Thesis Lessons Learned From a Boy and His Imaginary Tiger

I’ve been spending a great deal of time trying to think of the content strategy and tone around RECESS, as well as the emotion I want to convey in my thesis presentation in May. Today, this cartoon went by my Tumblr feed and it all clicked :: Calvin and Hobbes is everything I want RECESS to be. From Wikipedia:

Calvin is an impulsive, creative, imaginative, energetic, very curious, hyper-intelligent, hypocritical, selfish, occasionally rude, ill-tempered and ultimately kind-hearted six-year-old

Ok, so maybe the last few characteristics aren’t what I’m aspiring to, but the initial traits are exactly what I want RECESS players to feel. They should be energetic and curious about the possibility of the games out in the world and come home dirty at the end of the day, with scrapes on their knees and dirt in their hair, just as we see Calvin above.

Central to Calvin’s play is his cardboard box. Whereas others see a simple shape for shipping and storage, Calvin sees a device that can be transported into whatever he needs to enable his play, from a rocketship transport to Mars to a cloning device to create additional Calvins.

In many ways, the iPhone is a similar device.  Where others saw simply a phone, Steve Jobs and Apple saw a device to answer countless user needs. Our phone has become our bank, our navigation system, our memories, and whatever else we need it to be. In that same way, I want to transform the iPhone into a device to enable play.

Its important to remember that Calvin would be nothing without Hobbes, his constant companion. Again, from Wikipedia : 

From the other characters’ perspectives, Hobbes is Calvin’s stuffed tiger. From Calvin’s point of view, Hobbes is an anthropomorphic tiger, much larger than Calvin and full of independent attitudes and ideas.

Hobbes is whatever Calvin needs him to be, from a partner in crime and co-captain to the occasional voice of reason. He is there to enable Calvin on his adventures and guide him through. He also gives Calvin the courage to try things that he might not normally do. RECESS should speak users in a similar way, giving them the reassurance that they’re never going into any activity alone.

Together, Calvin and Hobbes create the sport of Calvinball, the unstructured system of play that has only one rule - it can never be played the same way twice. Calvinball is created as a reaction to the traditional sports available to Calvin, which don’t fit any of his needs. Calvinball is a mixture of almost every other sport, and is constantly evolving. Like Calvin, I created RECESS as a reaction to a dissatisfaction of other available opportunities out there for play. I’ve also continued to address the notion of designing an open enough framework that allows users to decide what constitutes a sport or a game. If Calvin were to download RECESS, he should be able to organize a game of Calvinball. Because, afterall, “sooner or later, all our games turn into Calvinball.”

The Quantified Self vs The Communified Us

Last year, in our first thesis class with Liz Danzico, we were asked to prepare a “thesis fiction”, a product that’s out in the world already that we present as if its our own. The point of the assignment was to get us thinking about the world before and after the introduction of this product. I chose to present Nike+.

As a former high school track and cross country athlete, I would return from my runs with a stopwatch and instantly climb in the car with my dad, watching the odometer as we miticulously retraced my route. When I returned home, we’d open Microsoft Excel, input my distance and time, and be given an output of pace. Over time we evolved this spreadsheet to create workout plans and more advanced statistics. There wasn’t a run that I didn’t capture the data for, whether it was a 10 mile LD, or 400 meter intervals on hills. So when Nike+ was announced, the benefit needed no explanation.

In its brief five year history, I’ve enjoyed running with the evolution of Nike+. Last summer, I had my dream internship, joining the Digital Sport team in Beaverton, Oregon to help work on the future of the Nike+ platform. In that time I saw the future of sports analytics for athletes, especially in the recently announced Nike+ FuelBand, Nike+ Basketball, and Nike+ Training. I also had the opportunity to work on some game mechanics and social mechanics within the Nike+ ecosystem to help motivate the casual athletes. It was an incredible experience, and I was thrilled to see my education at SVAixd be put to use, from cybernetics and feedback loops to physical computing around sensors.

The work being done at Nike Digital Sport is part of a bigger movement known as the Quantified Self, which aims to bring a greater self awareness to our daily lives, from exercise to sleep patterns, through personal data. I’m a huge fan of this movement, as I wear and interact with countless smart sensors throughout my day. I’ve seen these devices not only provide valuable insights into my behavior, but also, powerful motivation to correct my course of action and make improvements to various aspects of my life. I’m losing weight, sleeping better, and running further. 

