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HPE news. Tech insights. World-class innovations. We take you straight to the source — interviewing tech's foremost thought leaders and change-makers that are propelling businesses and industries forward.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (00:10):
Hello and welcome back to Technology Now, a weekly show from Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, where we take what's happening in the world and explore how it's changing the way organizations are using technology. We're your hosts, Alicia Kempson Taylor in for Aubrey Lovell.
Michael Bird (00:23):
And Michael Bird. Alicia, loving the energy at the beginning of 2025. Happy New Year.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (00:30):
Happy New Year to you too, Michael.
Michael Bird (00:31):
How are you enjoying your 2025 so far?
Alicia Kempson Taylor (00:34):
Can't complain. It's not been the warmest, but I mean, what else can you get from being in England?
Michael Bird (00:39):
This is very true. Well, let's warm up with an episode because in this episode we are taking a behind the scenes look at connectivity. One of the most exciting an immersive sporting organizations probably in the world, Tottenham Hotspur FC. Alicia, you and your family are Tottenham Hotspur FC fans.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (00:58):
Yeah. We are. I went to see them not long ago actually at the stadium.
Michael Bird (01:01):
Oh, well, we will be asking how technology is opening up new opportunities for fans, staff, and the team. We'll be asking why technology for technology's sake isn't necessarily the best strategy. And of course, we'll be asking what the future holds for connectivity in sports.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (01:17):
Yes. Amazing stuff. So if you are the kind of person who needs to know why what's going on in the world matters to your organization, this is the podcast for you. And if you haven't yet subscribed to your podcast app of choice so you don't miss out. Right. Let's get into it.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (01:34):
Tottenham Hotspur FC, affectionately known as Tottenham or simply Spurs, is a football or soccer club with an incredible history. Founded in 1882, just over 142 years ago by a group of local school children. The club has risen to be one of the highest earning in the world with revenues of just under 550 million pounds. That's a little under $700 million. That's according to Deloitte. And we've linked to their report in the show notes.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (02:01):
The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium opened in 2019 and has a capacity of almost 63,000 people and is popular not just for matches, but events and conferences too.
Michael Bird (02:12):
Yeah. And a modern, huge capacity stadium and millions of fans around the world means the club needs a huge amount of IT infrastructure. Countless thousands of devices need to be kept connected to meet the expectations of those fans, as well as offering the latest in interactive services and insights to help the club run smoothly on match days and beyond.
Michael Bird (02:32):
Now the man responsible for this since September 2024 is Rob Pickering. He's the chief technology officer for Tottenham Hotspur FC. Having moved over to the colder and wetter side of the world from Australia where he was previously the CTO for the Australian Football League. I recently had the chance to catch up with him and find out what it takes to keep a football club connected.
Michael Bird (02:55):
So Rob, welcome to the show. First, I'd like to ask you, how are you getting on at Tottenham? What have been the first few things on your to-do list?
Rob Pickering (03:01):
Well, it's really early for me. I've been in Tottenham now for a little bit under three months. So as with any new role that you come into in a sort of role like mine, you want to meet the people, understand the organization, work out what technology is in place today, where we want to go from a technology perspective.
Rob Pickering (03:15):
So it's all about discovery in the first few months and then it's about planning on where you're going to take it from there. So a really great early start. Everyone has been wonderful so far and it's such a great club to be involved with, such a great history, such a great legacy, a really great community story and what we do in the N17.
Rob Pickering (03:30):
And so I feel really positive about there and it's been a great first few months at Tottenham.
Michael Bird (03:34):
Amazing. I've never really thought about working for a sports organization. The whole organization is geared to high performance.
Rob Pickering (03:42):
One of the great things about working in sports is you work with a high performance mentality. Everyone's there to make the organization better and it really is a true meritocracy where everyone just tries to get better together. And for me, that's one of the great things about working in sports. You get to work with great partners.
Rob Pickering (03:56):
HPE is a great example of that. You get the very best of partners come to you and work with sporting organizations because of the halo effect that sport brings. And I think it attracts a really similar type of person that wants to do well, that wants to work together, that wants to perform as a team.
Rob Pickering (04:09):
And for me, it's just a great opportunity to do the types of fan interactions at a scale that most organizations never dream of. Have 62,000 people in the stadium at once and be able to deliver fan experiences to them. There's very few opportunities where you do that both physically in the stadium, and then digitally for our hundred million fans around the world. It's a really kind of big and weighty privilege to have, but it's an exciting thing to do. And for me, that's part of the reason why you work in sports.
