Jan, 2002 : NHL and Sun Form Exclusive Technology Relationship

📅 January 25, 2002 - The National Hockey League (nhl.com) and Sun Microsystems,Inc. (sun.com), have announced details of an exclusive agreement that makes Sun the official technology partner of the NHL and NHL Players' Association.The technology and marketing agreement touches all areas of the NHL'sbusiness and enhances the online fan experience for the 8 million visitorsper month to NHL.com, the official Web site of the National Hockey Leagueand one of the most trafficked sports Web sites in the world, as well as NHLteam Web sites.

The relationship will enable the League to extend its brand, and grow itsfan base while driving revenue by streamlining communications and businessprocesses, the companies said. The technology partnership will expand theNHL's Web site audience to new users through the delivery of realtime gamedata and scores to wireless devices and interactive TV users. The NHL'stech-savvy fan base ranks high among professional sports leagues in use ofthe Internet, broadband access, PC ownership and buying power on theInternet.
Additionally, the NHL's business processes will be enhanced by the abilityto communicate and conduct business more securely online with its 30 clubmembers regarding contract information, transactions, scheduling, waivers,scouting reports and statistics.
The solution from Sun is expected to improve the online fan experience viainstantaneous access to statistical realtime coverage of more than 1,200games, historical data, merchandising and video highlights. With more than30 percent of the League's players coming from outside North America, theLeague's fan base relies on the NHL.com Network for current information ontheir favorite players and teams.
Under the agreement, Sun will also have exclusive marketing rights in itscategory of premier events such as NHL All-Star Weekend and the NHL EntryDraft, and a media presence with the League's broadcast partners.
"Besides its brand, one of the NHL's most important assets is its data,"said Scott McNealy, chairman and CEO of Sun Microsystems, Inc. "Sun's openend-to-end technology infrastructure - hardware, software, storage, andprofessional services - will enable the NHL to derive the maximum revenuebenefits from its wealth of detailed operational data and statistics."
The planned projects start by building out a platform leveraging the iPlanetPortal Server to aggregate content and present information in a customizableinterface to both internal NHL users as well as fans. In addition, Sun willhelp the NHL rewrite its Real Time Scoring System using Java technology,enabling realtime game data to be fed into other applications such asalerts, fantasy leagues, games, in-arena kiosks. For example, a hockey fanwill be able to receive realtime scoring updates involving their favoriteteams or players via wireless devices such as Nextel cell phones. Localbroadcasters covering a Boston-Montreal game will have access to the samesystems, providing insight to the current performance of former Boston orMontreal players and other data.
As the official technology provider for the NHL, Sun will offer the entireSun Open Net Environment (Sun ONE) software portfolio for services ondemand, specifically the Solaris 8 Operating Environment, the iPlanet PortalServer, iPlanet Portal Server: Mobile Access Pack, iPlanet ApplicationServer, iPlanet Web Server, iPlanet directory Server, and iPlanet MessagingServer. The implementation is planned on a wide range of Sun's hardware andstorage systems, including Sun Fire 4800, Sun Fire V880, and Sun Fire 280Rservers, Sun Ray 150 thin clients, Sun StorEdge storage products, and JavaCard APIs. The entire site platform infrastructure will be architected bySun professional services with the NHL.