Pod Insights StarTalk Podcast Stadiums of the Future with Architect Benjamin Brillat (Re-release) About this episode What will stadiums look like in the future? Neil deGrasse Tyson, Chuck Nice, and Gary O’Reilly investigate stadium technology and “future-proofing” in Los Angeles’s SoFi Stadium with Chief Infrastructure Architect at IBM Sports, Benjamin Brillat.
Transcript 11,390 words · 7 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Welcome to StarTalk, your place in the universe where science and pop culture collide. StarTalk begins right now.
0:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is StarTalk Sports Edition. I got Gary O'Reilly with me. Gary?
0:20 Gary O'Reilly? Hey Neil.
0:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, Gary, you're gonna take us someplace. Let me dredge my memories from a cup, pre-COVID I think this was.
0:29 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, just rewind two years.
0:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Was there a world before COVID? Did the world exist?
0:36 Gary O'Reilly? It feels like a lifetime ago, but only two years ago. And this is, as I say, it's something that we're looking at and it's our trademark. We look at things in a very StarTalkian manner. And this is a perfect, perfect show for us to introduce in the February of a new year. So back in February 2020, we released a show called "Stadiums of the Future." Now, it's interesting because the stadium we picked hadn't been constructed yet. It was still in the process of finding itself. Now, that stadium is the SoFi Stadium and that will be the venue for this year's big game.
1:18 Gary O'Reilly? The NFL's big game, the 56th time it's taken place. And we're not allowed to say the S-word, they get all upset. Now, the thing is, if you remember Neil, we actually sent you there in a hard hat and a high-vis vest to go and find out what it was like to see this thing emerge and what the logistical challenges were and how it came to be and the people that were behind bringing it. This is a very StarTalkian approach to sports and a stadium because there's no athletes, there's no head coaches, there's no TV dramas. There's just the guys and the girls that bring this thing to fruition. So, if you remember, the SoFi has this gigantic transparent roof
2:02 Gary O'Reilly? and it doesn't have that bigger profile out of the ground because it's been sunken because it is directly underneath the flight path to LAX.
2:12 Gary O'Reilly? So go on, Neil, give me a thought of what it was like to walk into that arena as it was being constructed.
2:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, I remember that. First, there was the bit of pride when you speak to the engineers for what it is they were designing for it. What kind of technologies would enable and empower not only future teams who play there, but future visitors? So it was a delight. I was geeking out, basically. And I'd forgotten that, yes, this stadium is sunken into the ground. Kind of like, I think the Rose Bowl is partly underground as well in Pasadena, if memory serves. And so that gives it a much lower profile on the horizon. Otherwise, it just kind of sticks out, you know, like a sore thumb. But the fact that it has a lower profile, and you're right, it's on the takeoff and landing path of LAX.
3:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So they were, I was gonna say they were considerate for this. That's not just being considerate, that's being safe, all right? There's probably some legal limits surrounding that as well. But just to look at how they were attempting to future-proof this stadium. And I was there not knowing that it would one day carry the big game. What do you mean, the bowl that is super, that game?
3:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, no, so I was delighted and I asked, I think, all the right questions. And we had a good time feeling the enthusiasm.
3:40 Gary O'Reilly? As well as sending you out into the great wild of the SoFi Stadium, we had a guest, and this guest is from IBM Sports. He's the chief infrastructure architect at IBM Sport, a guy called Ben Brillat. And he was involved in the construction of the Mercedes-Benz Dome in Atlanta. If you know the Atlanta Dome, it has this sort of tethelated lotus flower roof that opens up. It's magnificent. And he he explained to us to to do this, and the same with the so far, you have to be thinking five, 10, maybe even 15 years advance for technologies that are going to emerge,
4:21 Gary O'Reilly? but that you are able to adapt to. Otherwise, you have to, you've got a stadium that doesn't work. I mean, there are stadiums now that have probably been constructed in the early 2000s, but as far as technologies that we have now in the 20 in 2022 is more or less obsolete.
4:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, so there are two, so Gary, there are two challenges there. So one of them is, yeah, you want to future-proof everything you do in all construction. But future-proofing involves projecting, and the scientific word for that is extrapolating. When when data are informing your future expectations, it's called extrapolating. So you have a plot of the way things are trending, and you say, now, let me continue the slope of that line that of these parameters that I plotted and go into the future and have this this thing I'm building today be able to accommodate this growth curve. That works to a point. Problem occurs, and you're right, Gary, it's typically a 15-year horizon.
5:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? People can be good if you if you invest brain energy projecting five to 10 years out. 15 years, you know, it begins to happen. You get discoveries and inventions that come out of left field or come in from the end zone. Whatever reference, whatever sports reference.
5:37 Gary O'Reilly? Which ever works.
5:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Whatever reference you're comfortable with, but it comes from a different place. It comes from a place that's not even on the plot on the chart that you were using to make those predictions. And that, those are game changers for everything. So, you know, I don't know what a good example would that be. Okay, here's one. How are you gonna, this is not a big challenge because we had accommodated it, but it's an example. You want a future kitchen, and you say, well, what kind of modern stoves are we going to have? Okay, they might be electric, so let me put the stove near a power plug. That'll future-proof it. Okay, maybe there's some other electricity that needs to go. Let me make a conduit there to, and you do all of this, and then a microwave oven shows up. Who ordered that?
6:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know, that's not an extrapolation of a modern oven that involves heat and flames or coils. It's a whole other technology. So where do you put that? So, modern kitchens, of course, are designed to fit those comfortably and nicely. That was not much of a stretch as far as construction goes, but you can imagine something that would be completely transformative that would make SoFi Stadium look like something like Wrigley Field.
6:50 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, I mean, the thing is, they will want to leave intentional space to accommodate anything new and the hardware that needs to be in place for that new technology to be productive. I mean, the other thing they did was they earthquake-proofed, because it's downtown L.A. and things shake and wobble on occasion.
7:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Shake and bake, yeah.
7:11 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, they earthquake-proofed the whole stadium. Now, this is a big deal. This is a four billion, beginning with a B, billion-dollar project. I mean, it is an entertainment.
7:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But just to be clear, I'm an astrophysicist. You don't have to extra explain the number billion to me?
7:26 Gary O'Reilly? No, no, no, it's just in case people don't understand my version of English and they think I'm saying four million and it's actually billion. So, it's so interesting. If I remember rightly, we also then take that, as you say, extrapolate what might be coming along before we've quite got there, but using what we know now. We thought maybe augmented displays for people in stadiums could be something in the future. So if you imagine you've decided you want to be a defensive end, you could end up having a sensory experience that feels like hitting a quarterback.
8:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, or before you get there, just imagine you buy a stadium experience from the NFL or from the home team or from SoFi Stadium, and they'll sell you the ticket at the 50-yard line 20 rows up. And then you go into your augmented reality room in your home and you experience the entire game from that seat.
8:29 Gary O'Reilly? Wow.
8:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then you don't need ticket price. Then you have to go to the game and then take that up a notch. Okay. So now you're saying, why be in the stadium at all? Why not be on the field? And you could be sort of a, an avatar on the field as players are running by you. Because if you censor, if you have censors that monitor everything about all the players, which IBM currently does, or has the power to do. Uh, if you do that, and I know where all the players, I know what their heartbeats are. I do, because the coaches want to know that. When is it, when are you going to bring them out? When are you going to put them back in? When have they recovered their oxygen levels? You, I have all that information. And information is power. Information is money, right? So, so now you put me on the field.
9:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'll be, I'll be eating, eating Cheetos, if, sitting on the line of scrimmage, while the whole game is going on around me.
9:20 Gary O'Reilly? You'll be eating crisps and sacking quarterbacks. It'll be a dream come true.
9:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But you're, but you're saying you want to also include the physical experience of getting hit. And I'm, so does a person pay extra for that?
9:32 Gary O'Reilly? Well, I, probably, the, the answer to that is simply yes. Anything like that, it's a yes. So that, but that's it, Niels. You see, the thing is, this is where we take the show. And as I referenced before, it, only StarTalk will do this. Only StarTalk will think this way.
9:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's very trademark of us.
9:50 Gary O'Reilly? Towards the subject matter.
9:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yes, yes.
9:52 Gary O'Reilly? And so this is why we're re-releasing this particular show from two years ago to, to stand on the shoulders of this big game. But to give our audience an understanding of the environment they're in that will sit nicely next to the performances, hopefully, of the players.
10:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Beautiful, beautiful. So good work there, Gary. And I look forward to checking out the episode again.
10:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Today's topic, modern stadium design and the tech that informs it.
10:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So who do I have here? I've got Ben Brillette. Did I pronounce that right?
10:35 Speaker 02 You did, thank you.
10:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Ben, welcome.
10:36 Speaker 02 Thanks very much.
10:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You work for IBM?
10:37 Speaker 02 I do.
10:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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.
10:48 Speaker 02 Well, I design technology for stadiums.
10:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, gee.
10:51 Speaker 02 Yes.
10:51 Chuck Nice? Right, yes.
10:52 Speaker 02 Yes, I don't wanna, I don't wanna cause any fights, uh, so.
10:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, okay, alright. So we got, we'll get back to you in a minute. Gary? Yes. Always good. Hey, good to be here. Gary O'Reilly. Chuck? Hey. You're my people. Yes, that's correct. My sports people. Yes, we are. My, my, my, my, my sports people. So recently I visited the SoFi Stadium, just outside of Los Angeles.
11:11 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
11:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're in the middle of building it.
11:13 Speaker 02 Yep.
11:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And I'm looking at the numbers at $5 billion.
11:17 Chuck Nice? Wow.
11:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Since when do stadiums cost that much? Dude. Recently? Recently?
11:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Since 20 minutes ago? Just saying. Uh, 70,000 seats, opening summer 2020. And didn't look like they're gonna be.
11:34 Chuck Nice? You're saying they're not making it?
11:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm, I'm saying.
11:36 Chuck Nice? You're saying.
11:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I was there, I flew over it, it didn't look like, but anyhow.
11:40 Chuck Nice? They, 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.
11:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, yeah, otherwise they're playing.
11:48 Chuck Nice? For the football teams.
11:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're playing, they're playing pickup game in the parking lot.
11:51 Chuck Nice? Oh, that'd be hilarious.
11:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wouldn't it?
11:53 Chuck Nice? Oh my God, just like you could tailgate and watch the game at the same time.
11:57 Speaker 02 And be in it.
11:58 Chuck Nice? Right.
11:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And be in it. Hey, you missed it, take it back.
12:02 Chuck Nice? Little help? Yeah, that's great.
12:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So that stadium houses the LA Rams and the Chargers.
12:08 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
12:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And so, uh, Ben, so we'll just get a little more, we'll get back to that. I got footage of me visiting it. But Ben, how long has, has IBM had such a thing?
12:19 Speaker 02 IBM engagement started really with the Atlanta Olympics in the 90s.
12:23 Chuck Nice? Oh wow, you guys been in the space for, in that space for a while.
12:27 Speaker 02 That's right, I mean.
12:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, wait, so you were the chief technology architect for the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta?
12:32 Speaker 02 That's right.
12:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But that was way after the Olympics.
12:34 Speaker 02 Absolutely, absolutely, so totally different design.
12:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They didn't have the benefit of your brilliance?
12:38 Speaker 02 No, although some of the fiber infrastructure actually ended up being reused.
12:42 Chuck Nice? Oh really? You mean recycled and reused, or?
12:45 Speaker 02 Nope, nope, it was still there, still good.
12:47 Chuck Nice? And you just asked, okay, well, way to save them some money.
12:50 Neil 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.
13:01 Speaker 02 No, I have not.
13:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So how, how do you land in that pot?
13:05 Speaker 02 Yeah, so IBM is approaching technology in 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?
13:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why not put him in during the game? Wouldn't that be cool? You have a holographic coach on the field.
13:40 Chuck Nice? Right.
13:40 Speaker 02 Yep.
13:41 Gary 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.
13:49 Speaker 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?
14:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In real time.
14:04 Speaker 02 In real time.
14:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To make real time decisions.