Michael Bird (04:33):
Yeah. Yeah. Is there that sense of everything that we do will help us to win on match day?
Rob Pickering (04:39):
I think so. I mean, even more so now at a club. It's very different with going from a league to a club. You ride up and down with a performance on the weekend of the men's and women's teams. And so you have this sense of connection to the sport that you probably don't when you're in a league.
Rob Pickering (04:53):
I think at a club, you really do get that sense of everyone there pulling together to deliver for the performance on the field. That's a really interesting difference between that and the league because you're disconnected from the performance on the field, you're not worried about how a team goes or a series of team goes.
Rob Pickering (05:08):
You're actually worried about how the competition operates. At a club, you're worried about how your team goes. So everyone pulls together to make sure that the teams do better on the field. And so it's a very singular purpose, which is quite easy to rally behind.
Michael Bird (05:19):
So can we talk about fan experience? Why is fan experience such an important thing for the club?
Rob Pickering (05:27):
Well, I mean, the biggest part of what we do is for our fans. I mean, we really only exist to service our fans. And so that's really interesting to do in a football club environment because you have all these different touch points. You have a touch point of the physical experience when you're in the stadium, which is really unique and different.
Rob Pickering (05:42):
And I've certainly never seen anything like it coming over to the Premier League and seeing the way that football is conducted and the way that people love the game. It's a really kind of tangible thing that I've not seen in other sports, even in Australian football where it is still a very passionate game. It sort of doesn't even reach that level.
Rob Pickering (05:59):
So it is really great to see that. But then the challenges of delivering digital experiences in a physical environment that's not really built for physical for those digital experiences is really interesting as well. When you come to the football, you want the same access to services that you have when you're sitting on your couch.
Rob Pickering (06:14):
So your competition is not someone going to another sport or someone going to another team. It's whether you come to the stadium or not. And so building the types of experiences in the stadium, that means that people want to come to the stadium, want to experience that sport live and then have the same experience or an even better experience than at home is a really great technical challenge to solve.
Michael Bird (06:33):
And I'm interested to hear about what your experience with the passion of the fans is like.
Rob Pickering (06:37):
Well, there's definitely a loudness that I never experienced. To have 62,000 fans at the Tottenham Stadium and they chant for 90 minutes is something that I just haven't really experienced. I mean, everyone's there to see a team that they're so passionate for play and ultimately hopefully win.
Rob Pickering (06:54):
It's a great thing to be a part of. It's a great thing to play your small role in a bigger purpose. And the legacy of Tottenham is so significant that people are being connected to it for generations. And so it's a wonderful thing to play a small part of. And I think ultimately whenever you work at a sporting organization, you're a bit of a custodian of the code or a custodian of the team.
Rob Pickering (07:13):
You play the role that you can play for the short period of time that you are involved in the team, however long that is, it's going to be short in terms of the legacy of the team. So you play the best role you can to leave the place in a better way than you found it.
Rob Pickering (07:24):
And that's what I take into every role that I think about. How can I make an organization better than when I started at it.
Michael Bird (07:29):
You feel like the weight of responsibility because your role is transient. The club was there before you and the club's going to be there after you. Yeah. And that's a really great attitude. So what's going to be big in 2025 and beyond?
Rob Pickering (07:40):
Yeah. I think it's just more about what we do from a technology perspective at every touch point for our fans. So it's whether you're talking about what we do in stadium, it's whether you're talking about what we do digitally, whether you're talking about what we do in terms of outreach to our fans, what we do in our community, every element of what you do as a technologist in a football club can further the mission of the football club.
Rob Pickering (07:57):
So it's whether all those touch points and they all have different touch points. So our focus is really going to be on what can we do around generative AI? What can we do around modernizing our systems? How can we drive the stadium experiences in terms of delivering great in-stadium experiences for our fans, but then really great digital experiences for our fans that can't make it to the stadium?
Rob Pickering (08:15):
There's so much to do. It's almost like what won't you do in a given year, which is a good problem to have, but it's something not... There's not a specific initiative or set of initiatives that we're looking at that sort of really outweighs another.
Michael Bird (08:27):
Yeah.
Rob Pickering (08:27):
It just all culminates in how you deliver a great experience no matter where you are as a fan of the football club.
Michael Bird (08:33):
Yeah. Because the stadium is pretty high-tech.
Rob Pickering (08:36):
It's world-class.
Michael Bird (08:36):
Yeah.
