Tom Brady posted a picture of Boston Celtics Point Guard Isaiah Thomas with the message:
“Its how you come back … Good luck tonight. We all have your back.”
With the Celtics down 0-2, the NFL champ figured the C’s needed a little motivation. Brady knows this is where Boston thrives, from behind. (more…)
Tom Brady, Bill Belichick, the New England Patriots organization, and Lady Gaga all set records on the night of February 5th, 2017, Super Bowl 51. Bill Belichick became the first coach to win 5 Super Bowls,Tom Brady, the first quarterback to win 5 super bowls, the Patriots, the first team in a Super Bowl to overcome a 25 point deficit. Likewise Intel and Lady Gaga combined forces to produce a performance that outshone previous half time shows. (more…)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/panthers/2016/09/09/cam-newton-hits-head-helmet/90110158/
We are all of one game into the 2016-2017 NFL football season and concussions are already in the headlines. The Denver Bronco’s and the Carolina Panthers kicked off the season with a Thursday night matchup that showed why the NFL is so popular, as the game turned on a missed field goal with seconds left. Unfortunately much of today’s post-game talk is not about the thrilling ending but about the pounding and blows to the head that were sustained by Panthers QB Cam Newton. Newton, the NFL MVP last year, took several severe blows that ranged from legal to clearly illegal and near the end of the game looked dazed in close ups.
The NFL has a physics problem. As the players continue to get bigger and faster the hits and tackles become more forceful and dangerous. Size matters. If you were to be hit today by defensive lineman Haloti Ngata of the Baltimore Ravens, who weighs 335 lbs, you would be getting “jacked up” with close to 1700 lbs. of force. Compare this to getting hit by 1927 defensive lineman Morris “Red” Badgro whose 190 lbs. would generate 970 lbs. of force.
I have looked into he physics of this and it’s complicated, having to do with angles, conservation of momentum, acceleration and on and on. Put simply bigger faster players are generating more powerful vicious hits. Think of it like boxing where lightweights bash each other repeatedly without noticeable consequence while heavyweights, when they connect with punches, produce “lights out” knockouts. While bodies have been getting larger and faster brains are not getting any tougher and are subject to the same force/damage consequences as they always have been.
Safety equipment is apparently not keeping up as the number of concussions increased in 2015 vs 2014. Techniques are being taught that seek to eliminate head first blows which concentrate force. Some teams have brought in Rugby players and coaches to teach tackling without the head. Unfortunately the head is attached to the shoulders, the main active components involved in tackling. When players go to deliver a blow, at full speed, with the shoulder, it’s very hard to leave the head out of it.
Ironically the NFL is at the heights of its popularity, even as players flee the youth football system and people who hate football for other reasons, like its masculine meritocracy, lobby for its neutering. The NFL has a problem, not only in the obvious dangers of the sport but in the possible declining quality of play due to so many injuries. As of now these issues are getting worse and nobody as yet has a solution.
When the largest game of the year is hosted in California’s Bay Area, you can expect the NFL to get a little help from the locals: Silicon Valley tech giants. This year’s game, as the 50th Super Bowl, was an important anniversary worthy of showcasing the latest specs in technology. From the stadium, to the halftime performance, to the athletic gear, #SuperBowl50 did not hold back.
As it happened, the game itself wasn’t much to brag about. The Denver Broncos beat the Carolina Panthers 24 to 10 in a monotonous display of good defense, which though a feat for Peyton Manning did not make for exciting viewership. Luckily, there’s so much more to the Super Bowl these days than touchdowns and field goals. What lacks in the match can be made up for by the digital fan experience, both onscreen and behind the scenes. This year, boundaries were broken in both the delivery and the message of technology at its finest.
The spectrum of Super Bowl 50’s technology didn’t begin and end on February 7th in San Francisco. Rather, it was many months in the making, with preparation taking up a huge portion of technological real estate, so to speak.
