StarTalk Radio - Cosmic Queries – The Joy of Tech

Episode Date: February 14, 2020

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/ Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ on Apple Podcasts to listen to new episodes ad-free and a whole week early.

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.

Hey, Chuck. Hey, Neil. Just to confuse you. Just to, right. No, you can't do that. Can't do that? No, no, no. Confuse you.

But people get hurt for less than that. All right, you're starting with the pain early. You can't look at two black men and call them the same thing. So Gary O'Reilly, former soccer pro. That's right. Good to be here. Footballer, as it were. Yes.

So today, our topic is going to be on sort of technology as applied to sports, the future of tech, 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. Thanks for having me. So you're an Olympic hockey player? Yeah, four times. Oh, excuse me. Oh, yeah. Okay. Four times. How old are you? I was the youngest player on the first ever

team in 98. We won a gold. Yep. And then retired after the Vancouver Olympics, 2010. Very cool. There aren't many four-time Olympians in anything. We won a gold. And then retired after the Vancouver Olympics, 2010. Very cool. There aren't many four-time Olympians in anything. In anything. Because you don't make it that far. That's why she's a Hall of Famer as well. Hall of Famer. Very good. 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. Yeah, 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 sports is one industry that is obviously trying to wrap its head around this stuff as well. 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? Yeah, no, it's actually one of the reasons we are. I mean, I actually went to Harvard undergrad and 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, love or hate the Patriots, the Red Sox, you know, the Bruins. 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. So nice sports culture is code for crazy sports fans. Yeah, that's what it is.

That's like saying... You know, if you love it or you think we're crazy. Yeah. That's kind of like saying Philadelphia fans are excitable. Are they? 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 NHL. And nobody had on a helmet. Old time hockey. Not the players, not the goalie. Old time hockey.

Back in the old days. 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. So there was all of this

sort of shoulder gear and pads and everything, but there's little heads sticking out. So hockey has changed from back then. Yeah, well, it's funny. Back then, a lot less protection,

obviously. I still have all my teeth, thank God. The game's gotten faster quicker like every sport athletes are just better they're they're training more efficiently so the game's 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 um but it's the goal the fact that the goalies didn't have helmets, I think, is the craziest thing. 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. They're a different breed. Goalkeepers in football, soccer, goalminders in hockey. The whole community of goalkeepers, that's a species. A subspecies. Oh, for sure. You've got to love them, though, but they're a different thinker.

Yeah, my brother and my dad were goalies. They were both goalies. They always say they're a little wacko to want to play that position. That's just my personal bias. So you guys solicited questions from our fan base

on this very subject. So you're going to take turns. Who goes first? Gary? Go for it, Gary. 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.

What makes you so powerful, Angela? It's working out. All right. Welcome to the gun show. See? So I not only went to Harvard twice, I can also kick your ass. There you go.

That's what that is. Right. As if you didn't know. I thought it was, you know, one thing I did when I transitioned from playing to, you know, obviously it's a 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 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. So you'll surely have opinions on any question that we hand you here. Exactly. So what do you have, Gary?

All right, let's kick off first. BrettM615 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? So let me offer that question in a different frame.

Please do. 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 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 a sport. Yeah, so I'd say on the field of play, it certainly could help. We see already with like NASCAR as an example, they use AI to predict possible malfunctions in their cars. That's decreased the number of crashes by roughly 75%.

That's a sport where ai quantum computing could actually potentially help decrease injuries so you said so cars have sensors then on all the things that could go wrong cars have sensors you're increasingly see just uh athletes have sensors this is a whole field of we call it quantified athlete companies that are monitoring measuring predicting performance, preventing injury. We talked about helmets. 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, 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 it'll extend into healthcare. If you can actively predict when you're about to

be dehydrated, everyone would want to know that. Or when you're tired and you need to get more recovery, 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. You're a commodity to the owner of the team. So they want to protect their investment in any way they can. 100%. Yeah. At the end of the day, your body is your business and they pay you to perform. If 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 crushing it. You're using a lot of this to really personalize the experience for the fan. And we're really just in our early days of creating highlights and using AI to help service the fan in a more personalized way. Can you imagine, it could have happened by now 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 whose player's point of view you want to follow during the game. There's actually a lot of companies doing it not through the lens of the athlete because they, you know, the weight and, you know, you got to 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. 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 going to 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 years off, but with quantum computing, AI, that is what the future is. Very cool. I love that.

With fiber technology, you should be able to get something. What kind of technology? Fiber. Fiber, uh-huh. So maybe you'll be able to get a camera fitted into a very small. A small, so it's not way out of the way. So it's not going to be involved. You're not having a weight issue.