Nike follows the Bill Bowerman credo of “if you have a body, you are an athlete”, a sentiment I fully agree with. However, not every athlete is concerned about personal performance and metrics. Many people are athletes to be a part of a team, while simultaneously getting exercise. Throughout my interviews and surveys, almost every person identified their primary reason for participating as the social aspect of playing with others and less around their performance in the sport itself. People want to be a part of a team, or a community, and sports are a great opportunity for this. Pick-up games, group fitness classes and yoga, and organized co-ed sports, are all outlets that people find to be a part of a community of people around a shared interest.

I believe that there’s 3 types of communities on the internet. The first is those of Facebook and Twitter, which exist entirely in the digital world. I can sit in front of a computer 24 hours a day and participate in the Twitter community. The second type of community are those that digitally connect people around their individual behaviors in the real world, such as Foodspotting and foursquare. Nike+ is a great example of this as well. By going out for a run and uploading my data, I can share it with my friends and see their runs, even challenging them to the fastest mile, wherever they might be. But nowhere on the site can I invite someone to join me for a run in person. This third type community goes beyond digitally linking those with shared interests, it actively brings them together in the real world. Skillshare brings people together for an hour to learn around a shared topic, but nowhere on the site can I take a class. Similarily, MeetUp invites me to join an interest group, but minimizes the amount of communication that takes place online, they prefer that I save it for real world interactions.

Its nothing short of remarkable that technology like Nike+ has given us the ability to digitally re-create the experience of having coaches, teammates, and the motivation in the absence of having them in the real world. But its imperative that these features augment the experience of being active with others, rather than replace it. 

Last night, I finished a 4.5 mile run from school to home with an 8:30 pace. I know this because my Nike+ watch told me. It also attempted to give me an “attaboy” about my fastest 5k, but I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy talking to a someone in my building who was arriving home at the same time, disheartened that he hadn’t gone for a run today. We chatted briefly about my route and his last run and then parted ways, but not before agreeing to find a time to go for a run together.

Play

As a kid, I loved playing sports. There wasn’t a time of year that wasn’t filled with soccer, baseball, or basketball practice. And when I wasn’t playing on these organized teams, I was out in the middle of our cul-de-sac, playing street hockey with the neighbors. Or I was out on recess, playing 6th grade vs 5th grade football with our principal. Or perhaps I was over in the green belt, inventing an all new sport with my friends that only lasted for a day. It didn’t matter. I was playing. 

But then, in junior high, we were asked to try out for the school basketball team. For the first time in my life, the sport that I loved became not about how much I liked to play it, but rather, how skilled I was at playing it. It turns out the answer was “not very.” All of my friends made the team, I did not. I was crushed. I went on to play in the same recreational league from previous seasons, but was now surrounded not by my best friends, but by the “rejects” of various junior high basketball teams. If this was a Disney movie, we’d band together, listen to an inspiring talk from our coach, have a training montage, and beat the Webber Panthers on a buzzer beater by yours truly. But in reality, we played out our six games and parted ways. It was the last season I’d play organized basketball.

Gradually, other sports were taken from me as skill, not passion, became the qualification for participation. By the time my friends and I reached high school, we were specialized athletes, participating on one team, perhaps two for the exceptional athletes (which, as a track athlete, I was not). These sports became more like jobs to us, requiring months of training on either end of the season and signed commitments promising not to partake in other sports for risk of injury.

But about once a month, throughout our various seasons, we broke our pledges with a phone call of just two words: “Lopez Hoops.” Lopez was my original home basketball court, the elementary school where I first played 5 on 5 basketball on the playground. But where 10 of us little elementary school kids could once fit within the dimensions of the court, we now struggled to fit more than 4 of us onto these courts, which was fine for our preferred 2 on 2 format (It also didn’t hurt that the hoops were only 8 feet tall, affording almost all of us the ability to dunk). We’d play game after game, sometimes getting multiple game across various courts going. When you lost you were off, reduced to watching, cheering, and plotting with your teammate for your return to the court. Nobody ever paired up with the same teammate they had the previous session, rotating teammates and discovering a winning formula throughout the day.

