With last week’s announcement that the PGA TOUR would be launching its new iPad app, digital consulting firm Omnigon continues to bolster its slate of projects in the sports space. The company, along with POSSIBLE Mobile, unleashed the platform with features that include the use of real-time predictive statistics, both for individual players and the field with stats that include average proximity to hole for approach shots, driving accuracy and distance, distance to hole and the percentage of putts made from current distance.
The PGA TOUR now joins the likes of the NFL, NASCAR, FOX Sports, WWE and World Rugby as clients of Omnigon and comes off the heels of the company opening new offices in LA and St. Petersburg, Russia with the acquisition of international mobile developer Touch Instinct. Cynopsis Sports spoke with David Nugent, Chief Commercial Officer, Omnigon about the company, his clients’ changing needs, and how technology is transforming the sports experience. .
Nugent on the growth of Omnigon: We have been fortunate to continue to grow the business both in North America and in Europe, at least in part because of some of the visibility we have gotten and because we are reaching out into the right areas. The sports business in general is growing like crazy, and digital continues to become an important part of that year over year. I think that the good work that we’ve done in the states, along with the thought leadership, has given us a good platform for our European business. We’re learning a lot about that market and the way you approach it. In general, we are excited about the growth we’ve seen.
On the evolution of clients’ needs: In terms of our traditional clients, we continue to help them evolve their business from a digital perspective as their needs overall change. For some of these organizations, it comes down to the way the way the overall company thinks about digital internally. So, one of the interesting things that I have personally seen has been that there is this ebb and flow from a business perspective in the way digital is treated.
In some cases, it is owned out at the individual business unit. Companies like that have multiple assets and multiple business units that have for a long time spent money at the business unit level. Each unit has its own set of budgets and digital is a part of that. When you spend a lot of money doing that, somebody ultimately steps in and says ‘Why don’t we centralize that spend’ and then they typically build some kind of centralized digital team in the hope that they will centralize that cost and create efficiency. Then, what happens over time, is that the units don’t feel like they are being served, and eventually the squeaky wheels wind up taking back their budgets and it becomes decentralized again. We are involved in those cycles all the time.
On upcoming projects: There’s a lot of things going on right now that are going to be ground-breaking on a lot of levels. The work we are doing with Verizon is one of those. They only partner in two sports, the NFL and IndyCar. We are providing the mobile technology side of what they are doing with IndyCar including all of their mobile apps. Verizon has put a stake in the ground and decided to innovate and look at the sports and all the interesting data that are moving around the cars moving in excess of 200 mph. Plus, they are going to make it work across all 94 Verizon phones that we have and there are now a lot of cool things being done with those apps that are going to be released in March. One is the concept of 3D live, as we’ve created a 3D-rendered experience that represents what is going on the tracks. The second is that it will be the first true deployment of the latest Verizon LT multicast, essentially turning the concept of cell towers into broadcast towers so it isn’t every single person individually requesting all this data one at a time. Instead, the data will be broadcast. So we are leveraging a real-time data delivery product called Turbine to deliver open WbeSocket connections from the data centers directly into the applications.
On the PGA TOUR app: We wanted to design an app that would enhance the experience of golf fans everywhere, whether or not they were at the tournament, by allowing them to follow every shot, statistic and standing. Course visualizations, hole by hole, right down to green level – combined with broadcast streaming, and a ton of other really interesting features make this app unique. We are extremely proud of our PGA Tour partnership and what we’ve been able to accomplish with them. Scott Gutterman and his team are real pro’s and this app is evidence of how effectively we work together.”
