[Philip Lelyveld comment: This note and link arrived in my InBox from Bryan Burns, ESPN.]
This note is being sent to many of my friends and colleagues that are involved in some way with 3DTV. On rare occasions a writer just “gets it” and perfectly captures the essence of the story at that moment in time. That is the case with the link below. This is worth more than a skim, a total read would be beneficial and interesting to anyone in any way involved with 3D.
Good weekend to all.
Bryan
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By Eric Malinowski, Wired]
In theory, ESPN 3D is the ultimate sports network, but theory has a way of clashing hard with reality.
Over the past 12 months, ESPN 3D has broadcast a lineup of sporting spectacles that would rival any network available today. College football’s BCS National Championship Game? Done. The Masters golf tournament? You bet. How about we throw in the NBA Finals, professional boxing, the World Cup, college basketball, the Summer and Winter X Games, and the Major League Baseball All-Star Game? Not too shabby.
Launched exactly one year ago, ESPN 3D isn’t languishing on some no-name providers. If you’re an AT&T U-verse, DirecTV, Comcast, Time Warner or Verizon FIOS customer, ESPN 3D is a phone call or click away. That’s a reach of more than 65 million cable and satellite subscribers, more than enough to get any fledgling new network off the ground.
Toss in the knowledge that this isn’t regular TV we’re talking about but rather 3-D TV, which provides sports with an added visual element that doesn’t compare to your 3-D Blu-ray of The Polar Express, and it would seem like enough fodder for a network ready to change the sports world.
That’s one part of the reality facing ESPN 3D.
The other, more-sobering realization is that families have to shell out hundreds, perhaps thousands of dollars to upgrade to a new 3-D-capable TV in order to get the full effect. You also have to wear glasses — well, not just you, but everyone in your household or the local sports bar — in order to savor the novelty of seeing that little golf ball rolling along the undulating greens of Augusta like you never thought possible.
Oh, yeah, and everyone hates 3-D right now. America’s most famous movie critic hates it. Prominentsports reporters hate it. And audiences aren’t turning out in the droves movie studio honchos were hoping to see. What’s getting the brunt of the blame? Higher 3-D ticket prices.
And that’s all just on the front end. Behind the scenes, ESPN, the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader in sports,” has had to single-handedly bear the pressure (and considerable expense) of ushering in a completely unique network that very well may decide the viability of original 3-D content in our living rooms.
If ESPN 3D fails, an entire industry may fail before it ever truly begins.
This is what keeps Phil Orlins and Anthony Bailey, two of the architects behind ESPN 3D, up at night. (Of course, that’s assuming they ever have to time to sleep.) With a combined 38 years of ESPN seniority between them, they have the privilege of producing a premium product that’s not beholden to ratings or ultimatums from the suits in Bristol, Connecticut. In fact, they’re not even sure how many people are watching ESPN 3D at all, never mind if it’s making any money.
What they do know is that 3-D sports on TV is young and immature, but rife with potential to permanently alter how we view (literally and figuratively) sports on television. What they’re still trying to figure out, one year into their grand experiment, is how to bring all the pieces together so that 3-D sports is just another accepted offering for sports fans’ TV spread.
Orlins is the coordinating producer for ESPN 3D and has been dedicated to the network’s maturation for several years now, even before the official launch last June. He’s seen the idea grow from conception into full-fledged content provider. He has orchestrated the continued integration of standalone 3-D productions into their 2-D counterparts, a move that streamlines operations and allows him to allocate resources to other areas.
And yet, despite all the growth and learning over the past 12 months, even Orlins can’t think too far ahead for the network’s future. For him, the prize is getting everyone else’s eyes.
“I wish there was some magical solution,” Orlins told Wired.com. “Obviously, the price points are getting more reasonable. There’s more content out there, and therefore it’s going to get more penetration. But you can’t just snap your fingers and get the audience seeing it.
“It’s going to take time, but you have to remember that each person who loves it is going to tell 10 other people. Eventually, it’ll grow, and it is growing.”
Organic growth does figure to be the best way forward for ESPN 3D, although peripheral factors are trending in the network’s favor. Some analysts estimate that global 3-D TV penetration could top 23 million units this year, an increase of more than 500 percent over 2010. However, U.S. customers only bought 1.1 million units last year — only half of the estimated 2.1 million that were expected to be sold — and sales figures for 2011 will likely end up around just short of 2 million, still a healthy year-on-year increase.
Looking more long-term, separate research firms estimate that in three years’ time, 100 million 3-D TVswill be able to draw on 100 channels of 3-D content.
Today, though, it’s just ESPN 3D. And price points are falling, although some might argue they’re not falling fast enough. With the economic state of the country not exactly allowing for disposable income and impulse-driven tech upgrades, word of mouth is the strongest ally in the hunt for new converts.
For every big-time game the network shows, Orlins or one his team members tries to coordinate a public viewing at a 3-D-enabled sports bar or arena. And reading some AVS Forum message board comments recently proved to be an illuminating lesson in real-time public relations.