The disparity between my skills and those of my friends, now with years of competitive basketball under their belts, was more than apparent. It didn’t matter. We were playing with a common passion that far exceeded any level of skill. Some of us were playing a game that had been taken from us, while others were playing a game that had become their lives. It didn’t matter. We were playing.

Two Meetings

This past Friday, I had two very helpful discussions around my thesis.

The first was with Leland Rechis, currently heading up Product at Etsy, and previously of Google and Twitter design fame. Leland is taking on the role of my thesis advisor, and I’m incredibly stoked to have him on board. After getting Leland up to speed, we had a great discussion of the current behaviors of sports fans in the online space. We both agreed that technologies like Twitter are open ended enough to allow a wide variety of behaviors and groups to emerge, and that one of the strongest has been sports fans. Sports fans use the negative space (between pitches, batters, innings, games, and seasons) to discuss what they’re seeing. Not only that, but they want to be acknowledged as the ultimate fans, whether it be for knowledge or passion. Currently, most of this “fandom” is expressed in various forms, but then joins the ever growing smog of “data exhaust”, a term I was introduced to while working with the guys at Timehop. Is there a way to capture this fandom in a way that celebrates these fans and links them with their fellow fans, letting them be a part of an online “tribe”? We also discussed great examples of social networks that are being created around more specific communities, from FoodSpotting around food to HipGeo around travel. Finally, we discussed my thoughts around the fan ownership of teams. And while we both agreed it was a problem worth solving, Leland pressed me to explain what I would “make” if I went this route…and unfortunately, I don’t have a good answer for that…yet.

That afternoon, I was invited over to USV to meet with Gary Chou of Union Square Ventures and a professor in our program. Gary agrees that “fandom” has been sacrificed by the profits-at-all-costs mentality of today’s owners, but again questions whether these gatekeepers can truly be circumvented from the top down approach. We discussed a different approach, which could be viewed as more of a bottom up approach - celebrating and bringing up local sports. Whether its New York City or a small town in Wisconsin, there’s countless teams in various leagues, representing everything from places of work, neighborhoods, and groups of friends - much in the same way that most of our favorite sports teams began a century ago. In considering the tenants of fandom that I’ve identified, Narrative, Tribalism, and Unpredictability / Drama, these teams possess all of these traits, but it often goes uncaptured. Not only could I create a service for these teams to create their identity, but moreover, it could be a powerful platform to evangelize community support around these teams, allowing fans to support them both online and off. Finally, we discussed the importance of the individual within a community. Everyone plays an individual role within a community or team, and this site would need to allow individuals to create their own “avatar” as it relates to their sports lives.

A bit more to think about…but in a very good way

State of the Thesis

Fitting, that the day after the POTUS gave his State of the Union, we were asked to deliver a similar speech, albeit much shorter, about the current state of our thesis. It felt good to put this on paper and feel such a coherence of thought, but I’ve still got a long way to go.

My thesis began with an observation - today, we’re more likely to root for our fantasy team than our hometown team.  

My hypothesis was though we live in a time in which we’ve never been more “connected” to our teams and sports via push notifications of scores, unfiltered tweets from our favorite athletes, and a seemingly endless supply of on-demand streaming highlights, we’ve paradoxically never been more disconnected from the tenents of true sports fandom - Narrative, Unpredictability, and especially Triablism - belonging to a community of people with a shared belief. 

Since then, I’ve set out to explore new methods for fans to reconnect to their teams and each other. All of my solutions, however, kept running up against a roadblock, or Gatekeeper, in the stakeholder ecology of the sports industry - the Owners. 

So, I asked the simple question - what if these owners were removed from the stakeholder ecology? What would it look like if fans were permitted to own and manage their own teams, much as they do their fantasy teams, and teams transformed from a for-profit-enterprise, back to their roots as a community service?

This isn’t a completely novel thought, as two teams have long existed under this model. The Football Club of Barcelona and the Green Bay Packers of the NFL are both fan owned, and to some degree, fan controlled. And while both of these teams are heavily critisized by other owners as unsustainable, Barcelona has won the most championships of any Spanish league team, while the Green Bay Packers hold more league championships than any team in NFL history. Simultaneously, they have some of the most passionate, emotionally invested fans on the planet - the Packers season ticket waiting list is currently 90,000 people long with an approximate wait time of 956 years. Clearly these models are not just sustainable, but superior. 