It's not intruding on anything. Don't they kind of already do that with NASCAR? There's some cameras on the side of the car. Yeah, the driver in the car, out on the side of the car. Yeah. Right, right. Yeah, the NASCAR is an easy one. You just bolt it onto the car itself.

Right. 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, the bulkiness, if it's going to get in the way. And then a big question we see with just data coming off the athlete is who owns the data? If you're going to sell this for fan engagement, I want my upside. Oh, of course. Hey, you're going to be able to tell the fans what's going on, which the fans absolutely want to know, both on and off the field.

They want to know more about those athletes. Maybe I don't want to share everything I'm doing every day, every night, every second. 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? I want to own it as an athlete and sell it and make my upside versus putting the properties on it. Not to mention the manipulation of that data too, which will be an issue

at hand because 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 going to 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. 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 be seen as like a limitation, but an opportunity to engage your fans is the future. And that's going to be worth something financially. Absolutely. The fan will pay for that and then you want the player. It's another layer of income revenue.

Another economic layer. But the biggest problem, and Angela, you'll know this as an athlete as well, I don't want my personal bio data 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 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. See what I'm saying? See what this is? This is love. No, it's a good point, though, because the athlete, but also might have the opportunity to sell that data to sports bettors now. That's right.

There you go. 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 maybe I'm not going to sell to these companies or the league. I won't give you my heart, but I'll give you my heart rate. Just in time for Valentine's. Here's my BPMs, baby. So Angela, we got to wrap up this segment, but a quick question.

Did you play hockey for Harvard? I did. Okay. So you must know Oliver Barrett. I don't. He was, that's the character in the movie Love Story. Oh, yeah, yeah. I know Love Story.

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 you maneuvered the puck down i think that's the open down the 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 going to watch one of them might be the puck yeah no actually the nhl is 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 going to help the

teams understand strategy but now the fans are going to better understand the sport it's a whole new investment if if you haven't seen it, the NHL is just launching it, but it's exactly that. You put a chip in a puck and follow the players with cameras, and that will again enhance the viewing experience and obviously impact strategy down the line. So player and puck tracking is a thing.

Maybe start a love story. That movie was 50 years ago. They had movies 50 years ago? We're going to wrap up this segment. When we come back, more StarTalks

Sports Edition, the future of technology and sport with our special guest, Angela Ruggiero. Stay tuned. StarTalk, we're back. Sports edition.

Chuck Nice, Gary O'Reilly. We've got on 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. All right, so this is... By the way, the first segment,

we only got through one question. So... That's fine. That's all right, okay. One brilliant answer. Angela gives wonderful information. In that one answer, we covered so much ground.

All right. Give it to me. 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 Asfor Sigurvinsson, and he's a Patreon patron, which means that— You better pronounce his name right. Try again. That's his name, Asfor Sigurvinsson. Yeah. All right. I'm good with the Nordic names. All right.

It's the regular names I have a problem with. All right. You know. Nordic names. It's the regular names I have a problem with. All right. He says, could AI and big data one day be viewed as an unfair advantage?

Now, only to the team stupid enough not to use it. 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 an unfair, is that a non-level playing field? It's already happening. And teams that aren't investing it are already losing ground. I mean, I think you expect as an athlete, you know, 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, level the playing field in some cases, but give a massive advantage to... And look, every team is different. Some are making decisions on their gut still, and they get in the gym and work harder, not smarter. Well, they're stupid. That's unfortunately the case, but 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 personalized training is where we see a lot of the investment being made. 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. Not just some. And without putting your body at risk because there's still, even if it's softer contact, somebody's still hitting you. It's not just some. I mean, I'm not speaking as an expert,

but I just read an article in Scientific American about... We're so proud of you, Chuck. Thanks, man. Angel, you're proud of... He's our in-house comedian, and he comes to my house saying he's reading Scientific American. I'm proud of you, Chuck. 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. Okay. So you are literally in the game as far as your brain is concerned when you are training visually with these headsets. You are in the matrix. So the thing is, Angelo, this

virtual reality that's constructed is brilliant for quarterbacks that are third and fourth string. They don't get game time. They're not going to get reps. But they are learning 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? I think it's just, it'll be the bare minimum that you're going to, 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. 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 just pounding the pavement and getting your reps in. But the thing I'm most excited for outside of just the athletes is actually the fans. So those that are using technologies that are going to give you a more personalized experience. As a fan, maybe personalized chatbots, they know kind of, I walk in the door, they know who I am, what I like, what kind of athlete. They're personalizing the jersey they send to my house, the beer that I like to drink while I'm there. 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. Fan 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. Fan experience. Yeah. So let me ask you, what is it happening? Wait, wait, wait. That's kind of already,

they've already been trying to do that at stadiums. Yeah, I was about to say, what's happening now at stadiums 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. Especially since, what is your urge to go to a stadium in a while, so that's why I'm asking. It's been a while

since I've been to any. Especially since, what is your urge to go to a stadium if you can stay home with an 85-inch flat panel monitor? Guilty as charged.

