Each Friday, we here at TechGraphs like to point out some of the sports-tech stories that may have slipped through the cracks. It’s the Friday News Roundup. I have a busy schedule of getting my butt kicked in Madden, so let’s get right to it.

• It’s football season! To celebrate, the temperature in the American Middle West dropped twenty degrees within 24 hours. As of this writing, we are one game into the NFL season. Hopefully you didn’t blow your entire nest egg on Seahawks/Packers, because betting on games just got easier. Thanks to the Windows Phone feature Cortana, all you have to do is ask who is going to win. Cortana will use a “combination of stats, previous match-ups, and subtler criteria like stadium conditions” to pick a winner for you. If you program your bookie in your phone, your gambling problem can be 100% voice-activated.

• Speaking of the NFL, Fox announced that you should be able to use its Fox Sports To Go app to stream 101 games to which they have the rights for the 2014 season. One will need a cable or satellite subscription to access the feature on their computers, phones, and laptops, and the game will have to be available in their local area. This means that fans of out-of-town teams are still stuck with needing Sunday Ticket or sketchy streaming web sites.

• Verizon is also offering up a similar service, but with the added bonus of RedZone.

• Also on the streaming front, ESPN announced that customers of MediaCom, Suddenlink, NCTC and NTTC should now have access to the WatchESPN service on computers and mobile devices. There’s a joke here about watching First Take while sitting on the toilet, but I can’t nail it down yet. I’ll get back to you.

• ESPN also updated their SportsCenter app for the iPhone, allowing quicker access to favorite teams and shows. It seems as if my request to add curling to the scores section went unnoticed yet again.

• GOLF! The Ryder Cup said it would ban social media posting by fans on the grounds, but then they changed their minds. Or succumbed to scrutiny. Either way. Limiting ways fans can interact with a game everyone says is dying was probably a dumb move, so it’s nice to see the Ryder Cup rectify it.

• Not a Madden person? Don’t have $60 to spend on something that pretty much only makes you angry? You’re in luck! Tecmo Super Bowl 2015 has been released! With just a little emulator magic, you can get that virtual football experience without all those buttons and joysticks to get in your way. Now you can get angry for free, though that was already pretty easy.

• In baseball, MLB said that they have crossed the point of no return — more people are watching MLB.tv on devices than on computers. I’m guessing this guy had a lot to do with it.

• We may be closer to removing the first down markers and chains from football, thanks to some research being done with magnetic fields. While I’m all for getting the calls right, I will miss that part when the ball is short by a good foot and a half, but the quarterback runs to the coach signaling that they ONLY NEED TWO MORE INCHES. I grew up watching Brett Favre, so I remember this happening a lot.

• And finally, EA Sports launched their Madden GIFERATOR this week. This tool is supposedly for taunting your Madden opponents on Twitter or something. I’m not really sure what the practical use is. Anyway, the Internet did what the Internet always does, and ruined it. Actually, they took a dumb, gimmicky thing and made it pretty funny. I even tried my hand at it today:

That’s all for this week. Remember to ice those thumbs periodically, and try not to curse too much at pre-teens.

(Header photo via John S)

It’s a little silly to say anything is impossible, but at least on a macro level, it’s nearly impossible to be a sports fan today without having some sort of connection to technology. Even the simple act of checking a score usually involves a screen of some kind. Highlight videos, checking stats, setting a fantasy lineup — these all involve tech in one way or another. The advancements within media companies and sports leagues themselves are also echoing that story. More and more sports are being pushed through silicon.

TechGraphs is here to be your sports-tech sherpa. News, reviews, opinion, and analysis regarding the intersection of sports and technology will be found here. It’s a beat that isn’t going away, and we’re here to cover all of it. It might be a new app, a new sports website, a burgeoning tracking system, or something you or I haven’t even thought of yet. It’s an ever-changing landscape, and we’re very excited to have a dedicated space to cover it.

As you can probably tell from the name, this site is part of the FanGraphs family. Our writers are no different. David Wiers comes from FanGraphs, Jen Mac Ramos comes from The Hardball Times, and Bradley Woodrum comes from both. Make sure to check out their other great work, as well. I am David G Temple, the Managing Editor, which is why I get the honor of the first post here. Make no mistake, however. Though we all come from a baseball background, TechGraphs will be covering all sports — you’ll see stuff on football, soccer, basketball, hockey, golf, and other sports as well.

I want the writing to do most of the talking, so I’ll cease with the introductions. We already have some things for you to peruse, and plenty more is coming. Check back every weekday, as we have lots of stuff to talk about. Follow us on Facebook, hit us up on Twitter. Let us know what you’d like to see covered.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the tons of hard work that Mike Petriello and Paul Swydan put into this project, as well. Props to them.

And, of course, none of this would have been possible without FanGraphs CEO David Appelman. He had the foresight and the ambition to put all of this together, so a great deal of thanks goes to him as well.

