is going to be objective.

• 37:56Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay, I get that, but the other.

• 37:58Speaker 03

  I have a problem with the who's the greatest of all time because it's which, who do you respect? Which sport do you respect?

• 38:04Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  What I think the way you do that is, you say, how great were you in your day relative to other players?

• 38:11Speaker 03

  In your sport, I think that's smart. But how would you then rank a swimmer to a hockey player compared to a soccer player, footballer?

• 38:19Chuck Nice?

  Well, then, I don't think you could do it. And also, true, you're definitely going to have a bias. And even if you write an algorithm, that algorithm is going to reflect the bias that you have for the sport, without a doubt.

• 38:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Unless we build AI, that'll have its own AI bias.

• 38:36Gary O'Reilly?

  All right, next one up. Right, Chris Cherry is in Queensland, Australia, and he's on Instagram. Hi Angela, hi Neil. My question is, the new technology making sport more difficult for poorer countries to be competitive? If your country or club can't afford the latest tech, how can they be expected to compete at the highest levels?

• 38:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Oh, excellent. Angela, what are you doing about that, Angela?

• 38:59Gary O'Reilly?

  Well, this refers maybe to your Olympic experience.

• 39:01Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  No, you're talking about an Olympic? Yeah.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  I think it's one of the best questions. There's over 205 national Olympic committees in the world. There's, you know, 40 or 50 international federations. They come from everywhere, different socioeconomic backgrounds, you know, there's different access at the end of the day. Do I want to see technology making the richer better? Or tech in my head should level the playing field? Should everyone should have access to this information? The suits shouldn't be so expensive that only the, you know, the rich countries have access to it. So I think it's philosophically, right now, yes, I do think the professional organizations are the ones that can afford a lot of this technology to help their athletes perform better. But I think in the future, just like any technology, it gets more accessible, more

• 39:48Speaker 03

  cost effective through time as it grows and scales. And that's what I would love to see as an Olympic athlete. That's about like, you should be able to win a gold based on who you are and how you train, not what you can afford. Is it happening? Absolutely. I mean, that's why we see everyone with a new product goes to the NFL or the Premier League or the, you know, the biggest organizations to sell first and not, you know, the National Olympic Committee of, you know, X, Y, and Z. But in the future, that's why I love what we're doing is some of this technology, we're talking specifically about the athlete, should allow broad access and broad information, a wearable. Used in the right way should be at a price point that everyone could track their

• 40:30Speaker 03

  heart rate and benefit from it if they use the information correctly. So I don't know if I'm answering it, but I hope.

• 40:37Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And I'm reminded, the opposite of that was Rocky versus Drago.

• 40:41Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 40:41Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Because Drago had all the Russian technology.

• 40:43Chuck Nice?

  He was made in a lab.

• 40:45Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And Rocky's just, you know. I'm punching meat and screaming for Adrian. I do it for Philadelphia. Okay. By the way, this thing about Angela, exactly what you said, there's a point where technology, however flashy it is when it first comes out with only access by rich people, there's a point where the technology commoditizes.

• 41:09Chuck Nice?

  Right.

• 41:09Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  And then it gets spread to the masses. And in fact, usually when it first comes out, it's not very good.

• 41:13Chuck Nice?

  No, like cell phones.

• 41:15Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Like the early cell phones were like.

• 41:16Chuck Nice?

  They sucked.

• 41:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They sucked. Okay. And once they became commoditized, there's economic value to making it affordable to as many people as possible. So I'm just echoing the point you made, that you're absolutely right technologically, that that's the arc of technology. Yes, the rich people have it first, but ultimately it works out. So you want, and you want at least the price point to be accessible to the poorest of nations. And not maybe the Olympic, the International Olympic Committee could have a pot of money just to help countries come along. I mean, that.

• 41:46Chuck Nice?

  They do.

• 41:47Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  They do.

• 41:48Chuck Nice?

  Yeah.

• 41:48Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. Okay. All right.

• 41:49Chuck Nice?

  All right. So here we go. It's me, Han Wee says this. Hey, Dr. Tyson and Angela, I love you guys. Above all else, what is the role of sports in our lives? Are we the only animals that engage in this type of behavior? Is the meaning of sports changing with the development of technology and AI and AR? What is, why do we do this? Why, Angela? Why do we do this? Why do we kill ourselves for?

• 42:19Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Wait, wait. Isn't it just a replacement for war? Angela, what do you think?

