Live events their own niche within wireless entertainment

He shoots, he scores! But that National Hockey League player isn’t the only one celebrating. Vancouver’s Exponentia signed a five-year deal with the NHL earlier this month to provide live-action interactive games to hockey fans across North America on their mobile phones – and both momentum and prospects are growing. "We’ve already got a database of 1,000 users, and about 25% are actively playing," says Jim Fawcett, managing partner at Exponentia. Fawcett and his partner Andrew Gregory started Exponentia about seven years ago, and now have a staff of 15. "We quietly launched it with only three teams, but players are really getting into it," he says.Fans wielding cell phones participate in the game, called PlayAction, in real time by answering trivia questions and making game predictions via SMS. Joining the action is fairly simple: users send their favorite team’s name to PlayAction’s short code – 24365 – before the puck drops. They then have to correctly answer eight questions using their mobile phone over the course of a game. User costs are low: 10 messages are sent (eight trivia/predictive, two administrative) at a cost of $0.25 each. An entire game costs the user $2.50, and billing is conducted through their carriers. "We’ve put the pricing on par with a coffee at a game," explains Fawcett.Fans can take the game online by creating leagues, drafting friends and keeping tabs on the top scores through PlayAction’s website, www.playaction.tv. "We were originally a Web-based game," says Fawcett. "We had players ranging in age from nine to 99. When we expanded into mobile, we thought we’d have a database of younger players, but we’ve got players from all ages and more women than we originally thought."In terms of pro sports franchises, Exponentia has deals in place with the Toronto Maple Leafs, Phoenix Coyotes and Toronto Raptors. "We have the rights to run every NHL game now, but in order to run it properly we need to work closely with the pro sports teams to get the prizing and marketing component," says Fawcett. PlayAction is available to more than 200 million cell phone subscribers in North America, and the company is in talks with several additional professional sports teams. They plan to build on their experience with the Raptors and expand further into the National Basketball Association, and eventually include other leagues such as the National Football League and Major League Baseball.Under their current agreements with franchises, PlayAction is promoted at games and the team provides the prizes for fans. At the end of each game, the top three participants have their names entered into a draw for such items as game tickets and jerseys. "People win on a night-by-night basis. There are also prizes that run monthly and even the full season," says Fawcett.Trends would indicate interactive games that enable fans to participate in real time with their sport heroes are gaining prominence. Exponentia ran a similar PlayAction game during the 2005 IIHF World Junior Hockey Championships, and San Francisco-based AirPlay Network Inc. offers a comparable array of predictive/trivia games. AirPlay turns Java-enabled mobile phones into gaming devices, and currently has a deal in place with the NFL. They’ve already expanded into other television events, with Sprint PCS subscribers able to predict winners at the 2006 Emmy Awards, vote in poll questions and compete against other players.Carlsbad CA’s NTN Buzztime Inc. specializes in interactive television games, and has been providing QB1 – a predictive strategy game played in conjunction with live NFL and collegiate games – to Canadians since 1986. Buzztime is unique in that games are played on proprietary "playmaker" devices in bars and restaurants, and users compete against other patrons and users across North America in real time. Buzztime offers more than a dozen games and provides 14 hours of scheduled play on a daily basis. Their games are available in 4,000 locations across North America and in 2005 nearly 61 million games were played. Part of the game’s popularity stems from the cost to players: zero. Establishments subscribe to the service and offer the games as an incentive for patrons to visit and stay longer. While they offer an array of sports trivia and predictive games, "general knowledge trivia seems to be the most popular," says Steve Breitner, Buzztime’s Canadian VP of hospitality sales. The publicly traded company launched a second channel in 2004, is establishing a presence in the UK (39 locations as of June 2006) and is now incorporating mobile phones into their gaming."I think there’s a whole untapped market for us, in terms of mobile phones," says Breitner from his Toronto office. Buzztime is currently offering an early-release version of a program using its Text2TV technology. For $0.99 players can send messages to other players via their mobile phones. After being screened by administrators, the message appears on the game’s large screen at locations across North America. The program is available in 11 major US cities but according to Breitner, Buzztime plans to expand into other markets.The increasing popularity of wireless devices led Buzztime to form a partnership with Montreal’s Airborne Entertainment to offer mobile trivia games. The monthly subscription game service includes a choice of three different trivia games that users download onto their phones, through several major US carriers. Top players can see their names on real-time leader boards. "One day, cell phones could be our new playmaker," says Breitner.Fawcett doesn’t view AirPlay or Buzztime as any more competition than other sources of entertainment. "It’s a little more high frequency in terms of interactions. While we try to have 10 questions, AirPlay might have you looking at your phone upwards of 30 times. People want to be engaged in the game, not their phones." They developed a system where questions are sent out during intermissions and commercial breaks, enabling fans to focus on the hockey game. "We plan on attacking a mass market, but so far it’s been a break-even proposition for us," says Fawcett.

Live events their own niche within wireless entertainment

News | 12/21/2006 5:00 am EST

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