“Someone threw up some critical stuff about 3-D on there,” he said, “and some other guy was like, ‘Oh, I was at the Dallas Mavericks game the other night and they had a 3-D TV up in some area and it wasreally cool.’ All I could think was, for all those times we run that fiber to that single spot for the one or two monitors we carry in our truck to make sure we have it up in every place that we go, that’s why it happens, so that one guy can be an evangelist for us and take the contrarian point of view to one of those skeptics out there who probably hadn’t seen the product.
“There’s no question the most powerful thing at our disposal is people actually seeing it firsthand.”
As for whether their long-term hopes hinge on an attitude adjustment regarding 3-D at the cineplex, Bailey, ESPN’s VP for emerging technology, doesn’t necessarily see one impacting on the other.
“I don’t think they’re linked,” he told Wired.com. “Sports has done it one way for 3-D, and then there’s the way for movies and Blu-rays. It comes down to the content. There needs to be more content — and not just movies — in order to sell these TVs, in order to get people to subscribe to their carrier to get the 3-D channel.
“There’s so little other 3-D content out there, that I think as soon as you start seeing other content come through, it’ll move a little faster than what it is now.”
For now, expectations are smaller, despite the technology (even as it pertains to sports) having existed for decades. And if the tipping point for widespread adoption isn’t immediately in the offing, it certainly won’t be for any lack of effort.
The 2011 Summer X Games, a marquee event for the network, is scheduled to produce 21 hours of original 3-D content, up from just eight hours a year ago.
“Everything inside Staples Center will be a full 3-D production,” Orlins said. “As we’re shooting the Big Air ramp out in the parking lot with six cameras, we’ll have 11 cameras inside Staples Center shooting all four days in there. It’s wireless cameras, it’s RF, it’s a cablecam-type system inside Staples, the whole deal.
“It’s definitely an aggressive plan, but after a year of doing this, we have full confidence it’s ready to go.”
After the NBA Finals wrap up, the ESPN 3D crew will get busy prepping for the MLB All-Star Game in Phoenix and the Wimbledon semifinals and finals next month in England. The fall season will bring more college football games — ESPN’s Monday Night Football does not appear to be going 3-D any time soon — and the seasons will begin anew with NBA basketball and the Winter X Games in Aspen, Colorado.
There is enormous pressure on ESPN 3D to deliver not only quality programming but more and more viewers. It has to do the heavy lifting that’s being shared by each of the major film studios. But armed with a programming slate that would draw millions of 2-D TV viewers with ease, ESPN 3D is primed as the central stop for all content that intersects sports and 3-D, as more people make the transition.
Dire as it may seem these days, the situation can improve fast, but that will rely on two things: TV manufacturers dropping prices enough that the sets are affordable and enough content out there to warrant making the switch to a 3-D TV. (Also, the content has to warrant putting on those always clunky, sometimes heavy glasses that many users despise.)
ESPN has no control over how inexpensive 3-D TVs will get, or how soon glasses-free 3-D tech comes to market, but it’s committed to doing whatever it can on its end to deliver the goods.
“Getting the right cameras and building them into the right technologies to maximize the 3-D experience is really what we work at all the time,” Orlins said.
“All this technology keeps changing,” Bailey added, “and there aren’t really any standards out there, so on the technology side and on the operations side, it’s just keeping up with the technology and keeping up with all the vendors creating new products and understanding where it benefits our production.”
All that new and evolving technology doesn’t come cheap, and ESPN can’t afford to wait forever to see if consumers will go all in on 3-D sports.
There are no outward signs that ESPN is remotely close to bailing on the effort, but if ESPN 3D fails, be it this year or five years from now, there may not be another viable chance to bring the medium to a wide audience in the near-term. If it can’t do it, audiences will likely have to wait until mainstream networks assimilate 3-D sports coverage in line with all its other programming, a 3-D-themed conversion that could take decades, if it happens at all.
All of which would be a shame, since ESPN 3D may be the best-kept secret in sports television. Yes, you have to shell out for the glasses, the TV and the channel itself.
But once you get there, the effect is utterly mesmerizing. Golf, baseball, and basketball take on (pardon the pun) a whole new dimension, as if you’re experiencing the sport for the first time. In boxing, the sweat looks as if it’s flicking off the fighters and into your eyes, which makes it exponentially safer than actually sitting in the front row at the MGM Grand and drying your face every few minutes.
Baseballs hurling in toward a catcher’s mitt pop through your screen and provide a depth perception that makes you perceive the national pastime with a fresh perspective.
ESPN has been conducting its own research internally and appears convinced that people are ready to watch 3-D sports, despite the added overhead and accessories.
If ESPN 3D does succeed, if it can crack the seemingly impenetrable nut that is 3-D on TV and achieve widespread adoption, then watch a flood of other networks fall in line to fulfill the demand from sports fans and executives. The glasses and the new sets will become routine, an accepted part of the television landscape. What might have started out as a deal breaker for consumers will become merely an accepted and minor inconvenience.
Ultimately, only time and patience by ESPNers of all levels (including parent company Disney) will dictate whether the investment will pay lasting dividends, both in dollars and eyeballs.