call it super moneyball. baseball teams discover the power of big data. hank adams is my guest this morning. plus, unlock your cell phone. that's a good thing. and how to invest before a company goes public with reporters from "usa today" and columnist for slate and fast company this week on "press: here." good morning, i'm scott mcgrew. are you familiar with saber metrics? if you've seen the movie "moneyball," same thing. it's the use of data in sports, specifically baseball.

if you build the database, they will come. and nobody has a better database than engineers at sports vision. for years sport vision has been providing tv viewers with computerized first and ten line. that was so successful, the company expanded into other sports. sailing, race cars. with baseball, sport vision tracks each pitch, each hit, so they can entertain you at home with snazzy graphics. turns out the data behind those graphics is much more valuable than anyone guessed. there's so much of it, and it's so accurate, baseball teams are now paying money for the raw numbers and using those numbers

as a strategic advantage. someone once came up with the top 20 more innovative things ever created for sports broadcast and sports vision is responsible for ten of them. hank adams is ceo of sports vision joined by mark from usa today and columnist for slate and fast company. we've seen the first and ten line. tell me the genesis where somebody said, wait a minute, not the graphics but underlying positional numbers are gold. >> i think that happened with us with nascar actually. in the first and ten line, which we're best known for, people see that live, there's no real data behind that. we're able to click on the tip of the ball, very simple for us. it was nascar has said we'd like to put pointers in the car and tell you which car is in the lead and tell you the story. we have, once tracking the cars

to do that for broadcast, we have all the data, a complete digital record. >> gps data, speed, rpms because you're recording all of that. >> we get all of the data. it's oven begin control unit. we track the cars to win two centimeters and orientation. from that we have basically the whole event, every car, every track, so we're able to turn that into data for fans, very cool digital products that you can watch the race at home on. >> sports team are able to look at the data to look at players or drivers or sailors and actually make improvements. >> you mentioned "moneyball" up front. this the next wave of that, which is really nonobservable data. so you see that pitch tracking graphic, it shows if you're at home where it crossed home plate. but we're tracking the entire pitch. we can tell you release point, spin on the ball, break on the

ball. >> what does that tell me? i played baseball as a little kid, if i'm pitching coach for the giants, and they bought your data, i get spread sheets with commas and numbers, what am i able to sus out of that. >> there's a lot. the holy grail is can you tell if a pitcher is about to get injured because of the way he's pitching or may even be injured and hasn't told the team doctors about it. we know exactly where the release point is. if their mechanics change, either they have done something consciously to change it because they are trying new pitches. but in reality it's probably because they are injured or their mechanics have started to break down. they are getting tired, something is happening. they use that to diagnose. >> how do you know that from the baseball. what's the technology to show you it's spinning a certain way. >> in baseball, computer vision,

cameras around. we're not actually measuring the spin but we've modelled physics of baseball pitches. we know if it's going in a certain direction following this curve, humidities and altitude we can derive to spin on the ball. >> what's the answer to that, can you tell if the pitcher is about to be injured? >> we haven't solved that at sport vision. we do some data analytics. teams do way more than we do. >> who is the leader in data analytics now, such a burgeoning field, some have the advantage over others. >> they really do. it's an arms race. there's a handful of teams that are really, really good at it. boston is good at it. they hired bill jaynes. chicago cubs invested really heavily. >> oh, they are good at something. >> which hopefully translates into wins on the field eventually. the dodgers are starting to ramp up. the giants locally are big buyers of our data. >> when you say buyers, who owns the intellectual property of data? >> our deal is major league

baseball and they own underlying data. we create derivative data sets. we'll track the ball as it's hit off the bat and tell you where they are hitting it relative to the plate, how fast it's coming off. >> you're adding value. >> it's more than just -- >> selling it back to us. they take it, slice and dice it. >> and do their own analysis. >> more than anyone could sit, my grandfather used to do that, he got a triple. wild amounts of data, batting coaches, pitching coaches have never seen before. >> absolutely true. our next iteration, not tracking hit and pitch coming off but every player in the field and hit balls throughout, the throw back in. so we're going to have the complete digital record in baseball. actually five parks have it now. we're doing it in five baseball parks including san francisco giants. >> i can see why a lot of people would want this data. do they know yet whether it's actually changing the way the game is played?