I’m excited to be a part of this new venture, and I think you’ll enjoy what we have to offer.

The way things change and progress these days, seven years can seem like a lifetime. When viewed through certain filters, 2007 looks like ancient history. Our laptops were huge, our smartphones were pretty dumb, the Bears were good at football. A lot has changed. Our interaction with sports — the ways we observed and learned about our games — have also taken enormous leaps. The level of analysis available to us is at an all-time high. And as recent news suggests, it’s only going to get better. What we take for granted now may have seemed like a pipe dream seven years ago, but it was a technology that came about in 2007 that let us peek into the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

We can certainly marvel at the current gizmos and gadgets professional athletes can use to dissect their game. Between proprietary stats, game film, and in-house tools that are at a player’s disposal, they have a lot of opportunities to analyze themselves. But what about us common folk? We still like to play sports. What can we use to help us keep our games on point?

As it happens, two common recreational sports, tennis and golf, are being flooded with tools and apps that can help the weekend warriors get better. Nothing is a substitute for a good lesson with a good teaching pro, but that doesn’t mean we can’t supplement with some self instruction.

Tennis

Babolat Play Pure Drive Racquet

The Play Pure Drive doesn’t actually transform, but it is certainly more than meets the eye. Inside this innocuous racquet are a group of sensors, programmed to record your every swing. It collects your swing data, categorizes the types (serves, forehands, backhands, etc.), and beams it all to your smartphone or tablet. It can tell you where you on the strings you are hitting your shots, and provide tips for better swings. There is also a social aspect to it, where you can upload and compare your stats to others as well as work on leveling up your skills.

Price: $400

Sony Smart Tennis Sensor

If you are set on hanging on to your own racquet, the Sony Smart Tennis Sensor might be more for you. Rather than a whole new racquet, a simple dongle is attached to the end of your current one. Though the product isn’t available quite yet, it does promise some exciting features for those looking to analyze their game. Like the Babolat, the sensor tracks number of shots and impact spots, but also grabs things like swing speed, ball speed, and spin. You have the option of streaming the data to your smartphone or saving it all in the dongle and uploading it at once. This could come in handy if your phone is almost dead, or you left it in your locker.

Price: $200

Golf

Golfshot GPS / Caddio

The players on the tour have the luxury of caddies with detailed score cards to help with club and shot selection. The average golfer, unless they play the same
course regularly, is often coming in blind. There are laser-guided distance finders available, but Golfshot GPS and Caddio look to add something extra. They take different approaches to course management. Golfshot comes loaded with over 40,000 golf courses, shows multiple distances (center of green, back of green, right fairway, etc.), allows you to track your shots and keep a scorecard. Caddio goes a different way, using crowdsourcing to find those pesky hazard areas and false green fronts you might not be able to see from the tee or fairway. They offer the insight of the players that have been around the course before. Caddio also encourages you to be social about your game. After all, the more people use it, the more data gets saved per course.

Price: Free (both)

Game Golf / Arccos

Game Golf and Arccos also take different approaches on the same concept: sensors on the end of your club. While Game Golf requires you to tap your club against a small device on your belt, Arccos encourages you to just swing away and let it do the work. With Game Golf, all the data is kept on the sensor. After a round, you unload the data via USB onto a computer (the horror!). Arccos requires that your smartphone be within Bluetooth range of your clubs (i.e. your pocket), but does not require a computer to unload stats. Both use GPS data to determine your location on the course during every hit, track your distances and number of shots, and give you digestible information about your round and your overall performance throughout the season. Ease and price play a factor, but either should give you more knowledge than you thought you needed about your game.

Price: $199 (Game Golf), $399 (Arccos)

Swingshot

Video analysis is a huge part of golf now, and Swingshot looks to provide that functionality for average golfers on the course. Designed to fit in a golf bag,
Swingshot is basically a camera on a stick. Just jam it in the ground, hit record, and swing. The video is saved and can be viewed later on a computer or mobile device. If you’re working on reducing the cupping of your wrist or avoiding the dreaded “chicken wing”, Swingshot will help you pinpoint exactly when you do it. Plus, if you fall down during a golf swing, it makes for easy uploads to YouTube.

Price: Starting at $199

(Header Photo via Michael Duxbury)

I had big hopes for my Pebble smartwatch. I envisioned a time when I could just leave my phone in my pocket or bag, and go hours and hours without having to dig it out. I could be such an engaging tablemate at restaurants. I could ride public transit and smirk at all the suckers who are glued to their devices. I would be free. Free from distraction, free from the rectangular device that has taken over my life.