The Super Bowl Host Committee is largely responsible for ensuring these preparations come together smoothly in the weeks leading up to the game. This year, the committee’s CEO Keith Bruce emphasized that first and foremost, Super Bowl 50 would be all the about the tech.
“Our goal was to be the most technologically advanced Super Bowl ever,” Bruce said. “We’re at the center of the digital economy of the world, home to a lot of the stalwarts of tech, and we thought we should embrace that.”
Software and tech companies needed very little urging to get on board with this mission. Transportation came via Google’s commuter fleet and Uber on-demand, while laptops, phones and other equipment were provided by Apple. Google also helped develop the Road to 50 app, a virtual guidebook to the event, which fans could use to order food to their seats enjoy other perks.
With the help of Verizon and other providers, Levi’s stadium fully equipped with 400 miles of fiber optic cable, 1,200 wifi access points and 1,700 BlueTooth beacons to keep fans connected at all times. All in all, the committee raised $50 million from corporate sponsors to hold Super Bowl 50 to the highest of standards, worthy the sport’s 50 year mark and the region’s technology prowess.
Beyond sponsorships, the fun continues from all angles. Super Bowl 50 featured camera technology was at its finest: the EyeVision 360 displayed a 360 view of the stadium streamed from 36 cameras around the venue, while the debut of the Pylon Cam placed 16 cameras in end zones to film goal line sand sidelines, aiding officials in making tough calls. Athletic gear has advanced over the years as well — this year, players donned state of the art gear with RFID tracking in their shoulder pads.
Behind the scenes, there’s also advanced cyber security to take into account. Following terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, the biggest American sporting event of the year took no chances with security — luckily, and they had the technology available to make it an utmost priority. Though FBI declined to reveal their measures in full detail, we do know that disarming robots, helicopters, military jets were on standby.
Perhaps the greatest security measure, though, was surveillance. With over 600 cameras and an advanced scanning system that aggregated threats from the ground, sky, and social media, streams of real-time data were analyzed by agents at a Joint Operations center at an undisclosed location.
Social networking continues to be an enormous boon for brands and fans alike. The “second screen” experience, which allows live tweets and commentary from anyone with a device, proved successful once more: it’s is the ultimate augmentation of the Super Bowl, maximizing engagement in and out of the stadium.
Since the game wasn’t stirring up huge excitement in and of itself, we can thank our lucky stars for the halftime performance, which generated significant buzz online. Halftime shows often feature high-tech spectacles: for example, the mechanical cat ridden by Katy Perry last year, which was somehow overshadowed by the antics of Left Shark.
This year, Coldplay lead a technicolor display complete with interactive light-up LED wristbands, video walls, lasers and light-up inflatable balls. But as if proving technology for technology’s sake is bound to fall flat, it was Beyonce that stole the show with the performance of her brand-new song “Formation.” Together, Beyonce, Chris Martin and Bruno Mars evoked themes ranging from LGBT pride to African American empowerment, making the show as politically charged as it was electronically.
All in all, fans of the Broncos, Beyonce, and technology should be pleased with Super Bowl 50. And for those still unsatisfied, there are only seven more months until football season starts up again, with the power of a million screens and screams close behind.
Featured image: duluoz cats via Flickr
The second screen is becoming the first screen, and sport execs know it. With mobile video gaining popularity every year, it’s no longer just the game that’s important to fans — it’s the entire experience, which is increasingly augmented by mobile technology. If sports franchises want to remain relevant and keep fans enthralled, they must follow this trend by leaning into mobile fan engagement.
Before smart phones — less than a decade ago — there was neither need nor capability for features beyond the game itself. Though the saying goes that necessity is the mother of invention, in this case, invention has been the mother of necessity: once smart devices became ubiquitous, our need for them in every aspect of life did too.
The rise of smartphone ubiquity and technological sophistication is just one reason engaging fans through their phones has become so important. Other factors include changing demographics that include more millennials, competition with big screen TVs at home, and huge opportunities to boost revenues. All these things entail that sports venues have top notch connection, and suggest that interactive extras via mobile device would be to their benefit.