>> we know it is. we know it is. for instance anaheim called us last year. rivals using data to adjust their defensive lineup, so they called us and said we need this data because they are using it effectively against our players. they try not to tell us too much, because they are afraid if we know it, we will build it into the software and everybody will know it. we have had special instances, cc sabathia, many years ago in cleveland, he was having trouble, it was our data that told them he had dropped his release point a fraction of an imp and a that made a difference. >> "moneyball" is the one everyone tends to look to. what about basketball, the one they seem to think "moneyball" application wouldn't work as well. are you finding data points and ways of analyzing that play that may track the way that game is

played. >> we haven't been talking basketball players. another company is doing that. 's a different dynamic. you don't have discreet events. it flows. you can track a player but that doesn't explain 87 points by kobe bryant. it becomes this sort of mob theory of trying to sus out if you can force them to the right, is his shooting percentage slightly lower. some teams are using that to great effect. >> did the giants have this data when they won the world series? >> they did. we like to take credit for it. >> what about las vegas. if i were a private investor and said i want to buy some of this data. i think it's interesting. maybe i've got some rocket scientist in my organization, can i have it, too? >> so the data is actually publicly available. this is an interesting story. even though we do sell it, you can get it for free. >> you understand you shouldn't have it publicly available if you're trying to sell it. >> great point. >> that would explain so much.

>> what happened, we didn't intend that to be the case. baseball put it in the at-bat product but they don't encrypt that app. so what some smart data guy said was i can scrape this site and pull this data down. they started doing that. there wasn't even a license in front of it. they started taking it. at first the data is valuable, spent a lot of money collecting, then we quickly realized this is crowd sourcing the problem, the value of our data shot up, because the teams started realizing guys were doing unbelievable analysis with this data. teams started hiring bloggers writing for obscure publications, hardball times. they started hiring guys to work inside and our value of that data became -- >> hank adams, absolutely fascinating this went the direction it did starting with first and ten and going where it is. we wish you continued success.

>> thank you very much. thanks for being with us. up next, the man who unlocked your cell phone. you will thaeng him for it when "press: here" continues.

welcome back to "press: here." i'm scott mcgrew. you may have noticed on twitter or facebook some people have changed their profile picture. twitter icon is this, red and pink equal sign. it shows the person is in favor of marriage equality. some say icons turned black to protest internet censorship and a few years ago did green to show their support of evolution in iran. these people are called slacktivist. it's not that their causes aren't worthy, they are called that because of the easy route

they choose. rather than show up with a sign or contribute money, they tweet or sign an online petition. here is the unexpected twist. the easy route seems to work, by blacking out a few websites helped defeat the bill. >> he changed nationwide rules prohibiting you from moving your phone from one carrier to another by posting a petition on a website. the petition received 100,000 clicks and it was changed. he learned his online petition succeeded when he got a call from the white house itself. tell me about that phone call. must have been you changed the world.

>> a tiny part. i got a call from david edelman, one of the white house policy people, he called back and said we're excited to support this. kind of a lucky thing, they answered quickly and was supportive. >> you got 100,000 signatures. that doesn't hurt. >> what did you do before this? how did you come to the cause? >> i've got a bit of a history. i'm personally a startup person. my last company is my third. i've never been involved in politics or activism. it's not something on my mind or i've been active in or had a voice in. i had a history of unlocking cell phones in college in 2003. i was a little strapped for cash. i had a cell phone i brought from the uk to the u.s. for college. i unlocked it.