I’ve also been examining models and trends outside of the sports industry, including the rise of collaborative consumption, microfunding platforms such as Kickstarter, and grassroots organization such as the success of MyBarackObama.com in the 2008 election. What these all have in common is the ability to capture the small actions of individuals and harness them into powerful, collective movements.

Our online products, such as Twitter and Facebook, race to create new online communities of people. But in my mind, there’s no better example of a community already in place than those who rally around their hometown teams. The actions of these people, their “fandom”, currently exists as singular, micro actions, which is rarely captured. When it is captured, its commercialized and exploited, thrown back at fans via beer advertisements, merchandise, and overpriced tickets.

In sociology + philosophy + religion, there’s a term known as “collective effervescence”, laid forth by Émile Durkheim, that describes the powerful feeling at events such as religious gatherings and sporting events in which a person ceases to exist as an individual, and rather, becomes a part of the crowd. I want to capture that same spirit. I’m working to change the relationship between fans and their teams by creating a system that transforms singular acts of fandom into a collective movement of fans influencing, and potentially taking back ownership, of their teams.

Elevator Pitches

Its easy to hate on the elevator pitch, but it really is a good barometer of where I’m at. Two different attempts….

FOR sports fans WHO are frustrated by the way their teams are managed. My thesis IS a new model of team ownership THAT allows fans to own and vote on important issues to their team.  UNLIKE teams owned by rich, individual businessmen, MY THESIS proposes a model in which teams are not run as businesses, but rather, as a service to fans

OR

FOR sports fans WHO engage with their teams through fragmented experiences, my thesis IS an app THAT tracks a fans engagement with their teams and allows them to cheer with friends. UNLIKE path, Twitter, etc MY THESIS is specifically geared towards sports fans, creating online communities around their fandom

A new direction?

As I begin to gear up for the final semester of thesis, I wanted to dive back into the thought I had at the very end of Rachel Abram’s Thesis course, the removing of the Owners from the stakeholder ecology and what it could mean to teams.

In examining the large stakeholder of the baseball “industry” that I put together, I was drawn to one specific area - that of fans, their teams, and the owners running them. From a conversational model, fans have the goal of “winning”, as do the teams they support. Teams and Fans have the assumption that owners share their goal of winning, but in all actuality, their primary goal is making a profit, sometimes at the expense of winning.

Simultaneously, and in all probability as a result of, fans have found alternative methods of cheering for a “winning” team, most notably through fantasy football. By drafting their own teams, the fans are in direct control of a team’s winning and losing, making decisions on a daily basis that directly impact their teams. However, this comes at a cost, creating a fragmented experience in which many fans are more likely to root for their fantasy teams than their home team, leaving them without a common “tribe” of fellow fans.

But, what if there was an alternative to this model, one that placed fans in direct control of their teams, bypassing the traditional model of singular ownership by a for-profit owner? If fans could own and manage their own teams, what would this do to fan loyalty and support? Would the notion of fantasy football seem trivial to the realities of controlling a real team?

This model is not a new one, as teams like the Packers and Barcelona FC have been run by communities of fans for a century. In this time, these two teams are some of the most successful franchises in their respective leagues during this time. Both are run on a not-for-profit model, with all revenue being invested back into the club or donated to charity, rather than back into the pockets of owners. Beyond winning, these two teams have arguably the most passionate fans in their leagues - the Packers have a waiting list of some 108,000 fans for season tickets.

This is an incredibly complex problem to take on, rooted in a century + of laws, revenue deals, and owners who lose a great sum of money with any disruption to their system. That said, I firmly believe that this is a problem worth solving, as fans are seeing their teams run into the ground by these owners, leaving them little to root for. I believe that the time is right for a model of community ownership to be explored, that in my mind, could potentially transcend sports and be applied to countless other areas.

World Series, Game 6

Two nights ago, I returned home from a school event just in time to flip on the World Series in the 9th inning. I had been checking the score on my way home, and just wanted get home in enough time to see the Texas Rangers celebrate their first World Series victory. I flipped on the TV, poured myself a nice glass of whiskey, and sat down in my favorite chair, expecting to be in bed in the next 15 minutes….