14:06 Speaker 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.
14:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I just got, I just got to tell you, I'm really feeling good listening to you, because 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.
14:39 Speaker 02 Right.
14:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, until. The football players needed the geeks to help them with their computer homework.
14:45 Speaker 02 There you go.
14:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay?
14:46 Speaker 02 Right.
14:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So the balance of power changed. And so now you are enabling professional sports.
14:53 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
14:54 Neil 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.
15:02 Speaker 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.
15:08 Chuck Nice? That means he's never gotten a wedgie. That's, well, that's, but.
15:11 Speaker 04 Well, that, that may be true.
15:13 Chuck Nice? I mean, you bring a football player.
15:14 Speaker 04 However, this isn't the show to explore that. It's the one thought that's crystallized in my mind.
15:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All me, all my people got wedgies.
15:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Coming out.
15:24 Chuck Nice? I think what Neil is saying is before you leave here.
15:27 Speaker 02 I, I mean.
15:28 Chuck Nice? Uh, yeah, just watch yourself.
15:30 Speaker 02 I got a linebacker on speed dial.
15:32 Chuck Nice? There you go. 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.
15:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? One line of code. Oh, that's, that'd be a great name of a company, One Line of Code.
15:44 Chuck Nice? One Line of Code.
15:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, man.
15:45 Chuck Nice? That's all the difference.
15:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, 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?
15:52 Speaker 02 The earlier the better.
15:53 Chuck Nice? Right.
15:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh.
15:54 Speaker 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.
16:08 Chuck Nice? Damn.
16:10 Speaker 02 More and more antennas means more and more wires to the antennas.
16:13 Chuck Nice? That's right.
16:14 Speaker 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.
16:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Enough conduit to future-proof it. So we got, we got some footage of me at the SoFi Stadium.
16:28 Chuck Nice? Right.
16:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Outside of, outside of Los Angeles. The LA, the, the Chargers and the Rams.
16:33 Chuck Nice? Correct.
16:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Both will play there.
16:35 Chuck Nice? That's right.
16:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And obviously, unless they play each other.
16:38 Chuck Nice? Not on the same day.
16:39 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Unless they play each other.
16:40 Chuck Nice? There you go.
16:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Then they do play on the same day, in the same stadium.
16:44 Chuck Nice? That'd be kind of cool. I'll go to that game.
16:45 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You'll go to that game? Alright. So, um, so I, I visited it, and one thing I couldn't help notice is just the enormous roof. A lot of thought went into that roof. So let's check out this high-tech roof. What is that transparent roof made of?
17:02 Speaker 05 It's called an ETFE system.
17:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How transparent is it?
17:05 Speaker 05 About 60% from what I understand.
17:07 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so what you're saying is it'll block out about 60% of sunlight that could come in?
17:13 Speaker 05 That's what I understand.
17:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Either reflect it or do something else with it?
17:16 Speaker 05 That's correct.
17:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
17:17 Speaker 05 So those are 60 foot by 60 foot grid areas.
17:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I see him.
17:20 Speaker 05 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.
17:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How long does it stay transparent?
17:33 Speaker 05 It'll stay transparent from the time we finish the project on.
17:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Not as long as birds poop on it. You got a way to clean that off?
17:39 Speaker 05 There is a way to clean it.
17:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How you do that?
17:41 Speaker 05 And they'll go up there.
17:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't see any way anybody's going up there to clean bird poop.
17:44 Speaker 05 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.
17:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so you can hose it off?
17:52 Speaker 05 That's one thing we can do as far as the birds though is 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.
18:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's very National Geographic, right?
18:06 Gary O'Reilly? All right, you 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 21st century stadium. What else could we build into a roof like that? Because that's a massive expanse.
18:24 Chuck Nice? And by roof, he means bird toilet.
18:27 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, so I mean, are we going to have solar panels? Because California, I think every new construction has to have solar panels.
18:35 Chuck Nice? Thank God.
18:37 Gary 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?
18:44 Speaker 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.
19:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But just to be clear, heavier roofs require more structures to hold it up that would block your view.
19:18 Speaker 02 Potentially.
19:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I light roof, you don't have to hold up the roof.
19:21 Speaker 02 Yeah, you can stand further away.
19:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Stand further away, so that's what you meant.
19:24 Speaker 02 Fulcrum.
19:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When you, okay, I was just trying to follow that.
19:26 Gary O'Reilly? So it becomes a span.
19:27 Speaker 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?
19:35 Gary O'Reilly? How does a roof like that affect what you would be able to do in the stadium?
19:39 Speaker 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 the lower levels here, uh, concrete, rebar, iron, uh, the RF energy of the city.
19:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Radio frequency.
19:59 Speaker 02 Yes, the radio.
20:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? To be clear.
20:00 Speaker 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, uh, 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.
20:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you don't want that.
20:19 Speaker 02 You don't want that.
20:19 Chuck Nice? Does that create interference?
20:20 Speaker 02 Absolutely, yeah. How can you deliver cell service to 80,000 people sitting in a space which need low signal strength? Because they're not that far from the antenna.
20:30 Chuck 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, uh, electronically at that point.
20:53 Speaker 02 Absolutely, absolutely, that's.
20:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who do you work for? What do you, are you an IBM operative on the?
20:59 Gary O'Reilly? Captain Verizon.
21:00 Speaker 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.
21:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Can't you put wires in it and turn it into a Faraday cage?
21:23 Speaker 02 Yeah, you, you could, but again.
21:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You know about Faraday cage?
21:26 Chuck Nice? Please, we would like to know about a Faraday cage.
21:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It has nothing to do with prisons or anything.
21:31 Chuck Nice? Oh, thank gosh.
21:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Uh, Faraday is credited with this, so, um, if you have something that conducts electricity, like wire, or any kind of metal. And you surround yourself in it.
21:41 Chuck Nice? Mm-hmm.
21:41 Neil 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.
21:58 Chuck Nice? And the aliens can't read your thoughts.
22:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That too. Hence the aluminum foil.
22:04 Chuck Nice? Exactly. It's just nothing more than an aluminum foil hat. That's really what it is.
22:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's exactly what it is. Okay, sorry, go on.
22:12 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
22:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Pick it up.
22:12 Speaker 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.
22:34 Chuck Nice? Wow.
22:35 Speaker 02 Because what we want is very low signal power. So only go a few meters to the nearby seats.
22:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And it sterilizes your gonads. I'm gonna feel a little warm right now. What am I doing? Oh, that's so that you get strong signal.
22:50 Chuck Nice? Right.
22:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Don't you want that? Tickets have just gone down at Atlanta.
22:55 Speaker 02 We did a lot of testing. Yeah, a lot of engineering went into making that.
22:59 Neil 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?
23:09 Chuck Nice? Ooh.
23:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Can you earthquake proof a stadium?
23:11 Chuck Nice? Yes.
23:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So at the SoFi tour that I took, I had to ask him about it. Let's check it out.
23:17 Speaker 05 This bowl structure is a separate element to the roof structure.
23:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right.
23:22 Speaker 05 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.
23:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It can move independently.
23:38 Speaker 05 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.
23:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you can sustain an earthquake, it sounds like.
23:55 Speaker 05 Yes, we can.
23:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's that's code for this stadium can shake and bake.
24:00 Speaker 05 It can shake and bake.
24:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's got a little bit of a little bit of movement to it.
24:04 Speaker 05 It does.
24:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And you got it.
24:06 Speaker 05 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.
24:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? A moat.
24:13 Speaker 05 A moat.
24:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? M O A T.
24:15 Speaker 05 M O A T.
24:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? With crocodiles.
24:16 Speaker 05 Exactly. It could be. It could.
24:19 Neil 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.
24:28 Speaker 05 No.
24:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right? Because that could take down the whole structure.
24:31 Speaker 05 Correct.
24:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So everything can have some independence.
24:33 Speaker 05 Right.
24:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then it just lives as almost an organic element.
24:38 Speaker 06 And you have these almost like these cut lines.
24:40 Speaker 05 Yes, expansions.
24:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, the usual. There'll be thermal expansions and things. 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?
24:56 Speaker 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-
25:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You can't play football in the rain anymore.
25:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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.
25:17 Gary O'Reilly? Right. How many fans were there?
25:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't know.
25:19 Gary O'Reilly? It's about the fans. The fans don't want to sit there.
25:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We played football with a baseball bat. That's right. That's how tough it was.
25:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sorry. Continue.
25:29 Gary O'Reilly? I know you're not apologizing to me.
25:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's right.
25:31 Speaker 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 stresses that are on a given piece of steel.
25:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? When you say instrumentation, you mean diagnostic tools?
25:55 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
25:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you always know the structural health of your facility?
26:00 Speaker 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.
26:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so you're not, so you wouldn't be taken by surprise?
26:15 Speaker 02 Exactly.
26:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If anything was about to fail?
26:17 Speaker 02 Yep.
26:18 Gary 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? Yourself?
26:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Why would that be mutually exclusive?
26:38 Gary 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...
26:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Even if that might conflict with something else?
26:48 Gary O'Reilly? Correct.
26:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Got it.
26:49 Speaker 02 I think it starts with the fans, right? Because...
26:52 Chuck Nice? Because they're paying.
26:53 Speaker 02 That's right.
26:53 Chuck Nice? They're paying the owners.
26:54 Speaker 02 They're right, right. They are the source of...
26:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The owner works for the fans.
26:57 Chuck Nice? That's right.
26:57 Speaker 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.
27:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what I did.
27:17 Chuck Nice? All right, hey man, you're working against yourself there, Ben.
27:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what I did.
27:21 Gary O'Reilly? No, that's got to be the thought process of every owner.
27:24 Speaker 02 Yeah. How do we get you out? We want you out of your house.
27:28 Chuck Nice? Right on.
27:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, you can give crappier television coverage. So I missed that, where you gotta be at the game.
27:34 Chuck Nice? That's true.
27:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're gonna show the replay only at the game.
27:37 Chuck Nice? There you go.
27:38 Speaker 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.
27:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We gotta take a quick break. When we come back, more on the innovative designs of modern stadiums on StarTalk Sports Edition.
28:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Startalk, we're back. Startalk Sports Edition. Gary O'Reilly.
28:31 Speaker 02 Yep.
28:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Former footballer.
28:33 Speaker 02 Apparently.
28:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You keep telling yourself that.
28:36 Speaker 02 Yeah.
28:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck.
28:37 Chuck Nice? Yes.
28:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who do we have here? Ben.
28:40 Chuck Nice? Brillat.
28:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Brillat. Thanks.
28:42 Chuck Nice? I B M.
28:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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.
28:58 Chuck Nice? The great and wonderful Oz of stadiums.
29:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what that is!
29:01 Chuck Nice? That's what you are, man.
29:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what that is!
29:04 Speaker 02 I mean, we hope it's that way, right? If it... we don't want to be too noticed, right?
29:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Man!
29:09 Chuck Nice? Right on.
29:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, as you know, we're featuring my footage from my visit to the SoFi Stadium under construction.
29:15 Chuck Nice? They're not even built.
29:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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's very cool.
29:24 Chuck Nice? That is cool.
29:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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.
29:30 Speaker 02 A lot of late nights coming up.
29:32 Neil 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.
29:44 Speaker 05 The Oculus will actually start over here in this corner.
29:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So what is the Oculus?
29:47 Speaker 05 So the Oculus is actually the TV screens and/or scoreboards, everything that'll be announced.
29:53 Speaker 06 The world's largest scoreboard.
29:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And where's it gonna...
29:56 Speaker 06 Jumbotron.
29:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is it gonna be in the middle or somewhere else?
29:57 Speaker 05 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.
30:11 Chuck Nice? Such as this one too, on this side as well?
30:13 Speaker 05 All the way around the entire bowl.
30:14 Chuck Nice? Uh huh.
30:15 Speaker 05 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.
30:30 Chuck Nice? And you hoist it up.
30:31 Speaker 05 And we hoist it up. So when you're standing on level eight, you see that guy there in the yellow?
30:34 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I see him.