So, what exactly does leaning into mobile engagement entail? The opportunities are vast, and some have already been put to use. Imagine, for example, being able to order food and drinks to your seat at a stadium, or upgrade your seat to a better section — all paid for on your phone. These options are very appealing to younger generations, and are money-making opportunities as well.
To rival the at-home game experience, stadiums are vying to offer new and exciting mobile applications just for game goers. These apps may insider looks at camera footage, behind-the-scenes photographs, or additional statistics and facts on players. Ideally, fans could also access player profiles, fantasy performances, and access instant replays in real time.
The other side of this technological shift is that it gives marketing insiders the ability to collect data on who their fans and their habits, informing the development of new products and apps based on detailed insights. None of this is possible without stadium connectivity, though — so it’s no surprise that every major league in America is working toward getting stadiums completely wireless.
It would be misleading to say they are close to meeting their goals, because with technology evolving, so do the goal posts, so to speak. If and when stadiums and sponsors master the mobile game, there are other types of tech likely to emerge, like virtual reality, augmented reality and drones. How exactly this will pan out is still unclear, but I have a hunch that the fan experience is destined to transform, even if gradually, until technology is absolutely integral: a necessity instead of a bonus.
Photo: Aleksandr Osipov via Flickr
There are all types of methods, used and abused by human beings, that have stunning effects on athletic performance. Steroids, widely banned, have the ability to make athletes better, faster and stronger — nonetheless, such drugs are largely illegal for ethical and medical reasons.
In the meantime, the concept of the human body as a machine that can be tweaked and optimized is gaining traction thanks to advancements in science and technology. But the world of sports remains committed to the all-natural athlete, despite the fact that this ideal no longer exists. Today’s athletes are aided by special uniforms, technological training, nutritional supplements — and, in spite of regulators’ best efforts — new types of doping methods that are difficult to ban and impossible to trace.
It may seem odd that athletes are expected to adhere to primitive standards of excellence while the rest of the world embraces technological advancement, unhindered. Drug bans in the name of health and fairness make sense, but steroids are not the only way athletes can boost their performance. Safer and stranger modern innovations exist — the use of which some term “tech doping.” These futuristic methods don’t always fall under the realm of cheating, but some may toe the line.
Sans drugs, there are many ways athletes can (and do) fine tune their bodies to near super-human results. Perhaps the simplest and least controversial way involves technology that tracks performance for valuable insight on what drives successes and failures. With proper data, the athletic achievements can be replicated, mistakes reduced and overall performance improved.
Today’s athletes can swallow pills that monitor core temperature, wear sensors that track movement, and attach devices that record video and statistics. The wealth of information yielded by this technology can help athletes (along with their coaches and trainers) understand their performances and tweak their technique accordingly.
And it gets more advanced: athletes that digitally track their eye movements are able to discover which retinal fixations (and corresponding cognitive functions) correlate with success. This isn’t cheating, but it’s not natural either. Understanding the body and the brain this intimately would not be possible without the breadth of technology we use today to obtain and harness information.
Can high-tech sportswear constitute as cheating? Apparently so: ultrasonically welded swimwear by Speedo was determined to have artificially enhanced athletic performance in the 2008 Olympics, after which the high-tech swimsuits were banned. There is little reason to believe that cutting edge shoes, outfits and equipment couldn’t, in time, give athletes a similar edge on land.
Already, today’s athletes benefit from lightweight, sweat-resistant sportswear that boosts performance by minimizing hindrances like weight and heat. NFL quarterbacks have in-helmet speakers, Olympians have bobsleds made of carbon fiber, and speed skaters wear suits that reduce drag. Is this cheating? Some think it comes close, or at the very least gives certain athletes unfair advantages.