What happened next was impossible to fathom. The Cardinals down to their last strike in the 9th, tied the game with one swing of the bat by a guy I’ve never even heard of until this World Series, David Freese. The game went to extra innings, and almost immediately, Josh Hamilton answered with a homerun that instantly quieted the St Louis crowd. Simultaneously, Tony LaRussa, the manager of the Cardinals, dropped his head and shoulders in a way that seemed to suggest he didn’t think his team had an answer for Texas this time. But they did. Once again, down to their last strike, this time it was Lance Berkman who kept the Cardinals season alive, taking advantage of a weird defensive positioning by the Rangers and dropping a hit in to tie the game and send it to yet another inning. (I think it was at this point that my roommate came out, confused at the sounds of me screaming at the TV and the nonstop chimes of text messages of friends watching around the country). And when the Rangers failed to score in the 11th, and David Freese, the hometown hero, leading off for the Cardinals, it was pretty obvious what had to happen. Freese took the ball out to the deepest part of the yard, while Joe Buck simply stated “We’ll see you tomorrow night.”

It was arguably the greatest World Series game ever played, which in my opinion, automatically makes it the greatest baseball game ever played. I didn’t even have a dog in the fight, yet for those 2 hours, I was more invested in this baseball game than any other game I’ve ever watched.

I’ve attempted to collect a few “artifacts” from the game that I think might inform my thesis moving forward. Posts to follow…

Thesis Thoughts 10.4.11

I hesitate to call these “proposals.” They’re more two directions that I’ll be exploring over the next week to decide where to go next.

Direction 1

Last week, I proposed that sports fans in the 21st century have become paradoxically more disconnected from the fundamentals of fandom as they connect more to their teams through new technology such as push notifications and tweets. And while I still think that these elements can break down a narrative if viewed in isolation, I am now inclined to believe that they have done a lot to strengthen the bond of many sports fans and their teams, especially the most dedicated of fans. 

At this point, I’m interested in reframing the research that I’ve done into fandom not as a problem space for existing fans, but rather, an opportunity to capture new fans.

My hypothesis is that the barrier of entry for becoming a sports fan is often overly intimidating and seemingly insurmountable to a casual sports fan. How can we recast the measure of fandom from a measure of knowledge, but to a measure of passion and loyalty? How are honor, tribalism, narrative, unpredictability, and shared experience, the key characteristics of being a sports fan, currently lacking in people’s lives? How can I design ways to introduce these components to sports fans? Or as Frank said, how can I create a “gateway drug” for sports fans to higher level of fandom?

In a great deal of my research thus far, I’ve come across fascinating stories of people inheriting their team at different points of their life, but all of them are united in the lifelong bond they form thereafter, both with their team and with each other. What makes people grab on to these teams? Why do some choose to temporarily fixate on a team or sport, such as during the Olympics and World Cup, and then just as quickly cast them off at the end of 3 weeks? How can we create a way to hold on to these teams longer?

Innovations like fantasy football have been paramount in helping to make people sports fans by helping establish a baseline narrative of sports, the shared experience of watching football together, and the unpredictability and eustress of following your team, but it severely lacks in providing people with a tribe. After all, no two people’s fantasy football teams are the same.

Is there an opportunity in the stadium experience? People attend sporting events for a variety of reasons, not always as fans. How can we create an experience to lead up with anticipation, provide them with a compelling experience that they feel connected to in game, and leave with an “afterglow” (H/T Frank) that helps build their fandom. Each game someone attends should build on the previous experience and not feel like an individual affair.

In short, I am interested in developing a framework for potential sports fans to feel more connected to their teams and fellow fans, while simultaneously expressing their individual identity through who they root for.

or, as Allison stated, “To give somebody a piece themselves that they didn’t know was there…that’s powerful”

Pros of this direction ::

I have a passion for sports, and the fan experience

Classmates are a great target user

Could lead nicely into future in entrepreneurship

Red Flags to this direction :: 

I have no clue what I would “make”

I’m afraid that I would make 5 screen shots of a website and a user journey video

Tough to get out of the “concept” level

Am I adding gamification to a game?

Why isn’t this just another FB app?

Next Steps :: 

Continue to research fandom

Continue to research sports fans

KJ Analysis with Dave about sports and fans (done)

Liz’s suggestion - Develop small, testable prototypes about in small areas to begin picking away (love this idea, but no clue what they’d be. maybe this will come after KJ analysis)

References :: 

http://www.codecademy.com/ - Site slowly teaches you coding through simple, step by step instructions. Gamification.

http://rouxbe.com - Online Video Cooking School & Cooking Classes

Mayor Emmanuel Twitter account.