30:35 Speaker 05 That's level eight, and then level nine above. You'll actually be staring right out at that Oculus.
30:39 Chuck Nice? Got it.
30:40 Speaker 05 So you're gonna have those types of seats in those views.
30:42 Chuck Nice? But he can still see the field.
30:43 Speaker 05 Still see the film.
30:43 Chuck Nice? Right.
30:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Still see the field.
30:44 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:46 Chuck Nice? So that was access for the cheap seats.
30:48 Speaker 05 The cheap seats.
30:49 Chuck Nice? Helping those guys out.
30:49 Speaker 05 Yeah.
30:50 Chuck Nice? It seems to be there's an arms race with stadiums now for the world's biggest, uh, like Jumbotron or fan screen. Jumbotron, that's so 80's, dude. I know, I haven't been to a game in a long time, can you tell?
31:04 Speaker 02 Absolutely, I mean, Atlanta's the current record holder, so there...
31:08 Chuck Nice? They're trying to beat Atlanta.
31:10 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
31:10 Chuck Nice? Over at SoFi.
31:11 Speaker 02 Yep.
31:11 Chuck Nice? Oh, oh, oh, see, he's like... Yeah, and you were. You're feeling it. He's right. His face got a little red. He puffed up a little bit. Yeah, he got a little puffed. A little chest beating going on right there. I got you. So now, this will definitely be the world's largest screen, or fan screen in the world, after it's done?
31:30 Speaker 02 Yeah, so the new Oculus here has screen services.
31:33 Chuck Nice? Here in SoFi.
31:34 Speaker 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.
31:45 Chuck Nice? Ooh, so it's a double-sided screen? It's inside, outside, it's a Kandinsky painting of jumbo screens, oh! Kandinsky, man, damn, Chuck. He's on something today. Man, Chuck! So... I don't know who said that.
32:02 Chuck 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.
32:17 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, the Holy Grail really is to have VR players on the field, right?
32:23 Chuck Nice? Oh, my.
32:24 Speaker 02 Projected augmented reality more than VR, really.
32:26 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
32:27 Speaker 02 But augmented reality players projected onto the field. We're still some ways away from that.
32:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But what would?
32:32 Chuck Nice? Oh, that would be so cool.
32:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I don't get it.
32:34 Chuck Nice? So check it out. So an instant.
32:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I ask him, please.
32:36 Chuck Nice? Oh, I'm sorry. So.
32:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who am I?
32:39 Chuck Nice? I know who you're interviewing there.
32:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Do you work for IBM? No.
32:43 Speaker 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.
32:57 Chuck Nice? As a matter of fact, they do that now.
32:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, so I could be in the field. They don't see me, but they run through me.
33:03 Speaker 02 Well, you could have that, maybe. You could also have just an away game played at home.
33:08 Chuck Nice? Right.
33:08 Speaker 02 You could have.
33:08 Chuck Nice? So like they have viewing parties now for the playoffs?
33:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:11 Chuck Nice? Like your team goes to another city, right?
33:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you all put on VR and you're all in their stadium.
33:15 Chuck Nice? Now you're in.
33:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? In their place.
33:17 Chuck Nice? But you're in your stadium, watching the game on your field.
33:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh.
33:20 Chuck Nice? Yeah. So here's the thing, as a stadium owner, you got to love this because that means everybody's got to buy hot dogs and their soft drinks.
33:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's true. And not watching on the 85 inch.
33:31 Chuck Nice? And not watching. They're actually watching the field, just like a regular game.
33:34 Neil 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.
33:41 Chuck 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.
33:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They get a miniature version of the stadium, right, baby?
33:58 Chuck Nice? A miniature version and then basically you'll be watching.
33:59 Speaker 02 More work for me.
34:00 Chuck Nice? You say that works for you too. He's like, hey, guess what? I'm good. Right.
34:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wait, so is that real? Is that, I mean, we're really going there?
34:07 Speaker 02 Not yet, not yet. The display projection technology is the problem.
34:11 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Pokemon Go.
34:12 Chuck Nice? That's right.
34:12 Speaker 02 Yeah.
34:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? If they can just show up in places.
34:14 Speaker 02 So, so we could do it today with looking through your phone, right? But that's not the best experience.
34:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, it's not.
34:19 Speaker 02 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, uh, volumetric image data, so that you can project from any position.
34:37 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So three dimensional pixel.
34:38 Speaker 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.
34:49 Chuck Nice? Right, I was gonna say.
34:50 Speaker 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.
35:02 Chuck Nice? Man, that is so cool. I mean, like. How big are you? But in a way though, but 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.
35:27 Chuck Nice? Okay? Because.
35:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The biggest regressives.
35:29 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
35:30 Speaker 02 All right.
35:31 Chuck 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.
35:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
35:44 Chuck 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.
36:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Isn't that just John Madden football?
36:06 Chuck Nice? AI football. Well, it is.
36:07 Speaker 02 Yeah.
36:07 Chuck Nice? 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, so none of the outcomes are predetermined. And you would see a real game.
36:21 Speaker 02 All right, we're gonna pick that.
36:21 Chuck Nice? We'll put Watson up against Siri, right? Right.
36:24 Neil 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 the players or the coaches? Let's check it out.
36:36 Neil 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?
36:51 Speaker 06 Yeah.
36:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That can be invoked at field level?
36:55 Speaker 06 It's actually not GPS-based, it's arm-based.
36:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
36:58 Speaker 06 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 that gets turned on, basically, when they exit the locker room. And then, within the playing surface, basically, they track the movements. They can then figure out things like velocity and top speed.
37:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, but that's not unique to the stadium? If everyone has a chip in the modern NFL?
37:27 Speaker 06 The league basically mandates that system.
37:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Plus for the health and well-being of the players, too, right?
37:32 Speaker 06 You can track how far they run, how fast they run, how much they're on-field, etc.
37:37 Neil 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...
37:51 Speaker 06 In a meter or whatever.
37:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right, right.
37:55 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So Ben, why are they using RF technology if 5G is basically available?
38:00 Speaker 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 that will fit in their pads.
38:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? More importantly, the GPS satellites can see you.