The big issue here has a lot to do with resources, or the lack thereof. When the quality of equipment and sportswear dependant on a team or nation’s money flow, it’s little wonder wealth and wins so often go hand in hand.
The optimization of body and brain isn’t only done through careful tracking, but physically altering the way an athlete thinks, moves and acts in prep time.
A system called Neurotopia is one of such methods used by Football players for brain training and stimulation. Through this technology, athletes can train their brains to influence physiological processes that amplify their performance. The machine lets its user play a game with their mind in which lively mental focus is rewarded, and low focus punished. If used correctly and often, the player’s brain will optimize performance for rewards outside of the machine, too.
And speaking of science fiction-style training: athletes have experimented with all types of equipment — like pods that simulate exercising, and altitude chambers that replicate low-oxygen conditions — all for improved metabolism and endurance. They may also have highly-engineered diets, workout routines and therapies to ensure their brains and bodies are fine tuned to perform under pressure.
Training has always been key to success, but it’s only recently that advanced technology, science and metrics have become this valuable, and in some cases manipulative of mind and body. When these innovations become mainstream, the athletic training montages in sports movies like Rocky will seem crude and prehistoric.
One of the biggest boons to athletes is the likelihood of injury, and the lasting impacts of, well, impacts. Luckily, there are emerging innovations that help prevent athletes from getting hurt, or ensure quick and effective treatment when they do. With athlete safety more scrutinized than ever, preserving bodies and careers is a priority for those in the sports tech industry.
Recently, various types of wearable technology have been used to detect high-impact collisions and other injuries so that medical treatment can be undergone right away. Gear is designed to be protective, with highly-engineered fits that support moving bodies and prevent injury. Head trauma may soon be able to be diagnosed on the sidelines with advanced spit and blood tests.
On top of this, athletes may soon benefit from a scientific feats that make them even better functioning than the normal human. For example, a cooling glove that eases muscle fatigue and produces results equal to steroids, supplements and cryotherapy to enhance athletic recovery, or even genetic engineering for built-in athletic strength.
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Put all of these together, and we arguably have athletes that are better, stronger and faster as a direct result of science and technology. Today’s athletes are not natural at all, and it’s not a bad thing — some might even call it an inevitability.
When it comes to cheating, it will be difficult to know where the line should be drawn. Even with regulations in place, many athletes continue to quietly partake in performance enhancement drugs undetected. Some argue that sports would be better off allowing steroid use — transparently and with and medical advisement — than to let it continue in the shadows. As for “tech doping,” it’s also a sticky issue. As long as the playing field is unequal, players with money and science on their side will likely keep the upper hand.
The same goes for safety. Though many technological innovations protect athletes, not all teams can afford the standard let alone the extras. Winning almost always trumps safety, and only rigorous and long-term research will tell if emerging performance enhancement methods are truly sound.
At some point, fans, athletes and others in the industry will have to acknowledge the implications of these advancements, and decide: Can we equal the playing field? Do we allow enhancements of some kinds, and not others? Or none at all? Will we embrace the super-athlete, or decide natural is better after all? Whatever the case, I hope decisions are mindful of both athlete well-being and the potential of tech to transform sports as we know them.
Leave it to scientists at MIT to create the sportswear of the future — and expect it to look a lot more than a superhero costume than jersey. Recently, researchers at MIT Media Lab’s Tangible Media Group have been using an ancient bacteria to develop a self-ventilating second skin.
The bacteria was discovered 1,000 years ago in Japan, but only now is it being repurposed as a wearable solution to bodily sweat. With the bacteria, scientists have developed a natto material called BioLogic that physically morphs when exposed to moisture. Tiny flaps in the material open when the body within reaches certain humidity conditions so that the sweat can evaporate.
