Meerkat And Periscope: Perfect For Live Sports
Technology and athletics are combining to form a perfect storm. Welcome to the new way to watch the game.
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If we are being honest, the inevitable has already happened. It’s tough to pin down when, exactly, it happened, but we crossed over into the next realm of watching sports some time ago. Somewhere, amidst the untenable increase in ticket prices, the widespread accessibility of HDTV to the masses, the proliferation of yearly and daily fantasy sports on in the Internet, and the general sense that one needn’t attend live sporting events to best enjoy them, the game done changed.
Meerkat made its debut about a month ago, and has since exploded in grander fashion that any social app we’ve seen in years. The South by Southwest conference doesn’t officially award “winners,” but anyone there or following along on social media could tell you that Meerkat “won” SXSW. It’s been described as “Twitter meets Snapchat,” which is a bit like looking at a rookie quarterback and saying “this guy is Aaron Rodgers meets Russell Wilson!”
The hype is real.
As with anything else, of course, there are always two. If SXSW was the movie in which a young prizefighter named Meerkat won his first title, then Periscope is the rich kid across town who comes gunning for him in the sequel. Periscope was purchased by Twitter before it even launched, but by the time it went live, the buzz was every bit as big as Meerkat’s.
Both apps serve to allow you to live-stream video from your device. As in, you’re basically shooting your own live stream from your phone or tablet. Naturally, this opens up a host of breathtaking possibilities for sports.
Want to watch playoff baseball from the front row behind the dugout, but can’t afford the seat? Find a stream and you’re good to go:
Or, if you’re truly enterprising — and you’ve got the social media following — it’s only a matter of time before people start crowd-funding tickets by delivering streams from their seats.
The University of Miami Athletic Department already has a really cool YouTube channel, featuring this video from the point-of-view of linebacker Denzel Perryman:
Wireless digital cameras are well within the budget of every professional team and athletic department in the country. This could be live-streamed every game day! Several sports video games already let gamers pick instant-replay feeds that follow follow every player. We’re basically on the cusp of televised games that do the same thing, with the ability to toggle back and forth between player points-of-view, thereby creating your own unique, customized game feed.
Amazingly, in the face of all the technology (and technology to come), people still do go to games.
Why? Because the live experience a completely different, immensely more personal experience. The “guys in the truck” do a commendable job switching camera feeds, but nothing they can ever do will recreate the sensation of watching the game in a crowd with other fans, experiencing the highs and lows along with them in real-time around you. Television feeds are set up to deliver a generic game experience to a massive audience — which lacks the personal touch you get from going to a game in person.
Watching the game at the ballpark or at home each has its distinct advantages and disadvantages. Let’s break it down, shall we?
The “Authentic” Stadium Experience
- Ticket prices have long since ascended well beyond the stratosphere of sanity. And taking a date to the arena means that not only are you paying double: you’re running the risk of Benny the Bull stealing your girl.
- Hot tip for the financially challenged: if you aren’t in the lower level and you want to see what’s happening, watch the video feed from your cell phone! You’ll see much, much better.
- Parking is, one could argue, even more overpriced than the tickets themselves. You’re footing approximately the cost of a gourmet home-cooked meal to rent a rectangular slab of concrete for a couple of hours — and more and more stadiums now frown upon tailgaiting while there. God forbid you actually do anything more disruptive than parking, handing over your money, and driving off.
- Typically, smuggling in outside food/drink at your local stadium/arena is against the rules — food is still okay at some venues — but back in the day it was generally tolerated almost universally, as long as you didn’t abuse the privilege. This is no longer the case; stadium security forces are merciless. Maybe they get to keep whatever they confiscate? There’s really no other explanation for such enthusiasm to play Fun Police in the name of monopolistic profit-gouging zones.
- There are venues where it costs upwards of $10 (or more!) for a single Bud Light. Good luck building up an enjoyable buzz, everyone alive except Warren Buffett.
- What’s more, beer sales stop in the 7th inning at Major League ballparks. I get the reasoning here, I really do. Everybody says they use a designated driver, one look around the road tells you that not everybody actually uses a designated driver. But you know what’s the only thing worse than watching your team blow a game in extra innings? Watching your team blow a game in extra innings while sobering up, then sitting in the car while the DD fails to navigate the bumper-to-bumper traffic that materializes instantaneously.