Frank’s Survey Casts http://blog.frankchimero.com/post/2192456624

Direction 2

Sports, by their nature, generate an immense amount of data. Every pitch in a baseball game is meticulously recorded, from speed and location over the plate, to where it was hit and how the runners advanced. Simultaneously, other data is being recorded, such as temperature on the field, number of people watching it live, and how other teams are performing simultaneously across the country.  

In his lecture “Presenting Data and Information.” Edward Tufte references the sports section of a newspaper as the most elegant presentation of data and statistics for mass consumption. But as we move away from the newspaper, is this information being translated properly in the digital world? As data visualization and infographics gain traction as a popular method for data consumption, is this information being presented in a way that is accurate, relevant, and of high integrity?

A recent post on Deadspin about the demise of the popular basketball blog, Free Darko, suggested that as sites with quality writing decline, “we lose something when our writers stop describing even what everyone else can see for himself. We lose that contagious love of detail — of simply watching very closely — and we cede yet more ground to those basketball writers who would use the sport as an arena for their grumpy toy morality.” But what if the solution isn’t a resurgence of journalism, but rather, a new form of journalism that relies on data visualization to bring the previously invisible information to the viewer’s attention.

In my thesis exploration, I would primarily explore different techniques to tell the complete narrative of a sporting event, and its larger picture in context of the season. How can fans be given the proper information, at the proper time, whether its before a game, during a game, or after a game to help them understand, and therefore feel more connected to, the sporting event they’re connecting with. 

Simultaneously, I would also like to investigate the method of data collection that presently exists within sports. Much of this is still done through old school methods of radar guns and hand scoring. Similar to the emerging view of our homes and cities as the “internet of things,” how can we view the field of play in sports through this lens. How can the advancements that we’ve made through personal sport data, such as RunKeeper and Nike+, be thought of in the context of spectators sports?

In short, I am interested in designing a set of data visualizations for sports fans in order to aid in the narrative and understanding of various sporting events.  (Yikes, I don’t like that. I think I more eloquently state my purpose up above).

Pros of this direction ::

Merges not only my passion for sports, but also, my love for data visualization

Promotes simultaneously building and researching

Aids me in developing what I consider to be a valuable skill 

Well established research / perspectives in this field

Sports are a relatively unique take on data visualization

Interested in working in this field beyond grad school

Red Flags to this direction ::

Perhaps too focused too early on final product?

Perhaps too much work in this field already?

Next Steps :: 

Survey existing sports data visualizations

Dive headfirst into Tufte

Dive headfirst into Processing

Reread Moneyball

References :: 

Pennant iPad app

Flip Flop Fly Ball

Peter Hall’s Lecture / Essay “Where’s the Critique”  http://dcrit.sva.edu/view/events/lecture-with-peter-hall-3/

Edward Tufte lecture / Site

Free Darko Says Goodbye http://deadspin.com/5790905/freedarko-says-goodbye  Via Frank

Mapping Urban Invisibles http://www.amazon.com/Exposed-City-Mapping-Urban-Invisibles/dp/0415551803/ref=pd_rhf_p_t_4

Yankee Stadium

For our Public Interfaces project, we’ve been asked to work within our thesis area. I’ve decided to build a public interface for Yankee Stadium. In doing some initial research, and working off of my past experiences, I’ve identified the following :: 

Problem

• While the New Yankee Stadium does a great job of acknowledging the history of the Yankees, it does very little to tie this history back to their fans and their role in it, if only just as witnesses.
• Moreover, Yankee Stadium sees a wide variety of fans, from the diehard bleacher creatures to the casual first time fan. The stadium caters to the casual fans only by attempting to sell them overpriced food and beer, but does little to hook them emotionally and incentivize their return.
• Many fans, especially those from the neighborhood, have been outpriced by the Yankees catering to the luxury crowd.
• Finally, even for the most diehard of fans, attendance at games often feels like a singular event, unrelated to previous games attended or witnessed through another medium.