How does it work? Well, first the cells were grown in bioreactors, then molded for use in a micro-resolution printer so it could be bioprinted onto wearable fabrics. The film deposits were then sent off to the Royal College of Art, who integrated them into clothing by pinpointing which parts of the body sweat the most.[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7mR_rKdK6M[/embedyt]
Unsurprisingly, sportswear manufacturers are incredibly interested in this innovative development. New Balance is one such company invested in the process. For athletes, this could mean light, breathable clothing that keeps your sweat from saturating workout clothes or uniforms by responding to your body to open up ventilators.
There’s a bigger picture here, of course. Biologically sensitive material opens as many doors as it does flaps far outside the world of athletics. Researchers are thinking about color-changing clothes, lampshades that respond to light, flowers that blossom and change color when watered, and steam-activated teabags.
So basically, if you’re a human that runs, has a garden, uses artificial light, drinks tea or all of the above, it’s entirely possible you’ll encounter BioLogic or a BioLogic-like material in the future. Who ever though bacteria on your skin and in your hot beverage would be a desirable thing? Not me, but apparently innovation knows no boundaries.
What happens when you put two teams decked head-to-toe in green and red on one football field? Thousands of fans seeing nothing but gray.
NFL sponsor Nike’s Color Rush initiative did just that during a game between the Buffalo Bills and the New York Jets on Thursday, November 12. The uniform designs, intended to be a “bold new look” celebrating the 50th year of football on color TV, ended up worse than black and white for color blind spectators.
It appears that Nike forgot to consider just how common color blindness is: one in twelve men have it, along with .5 percent of women. Without any other visual cues, the Bills’ red suits and the Jets’ green ones were nearly identical to many. NFL uniforms are typically distinguished not only by team colors, but by featuring one team fully or partially in white.
Because colorblind folks have the most trouble with reds and greens, it didn’t help that the Bills and Jets were decked out in bright holiday colors. They may have well been watching a homogeneous 22 person team in monochromatic spandex. I guess five decades of color TV is enough time to forget that some people don’t have the retinal cone cells, no matter the quality of their television.
Even the Bills’ head coach, Rex Roy, was confused. “I look out there and my team’s in red. Blue, I might have had a chance,” he said. “But I’m like, ‘Who are they? Oh shoot, that’s us. So, it’s different.” The NFL called it a Christmas-tinged nightmare, though it was obviously porridge-tinged for some.
As for fans without vision impairment, they haven’t reacted all too positively to the look either. Football fans aren’t known for their mild manners any more than New Yorkers are, and there’s a 100% particular overlap in this case. Twitter exploded with complaints and jokes, as Twitter is wont to do, with players compared to power rangers, gummy bears and Christmas ornaments.
The Color Rush initiative is meant to honor each franchise by combining current and historic team colors in unique and bold uniforms, which each of the 32 teams will don during Thursday night games. Fortunately, Nike now knows that there are other factors than pomp and circumstance to take into consideration while testing new uniform designs.
As I’ve touched on before, wearable technology is bringing new and astounding changes to the world of sports. Wearable tech can improve player safety, team visibility, call efficiency and so much more. In other words, it’s a game changer — literally.
Some wearable technology is already used by athletes, but when it comes to imagining what the future could hold, the sky’s the limit. Brilliant hypothetical designs can demonstrate the potential of wearable technology to improve sports like soccer, rugby and football. Some may even be useful for non-athletes as well.
The following concepts (by Bwin via CNET) imagine how athletes’ outfits will look and function in the future. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to seeing these innovations in action on fields, courts, and rinks across the globe someday.
It can be difficult for everyone — including referees — to tell when athletes are out of bounds. With light-up offside indicators, flexible LED displays would flash on players’ outfits when they’ve crossed a boundary. This can minimize and even eliminate human error, or worse, cheating — the lights don’t lie.
GoalControl is one organization already focused on clarifying boundaries through wearable technology. In this case, the referee would have the wearable: a watch that displays real-time data based on camera footage so refs can make more accurate calls.
Speaking of footage, imagine getting a view of a game from your favorite athlete’s perspective. With wearable cameras like GoPros in use commercially, it’s feasible that similar devices could be embedded into athlete uniforms, assuming the rules would allow it.