- In baseball, scoreboard operators and their systems hate sabermetricians. They mock them with RBI totals, wins, and other since long-discredited stats. The technology for intricate, customizable stat lines is out there — hell, the teams themselves use it for scouting. So, come on, give them to the masses! People want hitting AND pitching stats that update, pitch-by-pitch, depending on the players, count, and situation at play. And they want whoever decided to flash, “John Dundersmith set his career high in RBI against this team six years ago!” across the screen, to be waterboarded. Such demands are reasonable.
- Going to see live sporting events means lines. Lots and lots of lines. You’ll wait in line to pay too much for tickets. You’ll wait in line to pay too much for parking. You’ll wait in line to enter the stadium. You’ll wait in line to relieve basic bodily functions. You’ll wait in line to pay too much for beer. Oh, and you’ll wait in line FOREVER to leave the parking lot after the game. Are you noticing a pattern here? Is that pattern shaped like a fucking LINE?!
The At-Home, HDTV Experience
- The cost of a cable subscription is, let’s just say it, astronomical, and, as luck would have it, largely unnecessary. At least for most. There is little reason to suffer — finding a high-quality stream of any game online is exceedingly possible in 2015, even if you skirt around MLB.tv, NBA League Pass, and all of the official offerings. Not that you should break the law, or anything …
- Watching the game on a massive HDTV will never be topped. There are too many camera angles that the in-person experience simply cannot replicate. And, every once in a while, the commentary team actually makes itself useful, too. Well, except for Cris Collinsworth, who usually just talks until he runs out of breath.
- Tailgaiting? Oh, you mean that fully stocked fridge over there, what with its delicious and fairly priced offerings of beer and other gametime accouterment? ‘Nuff said.
- Non-stadium beers are cheap, plentiful, and can be hoarded in advance of the game. If you want to shotgun one of them every time Clay Matthews blows a play up in the backfield, that is your God-given right as a Cheesehead and nobody can stop you.
- The “designated smoking area” is usually called the porch, and it’s within comfortable talking distance of the crowd and the TV. (If you want to take obnoxiously huge rips off of your six-foot bong every time King Felix strikes another hitter out, that is your God-given right as a Washingtonian and nobody can stop you.)
- With the variety of advanced analytics sites online, practically every part of the game has been digitized and made accessible in your browser. If you’ve got even the faintest idea of what you’re doing, your home WiFi setup is better than the clogged, bloated mess at the stadium. More accessible stats = more well-informed discussion.
- If you don’t like the announcers, you can mute them. Muting the jerk on his cell phone two rows behind you would require the commission of at least one felony.
As it sits, the televising of games works sort of like how print media used to operate. It’s all a top-down system. You get what you’re served, prepackaged and sanitized, when it’s deemed fit to be served to you. When Twitter came along, it handled this system the same way an axe handles a dead redwood. Nowadays, there are players interacting with the public, direct and unfiltered. There’s even regular old fans with more influence than major media figures. All because they can offer the people what they want, when they want. So it didn’t take long for things to streamline, and evolve to the point where these entities controlled the conversation. The top-down system had been flipped on its head.
Twitter wasn’t built for sports media — but as it turned out, the two were made for one another. The former brought unfiltered access to the latter to all, without the crap you wanted to wade through to get there in the first place — and that’s really that what social media is supposed to be all about.
Meerkat and Periscope are going to do the exact same thing for video media. Together, they are going to flood the antiquated top-down system with access, and the industry will either adapt or perish.
Twitter, for all its greatness, remains a primarily verbal platform. Its backbone is written content. How many of your favorite athletes are actually worth engaging that way? When you strip away the fame (and the PR stuff), how many of them are actually follow-worthy? To be sure, compelling players are out there, but they’re hardly the norm.
Now, ask yourself how many athletes are worth watching, or, in the alternative, how many players’ eyes would you like to see the world through? Those are different things, altogether. Those are powerful things, potentially. In fact, sports might very well end up the backbone of Meerkat and Periscope’s growth and influence.
Professional sports, those who play them, and live-streaming video are perfect for each other. Twitter revolutionized the way we follow the world of sports news. Meerkat and Periscope stand poised to revolutionize the way we follow the games and players themselves.