Solution Direction

• Casual fans need to be made to feel a part of the Yankees tribe. First time fans should feel the same connection to the team, and their fellow fans, as the most diehard of fans. 
• Fans should be able to see a piece of themselves in every moment of Yankees history.
• These moments should not be viewed as singular events, but rather, as a continuous story.
• Fans should leave a game with an afterglow 

Thesis Proposal 9.26.11

Sports have always reflected larger trends and conditions in society, from wars and conflicts to the breaking of color barriers. One particular area that sports have evolved is in parallel to the evolution of media. A century ago, sports were consumed in one of two ways. A fan could either purchase a ticket and watch the game in person, or, read a recap the next day in the newspaper. The invention of the radio allowed for an all new method of consumption, as a voice gave fans a play by play account of what they were missing. Soon, television added picture to this play by play, along with early infographics (as simple as a players name and batting average) about what the fans were witnessing. With cable came the creation of ESPN, a television channel that promised to play nothing but sports, 24 hours a day. Shows like Sportscenter became hour long recaps of the day, complete with slow motion breakdowns of a single play, shown from countless angles. Not long thereafter, the internet emerged as a new medium for sports fans to follow their teams, while simultaneously allowing them a platform to express their fandom through blogging, tweeting, and countless other forms of content creation. Finally, as the internet has moved from the stationary computer screen to the always-in-the-pocket cellular phone, fans can receive push notifications of big moments in their team’s game, at no more than 140 characters.

For my thesis, I’m interested in exploring what it means to be a sports fan in the 21st century.  Specifically, I’m interested in examining the evolution of the fan experience over the last century. Have these changes been for the better? If so, what is the next logical step? But more likely, its my hypothesis that with each innovation in technology and media, the defining characteristics of what it means to be a sports fan have been diluted and sacrificed along the way. Put another way, have we paradoxically become more disconnected from our teams as we’ve become more connected in terms of technology?

The defining characteristics of sports fans that I will use as my lens into the sports fan experience are :: 

Honor - A team winning isn’t necessary to a loyal fan. Sometimes fans feel tighter to a team if they feel as though they are connected to a team with a struggle. 

• Has the Honor of rooting for the team with the struggle been overshadowed, by constant barrage of tweets, fb statuses, etc of those who are winning?
• Do places like ESPN.com give ample coverage to the teams in smaller media markets, and who aren’t having a championship season?

Tribalism - By aligning ourselves with a team, we align ourselves with a group of people who have the same love. This is our tribe. We often inherit our tribe from our parents, or we find it on our own.

• Teams and their fans are both more likely to move around the country than they were 100 years ago. How does that affect ones tribe?
• Are we more likely to root for our fantasy football team than our hometown team? What tribe do we belong to then?

Shared Experience - Almost every play of a sporting event is a unique moment in time, shared only by other witnesses. We are bonded through this.

• How has shared experience changed from us gathering in one place (stadium) to several places (bars, homes with friends) to individual places (cell phone screens) to witness live sporting events?
• How has the second screen, i.e. tweeting during games, etc helped to supplement this?

Narrative - All teams, whether mighty or weak, have a storyline. The more a fan knows about this story, the more likely it is that they’ll be engaged with the team. Where some people see a simple “walk” in a baseball game, others see a long complex history between batter and pitcher. 

• What does receiving micro-updates via push notifications do to break down narrative?
• How can the immense amount of data that any sporting event generates be used to create narrative, in lieu of a SportsCenter or a long form written story?

Unpredictability - Both good and bad, or as Neyfakh refers to it, eustress - “the addictive combination of euphoria and stress that grips fans in the presence of a game.” Rewards that arrive randomly are more pleasurable than those that occur at a given time, which is inherent to sports. You never know when your team will hit a home run or grab an interception.

• Again, how can the immense amount of data generated by sports be leveraged to affect unpredictability? Does knowing where a player will hit the ball next eliminate this unpredictability?

Let’s see how I’m doing with Frank’s specific prompt ::

I’m making a ? to be used by Sports Fans to address the problem of the disintegration of fundamental traits* of fandom in the 21st century    

*Specifically : Honor, Tribalism, Narrative, and Shared Experience

ObamAlarm

For the first week in Protoyping User Experiences, we were asked to design an alarm clock for a user that we drew at random from a hat. I drew Barack Obama, and began to consider what would make an alarm clock for Obama different than the alarm for any other person.

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