i thought a lot of people had that problem, so maybe i can make some spare cash. >> at this time it was illegal. >> it was an illegal gray area. >> it was legal, then switched over to illegal. >> a strange situation. back then i started unlocking motorola phones. motorola sent me a cease and desist. i was lucky, a lady from stanford helped me to respond to the letters. they dropped the case. jennifer had an exemption to the copy right act. that exemption was removed. i have a back story, history involved in this, which is why. >> i understand why carriers might not be in favor of unlocking phones but why would the handset maker have a big concern about that. >> handset makers and relationship they have with the carriers has shrunk. happened set makers want to sell

as many devices as possible. if you can unlock the phone and not buy a new one, they sell less units. >> this idea of slacktivism, it's not accurate to say it always works or doesn't work, there's different situations. do you think this one took off because you're online and the people in this sort of group of people who might tweet about it and facebook about it also have a lot of cell phones and care about unlocking? >> definitely some overlap. that's why people cared about it and helped shut it down. they care care about it. that's why people online care about the internet and want to protect it. two parts, one, when i heard about the law being changed, my reaction was i want to do something about it. what can i do. the white house, the obama administration has set up this incredible website called "we the people." people complain that is

slacktivism. they set a hard limit. futures a certain number of signatures, under the circumstances a response from the white house, which is kind of aweawesome. it's an open democracy forum. >> is there a point or tip you would give people, i have a cause i believe in and i'm going to petition the white house. is there something, online petitions for dummies, give me clues as to what to put in there? >> depends what you're trying to do. in my case, we got the white house to support. it's really congressional change and congressional action we need. it depends who you're petitioning. >> when you started, what was your best outlook for an outcome, what did you expect? >> two weeks before they raised the limit to 100,000 signatures from 25,000, there's no chance i'll make it. >> they raised it because people were being so successful with 25,000. the white house is saying we're not promising we're going to make a change but we will address you if you reach 25,000.

now it's 100,000. it's going up from there? >> still at 100,000. mine was the first to get to 100,000 signatures. i think -- i really didn't expect for them to give a positive response. i think they were happy to because it's something they realize people care about and they can take some degree of action on. >> you got the white house's support, now what? what's going to happen? >> now we're trying to push the bill through congress, working with public knowledge, public advocacy groups, trying to shepherd a good bill through congress. >> i imagine a lobbying effort on the other side, you're fighting -- >> go ahead and say comcast, comcast, nbc, universal. >> i'm not aware of a big push on the other side yet. it's not clear. i'm not sure. obviously this sort of thing happens under wraps, right? because there's so much popular support and even the administration's support behind making this legal, i think the carriers haven't pushed back too hard yet. >> the cell phone symbolizes

something i can understand. if dmca is difficult for the average person, they just don't care, then they find out they can't do something. wait a minute, i can copy a music cd but i can't copy a dvd even though i own them and they look identical. that's dmca there. once you explain, no, you can't take your cellton to a different carrier, you can now, thanks to you, no, you can't, you can do this, then they realize understand the things they should care about. >> the film industry has a better lobby than the music industry. >> that's actually a follow-up question. it's a heck of a lot easier to get 100,000 signatures and get the president's men to respond to you than it is to get congress to respond to you because the president's men aren't deen dealing with the same lobbyist, the person who runs every two years is dealing with, who maybe is getting money from tobacco industry or movie industry or whatever. >> unlocking isn't legal yet.

it hasn't passed in congress. they are still pushing for it. hopefully soon. your follow-up question was sort of how do you push against the lobbyists. >> and not make it quick. >> it's a really tricky problem how to get people engaged and voice better representation in government. i think it may be possible through software. i'm trying to figure out the best way to do it. it's a really tricky problem and lots of movements trying to get money. >> thank you for being with us. congratulations on your success. up next, buying stock in twitter. you can, you know. when "press: here" continues.

welcome back to "press: here." it's been more than a year since congress passed the jobs act, jump-start our business startups, jobs.

