Newly-named 49ers president Gideon Yu conducted a fairly extensive interview with Tim Kawakami on Friday and discussed a broad range of topics. The most interesting content (in my mind) was his discussion of the 49ers new stadium and the themes and goals that would go into the new stadium.
"If we do it right, Jed's vision right now on the technology is to make sure the tech experience, the ability to multi-task, the ability to use mobile phones, the ability to have (a) home experience (at the stadium), different camera angles, different audio feeds, different data feeds... there's no reason we shouldn't be able to offer you that and more at the new stadium, in addition to watching what's on the field with 70,000 other fans.
..."On the green side, as opposed to kind of green for show, we're doing green for dough. What I mean by that, is let's make sure we have the proper Leed Certification-we're going for some pretty big goals on our Leed Certification (by the EPA).
..."Also we're thinking about ways to introduce sustainable sources of electricity and power to our stadium. If we do that correctly, some large portion if not a vast majority of the electricity that we use during the games can be powered by sustainable sources."
The potential use of green and smart technology fascinates me. Although this might not be in the monolithic nature of Jerry Jones monstrous stadium in Texas, the new 49ers stadium could provide great PR for the team. Aside from attempting to utilize green technology, it could be quite the technological marvel for the sports world to behold.
I'd recommend reading through the entire rundown of comments from Yu both about the stadium and otherwise. Yu has extensive experience with companies like Facebook, YouTube and Yahoo! and thus has dealt with some fairly significant figures in the world of business. He has some interesting comments when comparing them to 49ers CEO Jed York.