Welcome

I have been to over 20 MLB stadiums, ten NFL venues, several college football stadiums, and a handful of arenas. I love seeing, hearing, and feeling how each city or town presents their teams, mingling with local fans, and trying to take in as authentic of an experience as possible. I have a zillion photos of my travels and experiences but I never took the time to write about those experiences. As with most things in life, the minor frustrations and potholes along the way are forgotten, while the highs are remembered and shared forever.

In my Sports Technology course at Northwestern the final project was titled 'What Sucks.' The task was straightforward: identify something that sucks about sports and improve it with technology. Watching football on TV is awful and woefully antiquated so I focused on how to improve the experience of watching games with personalized augmented reality. This project is the inspiration behind the blog. Check out the video below for more.

On this blog I will attempt to capture the wonder and joy I have been fortunate enough to experience as a sports fan. The main mission of this blog, however, is not to tell people where I've been and what games I go to; rather the goal here is to highlight the trials and tribulations we all experience as fans. The ugly underbelly of being sports fan. I'll address some universal truths - buying tickets sucks, waiting in line sucks, parking sucks, etc. - while also focusing on some of the more minor issues sports fan face. Things like knowing when the best time to go grab a beer are, which entrance gate to use, and of course, why watching football games on needs to radically innovated, and much, much more.

Hopefully, many of these challenges can be solved with data analytics and technology, paving the way for a better fan experience. Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or Twitter to share what you think sucks about being a fan, or any suggestions for improving the fan experience.

Thanks for reading!