The Future of Sports is about to get a Major Facelift

It was recently announced at Manhattan’s New Museum of Contemporary Art an exciting concept that will change the way we see sports as spectators and how teams manage their performance tactically.

Adidas and Major League Soccer announced a new initiative that will likely turn the MLS into the most technological sports league in the world. The initiative is to make every soccer player  to wear small sensor that’ll track their movements and vital signs. This will be sent back to the coaches in real-time for monitoring in their tablet. Now how this information will be used has innumerable applications.

You are probably familiar with the miCoach app for android or iOS in which it monitors your physical activity. Similar apps would be endomondo, run keeper, nikes app etc. The new miCoach system uses a collection of sensors that fit into a small pocket in the player’s  shirt. That is not all, additionally there are sensors woven right into the the players uniform and senses heart rate as well as other vitals. If you think that weight could be an issue think again since the data cell itself weighs only 52 grams. Sensors incorporated into the system include; a tri-axis accelerometer, GPS, magnetometer, gyroscope which will be worn by every player in all 19 teams

How does it work?
The data captured by the sensors is then sent by Wi-Fi to the coach’s tablet (in this case it seems it will be iOS iPad)

How can it be used? Well even gambling will change…
The most important use of such technology is player safety in my opinion. Many of us have witnessed players having syncopal episodes (passing out) and even dying in the field. In a vast majority it is due to an underlying problem related to electrical conduction of the heart causing life threatening arrythmias or enlarged hypertrophic heart walls affecting the way the heart pumps and therefore delivering blood properly to the brain and other organs.

This appears to be originally designed for the coach, but as I just mentioned, potential uses include the team’s doctor or healthcare providers. Using this information not only for strategic instruction but medical. If you see a player is having a severe arrhythmia, blood pressure drop, etc then the doctor or even the application itself could let the coach know “GET THIS PLAYER OUT NOW!”  If you are the other team and you are able to see how the other team’s endurance is doing, the coach could potentially make appropriate strategic changes. Finally doctors can have a bigger roll in recommending a coach what to do 😉

Think about it in the gambling perspective. Online gambling is even being explored in a social concept now by different game companies one example is Zynga. Everything is becoming social now.  Real time monitoring provides more data, more paramaters that could be used for such.  Fantasy football is about to get a “steroid” injection.

If you are in america you probably do not care much about soccer (let’s be realistic) so how about football? Monitoring NFL players and having sensors in their helmets which measure temperature, and force of impact? If a force of impact is significant ant there is risk for severe concussion the app will let you know and doctors as coaches will get the player out and seek medical attention.

An #Awesome Twist? How would you feel about knowing this information in real time when you are watching the game?

Think about what the fans would do with this information? How this will affects the social interaction with fantasy football? Will it change how gambling happens? Imagine you are  watching a game in which your team is losing. You see your smartphone and you are aware that the mean endurance of your team surpasses significantly that of the other team. It gives you a reason why to stay in your seat and wait for the scoring point doesn’t it? (At the same time you probably will also get an AD from gatorade saying “Improving endurance” or some other nonsense since ads are everywhere)

Have many more ideas and concepts but you would probably not read them all 😉 If you have more post them!