the law allows crowd funding, small investors funding early stage startups long before they offer shares to the public. it was supposed to revolutionize the way young businesses have capital but securities & exchange commission hasn't signed off on it citing concerns, small investors can be taken advantage of. what people don't realize you can invest without the jobs act. tim sullivan ceo of micro ventures. the website says it's like crowd funding but legal. that's a good thing. thanks for being with us this morning. walk me through what this is you do legally that allows me to buy shares in companies that aren't public. >> historically people haven't been able to invest in early stage companies. over the past five years, there has been a number of platforms that opened up investing into this early stage environment of private equity. our platform essentially enables

credited investors to aggregate on the site and have access to these early stage startup deals. >> i'm assuming there's criteria. you don't have to walk through every criteria but make a certain in come. >> essentially means you can afford to lose money. >> so not me. >> so are the companies getting -- are you buying it from existing -- where is it coming from? >> we're making an investment with our investors, alongside our investors with the companies. >> who makes the actual security acquisition on a secondary market. >> secondary market trades are ones which an existing shareholder, ex-employee, somebody like that is looking to liquidate their position. we do second stage in companies like twitter and others, but

micro ventures is primarily focused on early companies. >> so we're pooling money together, investing in this company together. is that a fair assessment? >> it is. >> tell me, if you're -- if the people who are doing this are sort of rich people, didn't rich people have access to investors in the past? what are they getting? >> rich people had access to cocktail parties where they have a friend, hey, this is a great opportunity, you should invest, too. i'll put $25,000. broker dealer, we do due diligence on the companies, criminal background checks and allow a level of transparency that's never really existed before. so the people that come to our site -- go ahead. >> no, no, no. i was going to let you finish your sentence, when the people go to your site -- >> they can do their own work. they don't have to follow a friend. >> the jobs act, it was kind of my understanding that's what the jobs act was supposed to do, to

allow people to invest in interesting things really early. once that actually takes effect and can be used, how does your business change or how is it different? >> the jobs act really was meant to stimulate the company and stimulate job growth. there were another set of things that were going to happen right away that never happened, such as the lift on the ban of general solicitation and the allowance of unaccredited investors to participate in these offerings. i think they have had a hard time trying to legislate around those things, they want to mitigate the risk that can occur in these types of investors because they are early stage. a lot of people aren't going to do the same kind of due diligence we're going to do. that's extremely problematic to the industry. >> if i'm an unaccredited investor, i can't give scott $5,000 to start his company. >> you could. there's a regulation a offering, which is a very small offering,

but isn't necessarily what's going to help him in the long run. it's going to cause issues with capitalization table because there's a number you can have. >> it's complicated. i'm going to open a general store and here is money from the whole family to do it. that's not allowed anymore? >> people want to invest in billion dollar companies, not necessarily the family store. in silicon you hop on 101, it's jam-packed because there's so much happening. it's hard to sift through to find out which ones will be the next. >> the effect if the s.e.c. figures this out, effect unaccredited investors would be able to give you money also. >> that's an ideal situation. unaccredited investors add significant more value than the credit. it doesn't mean you're smarter than the investor you just have more to lose. >> with bought a minute left, let me ask you this idea that i can invest into something you've done due diligence in, does that

put you on the hook for anything? you hook into the company and it went bust. you told me to invest in fiskar. does that put you on for anything. >> if there's enough interest, we'll go to the company and say, hey -- we've already worked with them, done the due diligence. a group of investors would like to invest. would you like to take their money essentially. they generally said yes. they have said yes 32 times. we've had successful raises. as far as the work we've done, it's as much as we can do. we can't guarantee or predict the future, but we can do enough due diligence to allow the work to make that decision. >> tim sullivan is ceo of microventures. microventures.com. we'll be back in just a moment.

a programming note, we will noe not have a program next week so nbc sports can bring you the stanley cup playoffs, but we'll be back with you the following. in the meantime we do have a big collection of past episodes on our website, pressheretv.com. i'm scott mcgrew and thank you to my guests.

hello and welcome to comunidad del valle. i'm damon trujillo. this is your comunidad del valle. it's empowering students through service and education. the agency is called build on. back here on our show, comunidad del valle, jorge gomez, a senior at skyline college. you'll hear his story and jay with build on. welcome to the show. tell us, first of all,