38:13 Speaker 02 The GPS. 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.
38:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So 5G is not a local system?
38:29 Speaker 02 Well, 5G is a local system and they're.
38:32 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I mean, even within a stadium, local?
38:34 Speaker 02 Absolutely. So 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 got a watch and a phone, right? Uh, devices in a small space. Now you need dedicated electronics, uh, dedicated antennas and radios just for that stadium by itself. 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, uh, is just gonna balloon as we start.
39:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What IoT stands for?
39:15 Speaker 02 Internet of Things. So.
39:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what that, that's what that abbreviates?
39:20 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Internet of Things.
39:22 Speaker 02 Yes.
39:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Things should never be abbreviated. That word is not important enough. Thanks for clearing it up.
39:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Internet of stuff, I don't know what it is.
39:32 Gary 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.
39:40 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:41 Gary 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?
39:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
39:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, how about 7G, 8G, 10G?
39:53 Speaker 02 It'll all be there. The, 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. Uh, 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.
40:11 Neil 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.
40:35 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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 the thing, you're fired. And you say, 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 have?
40:58 Speaker 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.
41:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So you assume it needs a path?
41:07 Speaker 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.
41:26 Neil 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.
41:36 Speaker 02 Yep.
41:36 Neil 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.
41:42 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
41:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. So, but not only that, just point of view cameras. Like suppose I'm going to 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.
41:56 Speaker 02 Mm hmm.
41:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What's, what's?
41:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
41:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How about that?
41:58 Speaker 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.
42:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? They're like, oh, this is too heavy.
42:10 Speaker 02 Yeah.
42:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But.
42:11 Speaker 02 Well, that's a baseball player. Right.
42:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? As a soccer player.
42:16 Speaker 02 The good news.
42:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You guys, when you get clipped on the side, oh. Oh, man, that's it. I can't get up. The weight's too much. I'm falling, I can't get up. You soccer players, what the hell is wrong with y'all?
42:28 Speaker 02 Well, we got good news for.
42:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're precious.
42:30 Speaker 02 We got good news for soccer football.
42:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Have you?
42:32 Speaker 02 Is that with.
42:33 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is my team gonna win?
42:34 Speaker 02 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.
42:46 Neil deGrasse Tyson? This is like bullet time.
42:47 Chuck Nice? Yeah.
42:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Like in The Matrix where you can get any camera angle.
42:51 Speaker 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.
43:03 Chuck Nice? That's pretty wild.
43:04 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's badass right there.
43:06 Chuck Nice? See, now, once again, it seems like you're working, okay, so this would be, see, that's something that you want to keep to an in-stadium 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.
43:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right. Why be limited to some cameraman who's parked on some spot on the sideline?
43:27 Chuck Nice? You can actually curate your own game in real time as you're sitting there. Let me see that replay, you know? That's kind of cool.
43:35 Speaker 02 Yeah, you could end up, you know, with Twitch-style re-edits of the game.
43:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We got to take a break. Can you hang around for like the third segment?
43:43 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
43:44 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because normally we just sort of, you know, chew the fat, but I want to chew the fat with you in the room.
43:48 Speaker 02 Sounds great. Thanks.
43:49 Chuck Nice? Yeah, that'd be cool.
43:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right. This is StarTalk Sports Edition. We'll be right back.
44:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? We're back. StarTalk. We have a special guest brought in from central Pennsylvania, where this dude lives. Nobody's out there. Well, no, he's here.
44:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He was the only one there. Now he's here. Ben Brillat. Thanks for hanging out. 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'm 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.
44:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But if the raid is fast, it means in five years, that's gonna be an old stadium.
45:00 Chuck Nice? Just like technology itself.
45:01 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Technology itself.
45:03 Chuck Nice? You're actually-
45:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, so how you feel about this?
45:06 Speaker 02 I mean, it's good news for me, right? Uh, the more tech changes-
45:10 Chuck Nice? Job security.
45:11 Speaker 02 Yeah, job security, yeah. Uh, but now, do you build that into your design?
45:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
45:15 Speaker 02 Cause, cause you have to.
45:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, he said he future proofs by putting, uh, conduits and, and places where you would put stuff.
45:21 Chuck Nice? Okay.
45:22 Speaker 02 Yeah, I mean, there's capitalization terms for all of these things. You wanna be sure you get your money's worth out of it. You need to be able to-
45:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Especially when it's five billion dollars worth of your money.
45:30 Speaker 02 Yeah.
45:30 Neil deGrasse Tyson? But go ahead.
45:31 Speaker 02 Uh, 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, something's-
45:38 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Gary, reflection.
45:39 Gary O'Reilly? Okay, so, we, 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 as you can actually feel the hits yourself, while you're sat there.
45:56 Chuck Nice? That's too much.
45:58 Gary O'Reilly? Well, you can dial it up-
45:59 Chuck Nice? That's too much.
46:00 Gary O'Reilly? With Disney pens, you dial it up or you dial it down?
46:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, dial it down, yeah.
46:03 Gary O'Reilly? So do, are we then-
46:03 Chuck Nice? Can I dial it down to a, um, relaxing massage?
46:06 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, if you want.
46:08 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Negative three.
46:10 Gary O'Reilly? We, we 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?
46:25 Speaker 02 You know, you'd, you'd think that would have happened with video gaming, but what has actually happened is that e-gaming is now become-
46:33 Chuck Nice? A spectator sport.
46:34 Speaker 02 A huge spectator sport segment.
46:36 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Watching other people play their e-game.
46:39 Speaker 02 But in a stadium. You go to a stadium to watch on the big screen, video games get played.
46:44 Chuck Nice? It's true.
46:45 Gary O'Reilly? Don't look at me like that. It's not me doing it.
46:47 Chuck Nice? We're all sitting in this room looking at each other the same way.
46:50 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's like, what?
46:51 Chuck Nice? Which is, what the hell is wrong with these people? But, it's a huge thing.
46:54 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is that Gen X? Is that Gen Y? Is that millennials? Let's get to the bottom of this.
46:57 Speaker 02 Yeah, it is.
46:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Who's doing this?