Yeah, okay. 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. 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 don't have to deal with security now because think about Clear. You guys use Clear at the airport? I use Clear.

Yeah, I use Clear at the airport. 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 in 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 might bring up beer. Huh? They know I like IPA. So they're going to flash some coupon or free drinks, some sort of engagement around the kind of food and beverages I like. And you know who my favorite athlete is as a venue, 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, 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 going to do to get them off their butts, get in the stadium, and make them have a great experience? That's a deep fact. The majority of teams do not win championships. That's right. Exactly.

Someone you'll know, is it John Ledecky at the Islanders? They're building this new arena in Belmont on Long Island, and he was describing... Belmont Racetrack. Yes. 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 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 Wi-Fi, and you can spend that hour enjoying yourself,

not sat in your car. So that's the thinking that's currently coming through. 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. Because 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 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 it. But we cannot drop the ball and not take advantage of tech and all these amazing innovations to get

people engaged. And that's what Belmont is doing. They're saying, all right, 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. You know what? 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. Right, right. Cool. Next question. 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 computer analysis affect the entertainment value

of sport? So in other words, I'm guessing, should we now, as an entertainment business, be constructing plays that are more entertaining than plays that are just there to outright win? I love that question. That's a really interesting question. I mean, I'd say if you own the team, you want to win because you make more money when you win. But I think what I'm seeing more of here at Sports Innovation Lab 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 is going to be the halftime show and people wait to the commercials, and they want to know about what the athletes are doing 24-7 now.

And 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 go as opposed to manipulate the game. I don't know as a purist if I'd ever want that to happen. 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 and seeing your team win?

Let me give an example. I'm on a basketball court and I break away. And I know I got a teammate right behind me. I could make the easy layup but i do not i toss it against the backboard alley bounces off the backboard and the guy behind me catches it in midair and slams it and i am on sports center that night all right and plays of the day because you're so boating that's what you're doing you You're a showboat. Okay, so we analyze it and say, that gives extra fan engagement,

extra social media, repostings. Yeah. So that makes sports that much more of an entertainment commodity than simply, are you making the shot? 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 design play that's put into the game for the purposes, express purpose of entertaining the fans. But at some point, somebody had to invent the alley-oop, all right? All right. 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. Okay.

Probably was a shot. 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 as 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. And so this would be computing saying, you know, here's a thing you've never done before on a hockey field. Is there any usage of our artificial intelligence in play design play design there it is yeah so we're seeing um obviously if 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 giving 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. Again, back to sports betting. We know that, you know, there's been some simulations around EA Sports and Madden, and they've actually predicted 10 of the last 15 Super Bowl victories based on video game simulations. Whoa.

So that's like, okay, they're using it to predict outcomes, but they're not actually, it's not the coach sitting there saying, hmm, now there's football leagues being designed, your call 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 actually have impact in what play 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. But for the most part, that is fan engagement, and it's based on this, which is crazy. 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? Right. What else am I paying for?

For you to make the decision. Exactly. As I can. We've got to take a break. We'll come back with our third segment of StarTalk Sports Edition. We're back. StarTalk Sports Edition Cosmic Queries. Angela on the line. Hockey, great.

Yeah. CEO of Sports Innovation Lab. Sports Innovation Lab. Right. Olympian, gold medalist, and Hall of Famer. Wow. And the right person for this show. And she has all her teeth.

Wow. That's the most remarkable. Forget the medals. She's got all her teeth. Yeah. Everybody in this conversation is pleased with that. All right. So in this last segment,

let's see if we can get more questions squeezed in. Okay. So we tighten up the question and the answer. What do you have? All right. Here we go. Here we go. This is Michael Tobias from Patreon. He says hello dr tyson uh and angela one day will

advancements in sports technology eventually lead to athletes not requiring as much talent to be considered exceptional and as for fandom will advancements in sports watching technology lead to nobody wanting to attend events in person? We kind of touched on that just a second ago. But I like this idea of could it lead to a decrease in necessary talent? thing, you know, where you're going after such specific skill sets 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. Is there any fear of that? Yeah, specialization is always, I think, 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. It'll be less based on gut and more based on this money ball. What does the data say? At the end of the day, though, you can't measure heart. You can't look at 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 deliver on. But I'd say those skill-based things and performance in the clutch. So I still think sports will always have the human element, but it certainly will make it smarter in ways that will, again, prevent injury and allow the right talent to be selected for the right roles. I like that answer. That's a great 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.

