Milwaukee Bucks' chief technologist Cordova focuses on Deer District connectivity, startup investing: Q&A

As the Milwaukee Bucks' NBA Championship win was broadcast to the world last month — including to thousands of fans in and outside of Fiserv Forum — the franchise's chief technology and strategy officer Robert Cordova was focused on ensuring that everything from the Deer District Wi-Fi to the on-screen graphics in the arena were operating smoothly.

In a recent interview with the Milwaukee Business Journal, Cordova discussed the future of the Deer District's connectivity and how Milwaukee's technology ecosystem can capitalize on the Bucks' success. He also shared thoughts about investing in startups through a Milwaukee Bucks partnership with Green Bay's TitletownTech and beyond.

The interview was edited for clarity and length.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced technologically during the playoffs?

"We have about $60 million worth of technology at Fiserv Forum and around the Deer District, and when you're on the world stage, you don't want that to fail.

"The biggest challenge was just staying on top of the needs of the different media groups that were there, the fans, the Wi-Fi, the cellular... ESPN was up on the balcony, they needed to have connectivity back to their trucks... So just really getting all that spaghetti of connectivity in place and making sure that if one of those links fails, the other link picks up.

"When it comes to operation technology, the measurement for it is invisibility – you don't want to know that the technology's there."

Were there any close calls?

"There's a lot of technology driving all of the video and the statistics that are on all those screens... We had a situation where one of the hardware boards that drives part of those screens failed. We have the high-availability backup board that goes in there without you even knowing it, but it was miswired... So one of the underbelly screens went off and we had to figure out pretty quickly what was going on. And at halftime, we made the fix. That was, I think, towards the end of the regular season."

"The other thing that was a challenge when we had – whatever the official count was of people on the plaza in the Deer District – our Wi-Fi was never architected for that many folks. Even the carriers, like AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile ... I don't think they had planned for that many folks. I'm sure a lot our guests in the Deer District were doing their Instagrams and all of those things, but it may have been kind of hard at times to get connected.

"I think probably between the Bucks' technology and the carriers, we're gonna have to rethink that. If we have again tens of thousands of people, how do we make sure that they can always be connected? That's probably the most important consumer technology that is out there right now, is connectivity."

Do you have visions for the Deer District's technology moving forward?

"I always think of the 'why.' There's the 'what,' which is the actual bits and bytes and the hardware-software technology, but you always have to start with the 'why'... Content is the 'why' – what kind of content can we bring to the entertainment plaza that's really going to draw Milwaukeeans there and tourists as well?

"When we think of all that content, it comes down to, once again, connectivity. We have to have really good, flexible connectivity so when our content mastermind thinks of great things to do there, we can quickly respond and enable him.

"We're about to break ground next month on our first hotel in the Deer District. When you're in the hotel, are you on their Wi-Fi? When you walk out on the plaza, are you on Bucks' Wi-Fi, or is it just one seamless experience? ... How do we make it invisible to you, the guest? You can get your Instagram, you can get your QR codes, you can get all this stuff without thinking about having to put in the password or your email address to connect to these various networks."

How do you think the Bucks' NBA Championship win can advance the goal of making Milwaukee a thriving technology ecosystem?

"We're part of the (MKE Tech Hub Coalition) since this past year, so we see the potential here for really growing the technology presence in Milwaukee... I think Covid has proven that remote workforces can be just as productive as localized ones, maybe more so in technology...

"Hopefully the technology people out there around the world and coast to coast here in the States say, 'Hey, I need to go check out Milwaukee, it looks like a pretty cool place.' ... I think being on the world stage, we might attract that kind of talent here... So I think that's where it really wins, is in the awareness of, 'Hey, this is not a Rust Belt town. This is a really shiny, beautiful diamond in the rough. Beautiful lakefront, great basketball team, just a lot of fun engagement for people of all ages here."

How does the Bucks organization work with the MKE Tech Hub Coalition?

"There are three places where we really want to work with (the coalition). One of them is on diversity and inclusion, so as we build this technology hub here in Milwaukee, making sure that we're attracting all people here – all genders and all races here. So I'm on the diversity and inclusion committee there with a counterpart from Verizon.

"Another thing is K-20. We have the (Milwaukee Bucks Foundation) and we do a lot of outreach throughout the community. How do we engage the younger people in not being afraid of technology, seeing that technology enables a lot in our life, in career paths...

"The third piece is, we have the partnership with (TitletownTech) and Microsoft and the Brewers and the Packers... How do we really make sure that Milwaukee and Wisconsin are an innovation hub as well? There's lots of potential for great ideas that come out of here..."

Do you partner with any local startups?

"We do have local startups that do approach us. I don't think anything's formalized right now, but there are a few that you should be seeing in the near future that we are going to work with and be an investor in.

"We're trying to find a way where we can programmatically vet out things, much like TitletownTech. The Equity League is part of our first step going towards that, but we want to expand that.

"When we as a town – Milwaukee, with the various great entities here – start to really stand up these incubators and these innovation centers, I think then it'll be more programmatic and easier for the supply and demand to meet. Right now, we might get cold calls – do I get all those calls? Probably I miss some of them. That's why I think it's really important that we actually stand up something more formal, so we can make sure companies and diamonds in the rough aren't falling through the cracks."

Can you be more specific about what that might look like? You mentioned investing – would that be through the Equity League or a separate program?

"Right now we have no concrete plans, but we're already part of the Equity League. We have some ideas of maybe going beyond that or bolstering that up. As we're developing the Deer District, we have 30 acres and we're only about halfway through developing all of that land. So there's a lot of ideas for how we develop the rest of that land."

With the Equity League partnership, are you involved in deciding which companies (TitletownTech) investing in, or are the Milwaukee Bucks just providing funding?

"It's a collaborative effort between the Bucks and the Equity League. We're planning to start to meet and really discuss more of the ideas that are being presented. We went into the partnership at the end of last year and with Covid and then the postseason run, I think we're about to really start to go in hard with the Equity League and all of the ideas to come out of there."

Robert Cordova