46:59 Speaker 02 Yeah, the, the, the under twenty-five set, yeah.
47:02 Chuck Nice? It is, yeah. My son is totally into it, and I was completely-
47:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He's twelve.
47:06 Chuck 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. Yep. And now he gets home and I'm just like, "You better get upstairs and play that video game." Get those thumbs moving. Get those thumbs moving, boy. What's your problem? Don't read a book. That's right. Are you reading?
47:30 Chuck Nice? Oh my God, are you reading? What the hell is wrong with you?
47:35 Gary O'Reilly? Oh, fans, the whole thing here now. Oh, we, 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?
48:03 Speaker 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 coaching calls.
48:17 Chuck Nice? Physio mechanics?
48:18 Speaker 02 I hope so. I just said it.
48:19 Chuck Nice? Okay, I like learning new words, but, okay, all right, all right.
48:24 Speaker 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.
48:54 Chuck Nice? All right, 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.
49:07 Chuck Nice? How am I gonna make even more money off of all of this 5G capable technology?
49:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah, what's the business model?
49:14 Chuck Nice? Where's the business model?
49:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? How's the money come back into his pocket?
49:17 Chuck Nice? 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, cuz you know no fan-
49:27 Neil deGrasse Tyson? What kind of paywall are you gonna put up?
49:28 Chuck Nice? There's no fan experience that's complete without an owner saying, nah, you gonna have to pay for that.
49:34 Speaker 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.
49:50 Neil 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 information recording. And you put the key in and turn it, and you get a narration about the animal.
50:19 Chuck Nice? Right, but you had to buy that key.
50:21 Neil deGrasse Tyson? You had to buy the key!
50:22 Chuck Nice? Right.
50:22 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And we didn't buy the key, so-
50:24 Chuck Nice? Yeah, I would just stand next to the rich kids.
50:31 Chuck Nice? Mommy, why does this black kid keep following me everywhere? I'm sorry.
50:34 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So I, so I, I felt, I didn't feel like I was a part of the experience. 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.
50:47 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:48 Neil 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.
50:57 Speaker 02 Yeah.
50:57 Gary O'Reilly? Okay, so picking up on your elephant key analogy.
51:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? By the way, I still own that elephant key. Just want you to know.
51:02 Chuck Nice? For real?
51:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? For real, I'll bring it in.
51:04 Speaker 02 You did get one.
51:05 Gary O'Reilly? The elephant in the room.
51:08 Gary O'Reilly? The elephant in the room or the stadium, gambling.
51:13 Gary O'Reilly? When you've got all of this ability to stream and do stuff.
51:17 Chuck Nice? Oh my god.
51:17 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's a lot of money.
51:18 Gary O'Reilly? Pop, pop, pop. Yeah?
51:19 Chuck Nice? So now you're talking about...
51:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? There's more money gambling than any of it. Than any of it.
51:23 Chuck Nice? Oh my god, Gary, you are brilliant. How do we get in on this right now? Because I'm telling you...
51:28 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Shut off the cameras, we'll find out.
51:31 Chuck Nice? Let me tell you something, real time betting? While you're in a stadium? That's a money maker.
51:37 Gary O'Reilly? Shake it.
51:39 Speaker 02 It, it happens a lot more overseas than it does here. We have stronger laws.
51:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Anti-gambling.
51:44 Speaker 02 Yeah.
51:44 Chuck Nice? Right.
51:45 Gary O'Reilly? But if I've spent five billion dollars to create my stadium entertainment palace, I'll be pushing really hard to get the gambling laws changed in the state of which I'm...
51:55 Chuck Nice? Oh, without a doubt. Yeah.
51:56 Gary O'Reilly? For sure.
51:57 Chuck Nice? Every state, yeah.
51:58 Speaker 02 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 to have access to the kind of information that you're...
52:15 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, 1975, 1985, the kind of data they have.
52:19 Gary 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.
52:32 Chuck 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?
52:45 Gary O'Reilly? But this is the whole deal with SoFi.
52:47 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, SoFi...
52:47 Speaker 02 SoFi is a great example.
52:49 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, so, okay, but, alright, so SoFi, so a professional football schedule today, it's 16 games if you don't go into playoffs, correct? Okay, so, most football, pure football stadiums are used 16 weekends out of 52.
53:02 Speaker 02 Yep.
53:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Period. Then I noticed 10 years ago, 20 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?
53:12 Chuck Nice? Hold your event here.
53:13 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Maybe hold a rock concert, okay? So with SoFi... It has two teams interlaced, so now it's thirty-two weekends.
53:22 Speaker 02 Yep.
53:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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?
53:34 Speaker 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.
53:42 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Mercedes?
53:42 Speaker 02 Yes.
53:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Facility?
53:43 Speaker 02 So the Atlanta United MLS soccer team has games that are played there also.
53:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Your people.
53:48 Speaker 02 So that has really driven up, yep, really driven up the usage of the building.
53:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then all the immigrants come in, they get something to watch, right?
53:56 Speaker 02 Right.
53:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Because all the immigrants play soccer.
53:57 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
53:58 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Every last one of them.
53:59 Gary O'Reilly? They've put seventy thousand fans in the Atlanta stadium for MLS soccer.
54:05 Speaker 02 Absolutely.
54:05 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah.
54:06 Speaker 02 It's a huge drop.
54:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And not an American among them.
54:08 Speaker 02 It's a huge drop.
54:08 Gary O'Reilly? There's more.
54:09 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'm just kidding.
54:09 Chuck Nice? Nah, no, but in a way, you're right. When the World Cup is on and you walk around Manhattan.
54:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It is so, people are so indifferent to it.
54:16 Chuck Nice? It's like, people don't care, and then you look in every bar, and it is filled to the brim.
54:20 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Right.
54:21 Chuck Nice? You know, and none of them are Americans.
54:25 Speaker 02 Atlanta's culture is changing with the Atlanta United, actually.
54:28 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah.
54:28 Speaker 02 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 United flag. There are kids going to watch Atlanta games.
54:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so America might come around on this.
54:43 Speaker 02 Yeah.
54:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The soccer thing.