Rob Pickering (08:37):
It's incredible technology. It's pretty new in terms of stadiums. It was built in 2019, so it's four years old. I'm a bit biased here, but I think it's the best stadium in Europe, probably one of the best stadiums in the world in fact.
Rob Pickering (08:49):
And so having that built environment, that world-class built environment, needing a world-class tech environment, and then having that already when I come in is an incredible thing to have. And through great partnerships with HPE, in particular, our ability to deliver that type of connectivity that drives the fan experience at every area of the stadium, whether you're in the south stand, whether you're in our premium hospitality, whether you're in the change rooms, the connectivity is world-class. And that is something for us that is absolutely non-negotiable.
Michael Bird (09:15):
Yeah. And I think that is quite a big game changer because I've been to stadiums, I've been to arenas where you're like, right, I just need to find somebody or text somebody or open the maps and you can't, it doesn't work. It's all saturated.
Rob Pickering (09:26):
I think we've been there before. There's nothing more frustrating than even that simple thing. I need to send a text message or when you think about it even more than that, and the generations of fans that we have now, the expectation is that you can TikTok from a game, that you can deliver social media from a game, that you can have those types of conversations with people that aren't there in a way that makes you feel like you're still part of a group that might not be at the stadium with you.
Rob Pickering (09:48):
And it's so hard. Connectivity is such a backbone of what we do and to deliver the types of fan experiences fans expect, you need world-class connectivity. And we are lucky enough to have that at the stadium.
Michael Bird (09:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Is it primarily about fast connectivity or is the connectivity you have at the stadium, is that just a gateway to be able to enable loads more things?
Rob Pickering (10:05):
I think it's both. I think you need to have fast and ubiquitous connectivity, so it has to be everywhere. It's not enough that it can be in one stand or another stand. And when you think about it, stadiums are really challenging environments to deliver that type of connectivity into.
Rob Pickering (10:18):
It's very complicated to do that at the type of scale when you're talking about, yeah, no people three hours before a game, 60,000 people at a game, and then no people three hours after a game, it's a challenge that not many organizations face, but every fan experience today is built on that, whether you're talking about point of sale on the stadium, whether you're talking about retail, whether you're talking about the fan experience and what they want to... Often second screen, they want to be looking at stats or replays on their second screen while they're watching a game.
Rob Pickering (10:46):
To deliver that type of fan experience that our fans expect, we need high speed and ubiquitous connectivity in every area of the stadium. And it's a really interesting technology challenge to solve that working with our partners like HPE, we've been able to solve really effectively.
Michael Bird (10:59):
So yeah, the challenges of running IT infrastructure in an environment where you have these massive spikes, I guess on a Saturday or on a game day, and then for the rest of the time some of the equipment must just sit there and be idling to some extent. What are those unique challenges? How are you managing that?
Rob Pickering (11:15):
It's a really hard technical challenge to solve. There's kind of the scale challenge. As you said, we get this really huge amount of scale in a really short period of time, but you've got to remember that as an organization, we run five days a week as well as a weekend.
Rob Pickering (11:26):
We have concerts, conferences, events, so it really isn't quite as linear as nothing and then everything. Tottenham is a destination for entertainment. It's not just a football club in terms of the stadium access in particular.
Rob Pickering (11:38):
And so for us as an organization, being able to deliver that type of experience no matter where you are and when you are there and what you are there for. It could be a concert, it could be a men's first team game, it could be a conference or an event. We really have to be able to deliver that in the stadium. But when you think about it, it's across everywhere.
Rob Pickering (11:54):
We've got a training ground, we've got a warehouse, we've got a stadium, we've got a foundation, we've got our operating entity, Lilywhite House. It's not just one place we have to do that in. We have to do that in five or six places, which makes it a pretty unique challenge. But it's one that, again, without reiterating it too much, working with partners, we're able to solve really effectively because we are able to deliver those types of experiences that our people expect. Not just our fans, but our employees, our stakeholders expect on a day-to-day basis no matter where they are.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (12:22):
Thanks, Michael and Rob. What an incredible and humbling perspective on keeping the Spurs connected. There are some amazing insights in there and we'll be back with more from that interview in just a moment, so don't go anywhere.
Michael Bird (12:36):
Right. Well, now it is time for today I learned the part of the show where we take a look at something happening in the world that we think you should know about. Alicia, seeing as your back for an episode. I feel like you should take this one this week.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (12:50):
Yes. I'll happily take this one, Michael. And I am taking you to Australia, very fitting for today's guest where a new record has been set for the world's largest independent power grid. And I'm sure you'll like this one as an electric vehicle owner, Michael. It's a vehicle fast charging network.