Because that's a dime a dozen. It's the person whose brain, whose mind can take them to a new place and perform in the clutch, perform under pressure, perform with fans screaming. That's not any old person. No. That's the rare. and perform in the clutch, perform under pressure, perform with fans screaming, perform, and that's not any old person. No. That's the rare. 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. Yes. And it's who's going to show up on that one day and perform. With their game in play.

Yeah. By the way, Angela, I just got a text from my cardiologist. He says, yes, Angela, yes, you can measure heart. Why is your cardiologist listening to us?

Right, okay. Next one. Andrew Sederger 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?

These are suits that monitor you medically, I guess, right? Yeah, it depends on the sport, but we're seeing that, you know, increasing, you know, an investment 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 um you can track just their speed alone you're talking about speed skating being so much better than a stopwatch you know coach on the corner doing this or uh so if if you can get down to the millisecond, again, usually this technology is in the skate

and that's how they review who won the race, so to speak. 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 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 right wow cool 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 right 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 right yeah data is cheap it's the analysis and understanding what and understanding that separates what you do with it. All right, give me another one, quick. All right, here we go. Rajtalak Kapoor says...

I don't believe any of these names you're reading. Listen, man. That's what's there. It's right there, Rajtalak. You just sound like you don't know what you're reading, but go on. It's such a common Indian name. What's up, Raj? Go.

All right, here we go. He says, 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. 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 in, 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. Oh, by the way, yes, they do. In bars. 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. I mean, 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, a 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 whoever's going to rank it's going to be objective. Okay, I get that. I have a problem with the who's the greatest of all time, because it's

which, who do you respect? Which sports do you respect? But I think the way you do that is, you say, how great were you in your day relative to other players? 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? 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. Unless we build AI, that'll have its own AI bias. What is that? All right, next one up. All 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?

Oh. Excellent, Angela. What are you doing about that, Angela? Well, this refers maybe to your Olympic experience. No, you're talking about an Olympic? Yeah. I think it's one of the best questions. There's over 205 National Olympic Committees in the world.

There's 40 or 50 international federations. They come from everywhere. Different socioeconomic backgrounds. 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. Everyone should have access to this information. The suits shouldn't be so expensive that only 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 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 biggest organizations to sell first and not the National Olympic Committee of 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 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. And I'm reminded the opposite of that was Rocky versus Drago. Right. Because Drago had all the Russian technology. He was made in a lab.

And Rocky's just, you know, doing shit up. 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. Right. And then it gets spread to the masses. And in fact, usually when it first comes out, it's not very good. No, like cell phones. It's kind of buggy. Like the early cell phones were like…

Cell phones, they sucked. They sucked. Right. 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 is- They do. Yeah. Okay. Okay. All right. All right.

So here we go. It's me. Hanwee 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? Wait, wait, isn't it just a replacement for war? Angela, what do you think? 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 about sport and entertainment. Yes, that's the business we're in that most people view sport through the lens of that. But 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 going to 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 the name you're going to be okay you 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 is getting cut all the time. In the U.S., it's privatized. Sport is privatized.

That is unlike the rest of the world where there's actually a sports minister that oversees the growth of sport. And that's a fundamentally different way that we've structured 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 going to make better decisions for their kids. And ultimately, we'll deliver a better fan experience, fan journey for those that just want to 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- 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 insurance policy out by that organizing committee to cover the cost of that by the way

those people came together to flip over that car yeah those people were cooperating while they were rioting that's more that's cooperation that's at. 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. So let me ask you, I'm going to end with a final question to you, coming from me, not from these sheets. Are you a mother?

Yes. 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 bring too much emotional stress upon the child and so sports in the school systems or young school systems are are reconceived so that there are everyone is a winner so i 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 nor Norway is a great example of sporting culture. Everyone plays sport for life. 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. 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 got to teach kids. It's okay to fail. You're not going to get a trophy. I'm all for that, but that we are, 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. Why? Okay. That's your answer. 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 spread the wisdom and insight that you have brought to this program. We loved your answers and I just want to bottle them and somehow spread the wisdom and insight

that you have brought to this program. Fantastic. Thanks, guys. All right, Chuck, thanks for doing this. Always. Gary, Angela, again.

So I've been Neil deGrasse Tyson, your personal astrophysicist. As always, I bid you to keep looking up.