• 42:23Speaker 03

  I think sports is one of the most impactful ways we can. Teach our children how to be good people, how to learn, how to work as a team, how to set goals, how to have, you know, determination, leadership skills, know when to, you're not, you know, when to step. I mean, there's so many life lessons in sport. The best societies, in my opinion, value sport, make sport accessible to everyone, boys and girls. It isn't just about professionalism. I think the role of sport and leading organizations is to make sure that they're not just making money, but that they're growing sport in their regions, within all communities. So, love this question because the role of sport isn't

• 43:05Speaker 03

  about sport and entertainment. Yes, that's the business we're in, that most people view sport through the lens of that. But, you know, here in the US, we have the NCAA, where you can get a great education. And in youth sports across the world, it's about, again, teaching these life skills in a safe environment that isn't, you're gonna fail. You know, you can, you fall and get back up. Your dad says, "Get back out there. I don't care if you got cut." Hey, your mom says, you know, "You got knocked over or called a name. You're gonna be okay." You win a game, you learned what it feels like to succeed as a team. And that's, that's business. That's life. So, the role of sport, I think, needs to continue to be a focal area. And PE's getting cut all the time. In the US, it's privatized. Sport is privatized.

• 43:49Speaker 03

  That is unlike the rest of the world, where there's actually a sports minister that oversees the growth of sport. And that is fundamentally different way that we've structured our, you know, the, the way that we teach our children. So, role of sport should be enhanced. I like tech because it makes these athletes smarter, parents are gonna make better decisions for their kids. And ultimately, would deliver a, a better fan experience, fan journey, for those that just wanna see it and be inspired. And sport brings communities together. Let's not, you know, let's think about the Super Bowl, the Olympics, the World Cup. It's about bringing people together, not bringing people apart. And so-

• 44:23Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So, we shouldn't think about when they overturn cars at the end of a game that you, they lose. We shouldn't think about that.

• 44:28Speaker 03

  Well, there's some insurance policy out by that organizing committee to cover the cost of that.

• 44:32Chuck Nice?

  By the way, those people came together to flip over that car.

• 44:35Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Yeah.

• 44:36Chuck Nice?

  Those people were cooperating while they were riding.

• 44:39Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  That's cooperation.

• 44:41Chuck Nice?

  That's cooperation at work.

• 44:45Gary O'Reilly?

  That's more a social issue than a sports issue. And I totally endorse what Angela's just said about how powerful sport is as a tool for unification, as a tool for a greater good.

• 44:55Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  So let me ask you, I'm gonna end with a final question to you, coming from me, not from these sheets. Are you a mother?

• 45:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 45:02Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay. What is your comment on the fact that kids today get medals for participating rather than for winning? The idea of losing has somehow become something that would be, bring too much emotional stress upon the child. And so, sports in the school systems, or young school systems, are reconceived so that everyone is a winner. Hmm.

• 45:34Speaker 03

  So, you learn more when you lose than when you win, in my opinion. It actually forces you to look backwards instead of just forward. But I also think that Norway is a great example of sporting culture. Everyone plays sport for life. There, they keep score of the game, but they don't keep score of the winner at the end of the season. They're not dissuading kids by saying, "You suck." You should, you know, a lot of kids here, they're not good because they've lost at a young age, and they're not reinforced it's okay to lose. It's okay to learn. Like, that's just part of the process. And so, kids quit. That's what I don't like in this win-loss scenario. So, we gotta teach kids, "It's okay to fail. You're not gonna get a trophy." I'm all for that.

• 46:17Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Okay.

• 46:18Speaker 03

  But that we overemphasize winning here. So, I'd like to see a better balance of, "Losing is okay. We actually encourage you to lose. It's about what you do to respond to that loss versus, 'Here's a trophy. Get back out there.'"

• 46:31Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  Why? Okay.

• 46:32Gary O'Reilly?

  That's your answer.

• 46:33Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  There it is. It's a good answer. Well, Angela, thank you for being on StarTalk Sports Edition. We probably want to reach out to you again. We loved your answers, and I just want to bottle them and somehow Yeah. Spread the wisdom and insight that you have brought to this program. Fantastic.

• 46:49Speaker 03

  Thanks, guys.

• 46:50Neil deGrasse Tyson?

  All right, Chuck, thanks for doing this. Always. Gary. Pleasure. Angela, again. So, I've been Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As always, I bid you to keep looking out.