Michael Bird (13:07):
Alicia, I am in. Tell me all about it. Tell me all about it.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (13:12):
Okay. So the Western Australian EV network consists of around a hundred chargers at 49 locations, which doesn't sound like much, but Western Australia is a huge area. Meaning that the charging stations are on average around a hundred miles or 160 kilometers apart.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (13:31):
The whole network is over 7,000 kilometers long. That's 4,400 miles and it is completely independent from any other power grid. And there's a few pieces of the puzzle left to finish, but the network is now officially the world's largest off-grid system and has made one of the world's toughest driving environments EV friendly.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (13:51):
It has just been named one of the engineering marvels of the world, a must visit according to a very well-known magazine better known for its listing of people of the year. We've linked to that one in the show notes as well. Does that sound up your street, Michael?
Michael Bird (14:06):
Yeah. Very much so. Very much so. I think I've got my next EV road trip planned across western Australia.
Michael Bird (14:16):
Brilliant. Alicia, thank you so much for that. Absolutely amazing stuff. Right. Well, now it is time to return to my interview with Tottenham Hotspur's Rob Pickering.
Michael Bird (14:24):
You've worked in sports for a while. What has the landscape been like in 2024 and what are your predictions for the future?
Rob Pickering (14:30):
Well, trying to break the future too much it's a bit of a hard thing, but I'll have a go at it. I think that we'll continue to see the rise and rise of fans demanding more. They want more in their stadium experiences. They want more in their digital experiences because everywhere else is raising the bar, whether that's retail, whether that's hospitality, whether that's any of the other industries where people are delivering an experience or a service, the bar is getting higher.
Rob Pickering (14:53):
And so I expect that we'll see fans demanding more. Now whether that's second screen experiences, whether that's augmented reality, whether that's more work with generative AI, I don't really want to predict that. I think it's really hard to predict.
Rob Pickering (15:05):
What I can say is that as an organization, we want to be at the forefront of that technology. We want to make sure that we're delivering the best possible experience for our fans, for our stakeholders, for our employees, and how we do that really effectively is going to be important as in this year and next year as it will have been in the last few years as well.
Michael Bird (15:21):
So just quickly talking about fan experience then, and what does the fan experience of tomorrow look like? I know you said you don't like looking too far into the future, but if you could think up what you think the fan experience of the future would look like, what would that be? Would it include things like VR or AR or things like that?
Rob Pickering (15:38):
Look, it's really hard. I think the market dictates where the fan experience goes because the expectations of the market drives where we would choose to invest in terms of technology and what we want to deliver there.
Rob Pickering (15:49):
I think that where we are today and where we will increasingly go to is that people want a seamless experience regardless of how they choose to consume your sport. Now whether that's on the couch, whether that's in a pub, whether that's at a stadium, whether that's on a second screen while you're taking your kids to play football, I think that same sort of experience, that ubiquitous, seamless, simple experience no matter where you are, is where sports need to go to.
Rob Pickering (16:14):
And I think we're doing a pretty good job of it, but there's more work to be done on that to drive more seamless experiences regardless of where you are and how you choose to consume your sports. And that's a really interesting frontier to go to because there's some real interesting challenge in terms of how you do that to a level of satisfaction to your fans who just want to enjoy the sport.
Rob Pickering (16:31):
They want to be part of the sport, they want to be part of the club, and ultimately part of our mission of what we do.
Michael Bird (16:37):
I guess to some extent, you don't want the technology to take away from the sport. You don't want there to be sort of gimmicks because you want people just to enjoy the sport for being the sport.
Rob Pickering (16:47):
Yeah. I think there's a level at which it becomes how much of it are you doing it for the gimmick sake and how much are you doing it for fan experience? That's not to say we don't want to be innovative, we don't want to try things. We certainly do, and we've been really forward-thinking on that.
Rob Pickering (16:59):
I think certainly Europe and one of the world's first cashless stadiums, we've done a lot of stuff around XR capability, and so we've invested heavily in terms of technology innovation, but it's not to just gimmick the fan experience, it's how do we be additive to the fan experience in a way that still allows them to connect with the sport. It still allows them to be involved in the sport in the way that they want to, but smooth out some of those rough points that historically might've been challenging in terms of you go to the game and you can't get a text message.
Rob Pickering (17:26):
How do you avoid that type of experience? And as a technologist, a really interesting challenge to solve for.
Michael Bird (17:31):
Yeah. But things like cashless like that enhances the fan experience. Presumably, you can get your drink, get your food much faster, the queues are shorter, everyone can just get things done quicker.