Already, wearable technology like Google Glass has been used to record behind-the-scene or even on-the-scene footage at sports events by both reporters and athletes. In the future, POV footage could give viewers a unique perspective of the game, while giving sports organizations a brand new product to broadcast or sell.
Advertising is a huge part of professional sports, as is evidenced by Super Bowl commercials, corporate sponsorships, on-site activations and more. Flexible LED displays could theoretically turn an athlete’s uniform into another screen for brand promotions.
LED ad outfits are unlikely to become the standard anytime soon, least of all in the United States. Though sports teams globally have long brandished the names of sponsors on their jerseys, it’s one of the only spaces the “big four” professional American leagues won’t advertise on.
Alternatively, LED textiles could display player statistics on their jerseys so fans can peek at the data without doing additional research.
When the weather’s bad, it’s not just moisture that makes sporting events unpleasant: bad visibility can be physically dangerous for players and bothersome for fans. High-visibility textiles, which light up in bad weather, could remedy this issue.
Though some kinds of high-visibility gear already exists, even the brightest neons won’t be of much use at night in the rain. Apparel embedded with flexible LED technology would be the ideal solution, but only if it can be powered effectively without adding extra weight.
So how are the sports outfits of the future powered? Since clunky batteries would weigh down wearable electronics, the best solution may be battery-free: specifically, outfits could be charged with kinetic energy generated by the players’ movements.
There are a number of wearable electronics that are self-powering, some through body heat, others through body movement or even human blood. For athletes, running and jumping could someday be efficient enough to power at least some of their high-tech wearables.
Lastly, here’s one type of wearable that is already making waves in American football: the impact visualizer, which (in this design) changes colors when a player takes a hit. An outfit with this kind of tech built in could flash green, amber, or red to alert referees and doctors when a player needs medical attention or a break.
Impact sensors have already been embedded into helmets, mouth guards and chin straps to measure the force and duration of collisions players endure. The hope is that recognizing severe impacts right when they occur can help athletes get treated as soon as possible, minimize suffering and long-term side effects, and prevent further dangerous incidents.
Sports and climate change might not be the most intertwined communities, but that could change soon.
The 100% Sport campaign is the result of a partnership between British Telecommunication (BT) and gold medal-winning sailor Sir Ben Ainslie with the intent of bringing sports fans together to tackle climate change through green efforts, specifically renewable energy. This isn’t the first endeavor from the sports community to bring awareness and prevention of climate change, but the 100% Sport campaign goes beyond to unite fans across sports to channel their passion and fandom to enhance the enthusiasm towards reducing carbon emissions.
Sir Ainslie, an experienced environmentalist through 11th Hour Racing’s marine awareness, knows the importance of awareness. In BT’s news release, Sir Ainslie explained that, “As a sailor I’m constantly aware of my surroundings. Sailing at venues around the world you get to see first-hand and up-close water pollution. It’s not just something I’ve read about, it’s something I’ve seen and experienced. I’ve also experienced the real power of fans –cheering you on to the finish line, and seeing how they have got behind our race to become a truly sustainable sports team.”
Currently, fans are encouraged to spread the movement on Twitter through the #go100percent–the first step in the campaign’s bottom-up strategy. Early in the campaign, less than a month old, traction appears to be trending upwards on Twitter. It will take some time to see if the movement gains viral levels, but with BT’s 1.7 million strong channel viewership they expect that if even 10 percent take notice the movement should have early success.
With fans taking an increased level of awareness, the campaign hopes to bring to light the levels of extortion that comes from stadium building. With more attention thrust onto the subject, the hope is that fans will pressure these stadiums to invest this money into arena accountability to enhance its environmental responsibility.
Joining Sir Ainslie in the campaign is rugby stars Austin Healey and Martin Bayfield to encourage fans to get involved. Check out the video below featuring the two discussing the movement at length.
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