Don’t get me wrong, my Pebble works just fine. It does exactly what I wanted and even more. But I am still a servant. I’m still always glancing, always clicking. Only it’s at my wrist instead of my phone. While this is an upgrade of sorts, I have learned to accept and embrace my technology overlords. Everything is still coming to me — every email from my fantasy league, every Google chat from my friends, every text from my wife — it’s just coming in a slightly more convenient way. That is, if you assume glancing at your wrist is more convenient than glancing at your phone

The Pebble has a few useful apps, but its main selling point is notifications. It relies on whatever notifications my iPhone sends me. If the phone gets it, the watch gets it. The usual fare is offered — email, text messages, etc. — but it also works with notifications from nearly any other app. When I go to a ballgame, my watch (via my MLB At the Ballpark app) welcomes me to the field. When a player on my fantasy roster has been put on the DL, my watch (via my fantasy apps) alerts me. When my beloved Astros are about to take the field, my wrist vibrates. The same goes for when they take or give up the lead. It goes on and on. This may sound annoying, but I wouldn’t be honest if I said I didn’t love it. The sports fan in me loves the updates, and the tech geek in me loves that it’s happening on my watch.

But the Pebble is a one-way street for the most part. There’s no communicating back to it. If I miss the scoring alert of the Astros game, I need to pull out my phone. If I want to check my roster to make sure my matchups are correct, out comes the phone. It’s passive. It’s a message from a carrier pigeon. It’s a fortune cookie.

Which is why the news surrounding the new round of wearable devices is so encouraging as a sports fan. Earlier this year, Google announced Android Wear, a platform for running Android apps on third-party wearable hardware, which may be getting a significant update soon. Samsung just announced their line of Gear S watches, which offers both voice and teeny-tiny keyboard input. And, of course, Apple is expected to announce their own line of wearable tech next week. The details are still fuzzy on this device, but the ability to run current iOS apps (or at least modded versions of them) isn’t out of the question. All these devices offer a good deal more of interaction. Finally, there will be a tin can on the other end of the string.

Android Wear can already offer some help for sports fans. The integration with voice search allows the user to just simply ask their watch what the score of the Giants game is. If Apple integrates Siri with it’s watches, it should allow this functionality as well. Android Wear offers pushed notifications much like the Pebble, as well. As wearable technology becomes more common, it’s easy to see tighter integration with fantasy apps, news apps from ESPN or CBS Sports, even the ability to simply pull up scores from across the league without the need for pushed alerts. The ability to change a fantasy roster from your wrist, or send your friend a taunting text after seeing his favorite team’s latest score without the need for digging a phone out of a pocket or purse is on the horizon. Who wouldn’t want to see a towering Giancarlo Stanton home run pushed to their wrist? An injury report from their favorite team at the ready with their phone still tucked away? Is MLB.tv and Sunday Ticket streaming video on a watch that far down the road?

I may be getting carried away, or I could be just scratching the surface. Pebble’s Kickstarter ended in May of 2012. A little over two years later, we’re ready to accept the next great swarm of wearable tech into (and onto) our arms. If things play out more or less as expected, I’ll still have my phone in my bag. That familiar blue glow will be coming from from wrist instead.

(Header photo via Maurizio Pesce)

We’ve all been there. Our draft goes swimmingly. We get most of the players we were targeting, and feel like we improvised well when the need arose. Our roster looks great, and we’re daydreaming about fantasy dominance. Then, the hammer drops. Our RB1 is out for the year with a torn ACL. Our ace pitcher needs Tommy John. The dependable veterans we drafted become benchwarmers. We do our best to fix the situation, but it is basically untenable. Another fantasy season down the toilet.

That scenario, or rather the lack thereof, is one of the biggest appeals of so-called daily fantasy games. Rather than toiling away on a roster that can fall apart with one mistake or a little bad luck, daily fantasy sites offer the chance to start anew every day or week. Pick any players you want, stay under the salary cap, and have a chance at multiple payouts in a season. Players are not beholden to one team, either. Every team could have Tom Brady if they stay within the cap. It’s a great idea for those who want a change from the traditional system, or who want the opportunity to flex their fantasy smarts multiple times a year. And the money is showing that the idea is catching on.

Two of the biggest players in the game, DraftKings and FanDuel, recently went through successful funding rounds. DraftKings raised $41 million while FanDuel brought in $70 million. The new players in fantasy sports look promising, at least as far as investors see it.

FanDuel is looking to increase its visibility as well, announcing the World Fantasy Football Championships for 2014. They are set up as a set of weekly survivor pools, where the best performers will be flown to Las Vegas for the championship rounds. Pools are separated by entry fee, with $2 million of possible earnings for the biggest tournament.

Players can use either a web site or a mobile app to enter games from both companies, and a quick viewing of each shows hundreds of games available the first week of football season at many different price points. Baseball contests are also still available.

Fantasy players looking to try a little something different can invest very little (or even no) money to try their hand at these games. And if the funding results for places like FanDuel and DraftKings are any indication, every self-proclaimed fantasy guru will have a chance to prove their mettle for some time.

(Header photo via Tony Ibarra)