Rob Pickering (17:42):
It does. But at the time, that was a massive change, that was a massive step forward, and many organizations are still not there. And so for us, that is a big step in terms of improving the fan experience, but also how do we be more innovative and more cutting edge in terms of our capabilities at our stadiums.
Michael Bird (17:57):
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What can other organizations learn from how Tottenham Hotspur deal with the challenges and opportunities of technology?
Rob Pickering (18:04):
Yeah. It's an interesting question. And I do also try not to lecture in terms of what should people learn from what we do because we are an organization like every other one.
Rob Pickering (18:12):
What I would say is we keep our fans at the center of what we do. And I think if you do that in terms of thinking about what you do through a fan-led lens, it's really hard to go wrong. Where I see organizations might lose their way or not do technology effectively is where they've not thought about their main stakeholder.
Rob Pickering (18:28):
Now that main stakeholder might be your employees, it might be your fans, it might be your customers. If you're a retail business, it might be your patrons if you're a foundation or a non-profit organization. If you think about things through the lens of how your fans, customers, patrons, employees will experience them, I think it's hard to go wrong with technology, and technology's evolved so much in the last 10 years that it really makes sense to me that if organizations keep that front and center in their thinking, it's hard to go wrong.
Rob Pickering (18:56):
In saying that, there's lots of opportunities, I think, as technologists to be better at what we do. And it's about just keeping a really stakeholder-led lens on how you do technology.
Rob Pickering (19:05):
And so when I think about solutions, I think about solutions that will better deliver for our fans, better deliver for our employees, better deliver for our stakeholders, rather than just, oh, this is a cool technology idea, because if so, I would spend all my time just doing cool technology things.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (19:18):
Thanks so much Rob and Michael for bringing us that interview. Really inspiring stuff. And you can find more on the topics discussed in today's episode in the show notes.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (19:30):
Right. We're getting towards the end of the show, which means it's time for this week in history. A look at monumental events in the world of business and technology which have changed our lives. Michael, remind us what the clue from last week was.
Michael Bird (19:42):
Well, Alicia, the clue last week was it's 1785, and this trip really elevated the travel experience. Did you get it, Alicia? I know you were listening intently. Did you get it?
Alicia Kempson Taylor (19:55):
Well, we'll see won't we?
Michael Bird (19:56):
Okay. Well, it was the first international flight completed in a hot air balloon, which crossed the English Channel between Britain and France. This week, 239 years ago, I'm glad they didn't go any further than that. That probably would've been quite a hair experience.
Michael Bird (20:13):
Anyway, the pilots for this audacious and dangerous expedition, you are telling me, were Frenchman Jean-Pierre Blanchard, and American scientist, John Jeffries.
Michael Bird (20:24):
Now the flight wasn't without difficulties though. The balloon struggled to maintain altitude, and so the pilots had to throw everything overboard to lose weight. Oh my goodness. And we mean everything. They arrived over the coast of France in nothing but their underwear, which was I imagine pretty chilly in early January.
Michael Bird (20:43):
Oh my goodness.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (20:44):
Oh goodness me.
Michael Bird (20:44):
Anyway, the flight went down in history and ushered in a new era of hot air ballooning, hopefully slightly more clothed.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (20:54):
Oh my gosh. That was incredible, Michael. The clue for next week, it's 1861, and this invention really lifted us up and kept us there. We're staying with the height theme for next week.
Michael Bird (21:05):
Yeah. It sounds like it might be some sort of hot air balloon related second story. I don't know what else it would be, satellites maybe.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (21:12):
Oh, good shout. Okay. That brings us to the end of technology now for this week. Thank you to our guest, Rob Pickering, chief technology officer for Tottenham Hotspur FC. And to you, thank you so much for joining us.
Michael Bird (21:26):
This episode of Technology Now was hosted by Alicia Kempson Taylor and myself, Michael Bird. This episode was produced by Sam Datta-Paulin and Alicia Kempson Taylor with production support from Aubrey Lovell, Harry Morton, Zoe Anderson, Alison Paisley, and Alyssa Mitry.
Alicia Kempson Taylor (21:42):
Our social editorial team is Rebecca Wissinger, Judy-Anne Goldman, Katie Guarino, and our social media designers are Alejandra Garcia, Carlos Alberto Suarez, and Ambar Maldonado.
Michael Bird (21:53):
Technology Now is a Lower Street production for Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and we'll see you at the same time, the same place next week. Cheers.