54:44 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah, you're getting there. But I think the footprint of the SoFi Stadium, I think, is greater than Disneyland in.
54:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Well, including parking.
54:52 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah.
54:53 Chuck Nice? Are you for real? If this multi-use district, what else is there? What else is in that stadium?
54:59 Gary O'Reilly? They're building in the multiplex movie theaters.
55:02 Chuck Nice? Hotels.
55:03 Gary O'Reilly? There's the hotels, there's the shopping.
55:05 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Oh, that's what you mean.
55:05 Chuck Nice? So the idea is, right, it's making a destination, area. The area becomes a destination. Got you.
55:12 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And then the game is just one other thing you do.
55:13 Speaker 02 Yep, something to do that you can walk to, yeah.
55:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Wow.
55:17 Chuck Nice? Okay, cool.
55:18 Gary O'Reilly? Because there's a finite amount of people that can go and watch a game. But they want to come and enjoy the experience, so you will build fan parks outside.
55:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I have an obscure, geeky, sciency comment, if I may.
55:31 Speaker 02 I'm ready.
55:31 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay. If you're charging a battery, either an electric car or any kind of rechargeable battery.
55:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The, if it's dead and you start charging it, like the first twenty percent 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 five percent takes almost as long as the previous, all the time it took to get to that ninety-five percent. Okay, do you know why?
56:01 Speaker 02 No!
56:02 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay.
56:02 Speaker 02 I'm about to find out.
56:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The analogy is a stadium parking lot. Because in a dead battery, you have all these electrons in the wrong place.
56:14 Speaker 02 Mm-hmm.
56:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Okay, they done served you. Now you gotta punch them back 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.
56:28 Speaker 02 Oh, so that...
56:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? 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.
56:42 Speaker 02 Yep.
56:43 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The later I come, even if there is a parking spot for me, it'll take me longer to find it. So that when the parking spot 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 a battery than the first part. Because of the parking lot problem.
57:05 Speaker 02 Yeah.
57:06 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Have you solved the parking problems?
57:07 Speaker 02 Yeah, we, we have. Uh, smart parking systems. Smart parking? Yeah, and it turns out... Assigned parking? Predetermined assigned parking? 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. Oh, what a hidden spots! 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... But not just in parking lots, period. Yeah. In every metro place. Driving around looking around parking lots.
57:40 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Eighty percent of all cars that are in motion that are not taxis are looking for parking.
57:44 Speaker 02 Yeah, so this, this company's 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.
57:53 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That you could just see above all the car and the green one is right there.
57:55 Speaker 02 Yep.
57:56 Neil deGrasse Tyson? And that's some little car that's hidden behind the SUV.
57:59 Speaker 02 Exactly. Are you angry when that happens?
58:01 Chuck Nice? I always flatten their tires.
58:04 Gary O'Reilly? So now, how many people are now looking for a space? And there's only one green light?
58:10 Neil deGrasse Tyson? No, then, no.
58:11 Gary O'Reilly? And then they all converge on the same space.
58:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? The lights break out. Right. How fast can you drive up to that?
58:18 Gary O'Reilly? See, this is LA, so Larry David's gonna be the, gonna be there. You know that.
58:23 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Larry David.
58:23 Gary O'Reilly? You know, he's gonna be there with his little electric car.
58:25 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Of curb your enthusiasm, yeah.
58:27 Speaker 02 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.
58:37 Gary O'Reilly? Can you talk to the car at turn left, you idiot?
58:39 Speaker 02 Well, you can change a sign that they can read.
58:41 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Talk to the thing and I'm gonna sit back. And that, you know, that's exactly, that's where it's actually going. Let the car park its own name.
58:47 Speaker 02 There you go.
58:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Yeah.
58:48 Gary O'Reilly? Yeah.
58:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Dude, that is super cool.
58:49 Gary O'Reilly? I'm watching the game, you park yourself.
58:50 Speaker 02 Yeah.
58:51 Neil deGrasse Tyson? All right, so final thoughts. Chuck, what do you have?
58:53 Chuck 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.
58:59 Neil deGrasse Tyson? It's not yet.
58:59 Chuck Nice? It's not happening yet.
59:00 Neil deGrasse Tyson? He'll call, get his phone number, he'll call you.
59:02 Chuck Nice? Exactly.
59:02 Speaker 02 Absolutely, we'll go together.
59:03 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Gary?
59:04 Gary 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 biodate, 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.
59:19 Neil deGrasse Tyson? So, what thoughts do you have at night before you go to sleep about all this?
59:24 Speaker 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, the world is at his fingertips.
59:48 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Is your four-year-old child?
59:50 Speaker 02 Yeah. Fifteen years from now, when he's there.
59:52 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Your four-year-old child's running the house with his apps.
59:54 Speaker 02 Yeah.
59:55 Gary O'Reilly? Alexa, change the locks.
59:59 Speaker 04 Ha, take that dad. Try to get in the house now.
1:00:06 Speaker 02 He hasn't found that command set yet.
1:00:09 Gary O'Reilly? You better get some really good parental guidance.
1:00:16 Speaker 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.
1:00:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Here's what I look forward to, because I think about this all the time.
1:00:29 Neil deGrasse Tyson? I'd like imagining tomorrow's technology for many reasons, but including the fact that if it's good enough, it will make everything I think is modern today look old. 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, the coach, that today we can yet imagine.
1:01:14 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Sweet.
1:01:15 Speaker 02 It'd be great.
1:01:16 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Revenue sharing.
1:01:17 Speaker 02 Looking forward to it.
1:01:18 Neil deGrasse Tyson? That's what I... That's a cosmic sports perspective. Dude, thanks for coming.
1:01:23 Speaker 02 Thanks very much.
1:01:24 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Chuck, Gary.
1:01:25 Speaker 02 Pleasure.
1:01:26 Neil deGrasse Tyson? Always good. I'm Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. This has been StarTalk Sports Edition, and as always, I bid you to keep looking up.
Previous Cosmic Queries – Quantum Queries with Hakeem Oluseyi Next The Science in "Don't Look Up" with Adam McKay and Dr. Amy Mainzer Page updated October 26, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated
