E3 – the gaming industry’s biggest yearly conference, kicked off today, and as usual, a lot of big announcements were made. While sports games weren’t at the forefront of the biggest proclamations today, they are most certainly being worked on and updated. EA was kind enough to spill the beans on how the [INSERT SPORTS LEAGUE] 16 games would look and feel.

EA’s biggest franchise, Madden, gets updates every year — some more impressive than others. For Madden 16, elements of fantasy football have been brought into the fold. Gamers will have an option to tweak their chosen team using rounds of fantasy-based drafts. These super teams can then be used to compete against each other or an AI opponent.

As senior EA producer Sean Graddy told Polygon:

“We limit the number of picks that you have so that those decisions are hard […] You’re not going to fill every position on your team. How do we create this draft experience, but take it one step further? With fantasy football you pick a team and you passively watch it. In our game you pick a team and you can play with it on the field. It makes it a bit more special.”

Changes to passing and receiving are also coming, with quarterbacks getting options regarding speed and height of passes, and receivers will be given options to attempt fancy, stylish catches or more traditional ones. These should be nice updates to a game that everyone is going to buy anyway. It comes out August 25th.

Making the logical segue from football to golf, the return of an EA golf video game is imminent. Due to a mixture of personal issues and general ineffectiveness on the course, Tiger Woods has become a persona non grata at EA. Rory McIlroy is the new face of the series, and with him come some other major changes. EA didn’t release a golf game last year, as they worked on revamping the series.

Rory McIlroy PGA Tour is EA’s first sports game that will utilize its Frostbite engine — the same engine that powers games like Battlefield and Dragon Inquisition. The inclusion of the engine allows the game to load an entire course at startup, rather than just one hole at a time. This should drastically cut down on total game time, a welcome addition. I mean, do they really expect us to take a whole hour to play a round of golf?!

Tour will include three different modes of play — Arcade, Classic, and Tour — which each offer their own set of advantages. A new course map feature seems pretty slick, as it gives the player multiple distances to different spots of the course, much like those little booklets you see caddies carrying around. The game drops July 14th.

NHL 16  is not only bringing back many of the online features it cut from this year’s version, but is also making a small change that could make a huge difference. In the past, any time a player wanted to accept a pass, the skater glided until he had possession of the puck. This isn’t how hockey works however. Players take passes while skating the other way, in a complete stop, or in a full sprint. NHL 16 is reportedly adding the ability to accept passes this way. This should enhance the gameplay, which is already very smooth.

Updates to the Be a Pro and Be a GM features are also coming, with wannabe GMs having to deal with things like player morale and clubhouse chemistry. If you play the Be a Pro mode, expect to get more and better feedback from coaches as you sweat and bleed your way to Lord Stanley’s Cup. Look for this game in September.

Soccer is also a sport and FIFA 16 is also a video game. One of the more important updates — the addition of women’s soccer — was already announced. But EA is also mentioning smarter AI defense, more realistic slide tackling, and some more dribbling fanciness.

Passing is also getting an overhaul. Per Polygon:

Perhaps of even more significance is that players are given more control over the pace of their passes. Previously, long passes (hold down the button) were a matter of telling the game to move the ball a long way. Now, they simply say, “kick it hard.” This means that players can ping short, hard passes to one another, a useful antidote to the defense’s greater alertness. Or they can drift long passes across the park with a greater degree of control.

For a long time, sports games have relied on graphics to try and make them seem more realistic. Now, with more advanced hardware and software at their disposal, developers are working to make the games look and play more like the real thing. This is a welcome change and will ensure the line between real and digital will become more imperceptible each year. Where some sports series seem to be a little stagnate (cough, MLB the Show, cough), EA is making strides keep their offerings fresh. Whether it pans out or not remains to be seen. We’ll have to hang our hope on promises for now.

(Header image via Pop Culture Geek)

When the 2015 NFL Draft kicks off tonight in Chicago, Michael Weinstein’s technology and analysis will serve as one of many measurements, scores and notes front offices will consider when selecting the future of their franchise.

Weinstein founded and owns Colorado-based Zybek Sports and five years ago began working as a backup timer in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Combine. For the first time this year, the NFL Network utilized Zybek’s laser sensors and computer set up in its broadcast and displayed the automatic time of the 40-yard dash, along with 10-yard split times, on screen during the race to produce instant results for viewers. Weinstein’s the man in the red jacket at the first table in every YouTube clip of the 40-yard dash from this year’s combine. His times are unofficial, however, as the NFL continues to use a hand start electronic-finish method for official scores.

He also developed what he calls a Power Index, an evaluation metric used to allow cross-position and cross-sport comparisons based on athlete power output. It measures his 40-yard dash times and the official results of the the vertical jump, shuttle, three-cone drill and the broad jump. Weinstein said coaches always talk about explosive power. But there isn’t a good definition or measurement of it. So he took the same methodology as the power-to-weight ratio used to calculate sports cars and applied it to all the tests. The athlete’s weight and combine scores are calculated to determine the final score, with a max possible score on each drill of 100. So if a running back that weighs 215 pounds makes the same time on the three-cone drill as a 315-pound lineman, because of the lineman’s additional weight and ability to run the same time, he earns the higher score on the Power Index.

“This is better to look at in terms of power,” Weinstein said. “You can compare different styles and body shapes. It’s the basis for science behind performance.”

The 40-yard dash has been a staple measurement for years that can shoot or drop a draft prospect following the combine. Accurate times are essential. Meanwhile, the ability to quantify raw atheltic ability in the form of the Power Index helps paint a picture for scouts and coaches that they can use differentiate the talent under review.

Last year, the first overall pick Jadeveon Clowney scored the highest on Weinstein’s Power Index with a score of 444. From February’s combine, defensive end Frank Clark out of Michigan led all athletes with a 452 score. Tied for second with 447 were three more defensive players: Vic Beasley (Clemson), Owamagbe Odighizuwa (UCLA) and Preston Smith (Mississippi State).

For those wondering, Brett Hundley (UCLA) edged Marcus Mariota (Oregon) amongst quarterbacks, 410 to 408. Jameis Winston, the projected number one pick out of Florida State, finished ninth in the quarterback group.

It’s worth noting that Weinstein, who has a mechanical engineering degree from Colorado State, does not include the bench press in his results.

“The test isn’t applicable,” Weinstein said. “But what do I know. I didn’t even know who John Fox was.”

And he didn’t. Three years ago, stuck in the middle seat after missing his original flight heading home, he chatted with Fox. Fox, now the head coach of the Chicago Bears, and at the time, the Denver Broncos – the beloved team in Weinstein’s home state – had to introduce himself.

“He’s the nicest guy ever,” Weinstein said.

Rather than the bench press, Weinstein prefers one push up as hard and as fast as an athlete can muster. A pad measures the force put in to the earth, the rate of force development and the rate of change of acceleration. It determines how you can accelerate your acceleration.

Zybek Sports began as an off shoot from Zybek Advanced Products four years ago when Weinstein decided to push forward in a market place he saw as wide open. There was a need for accurate but affordable equipment used to measure athletic performance. Eight years ago the Olympic Training Center approached Weinstein at his Zybek Advanced Products site to develop a better way to measure the vertical jump and 40-yard dash. NASA picked Weinstein about six years ago to make a lunar stimulant so it could test anything it might send to the moon.

Today, other than working for the NFL, Weinstein takes his equipment to college pro days, high school and youth football camps and he’s copied his model to other sports, including basketball, lacrosse, soccer and softball. In the last 35 days, while working with rivals.com, he’s ran 6,700 tests on high school football players. His goal is to standardize athletic tests, which don’t have any procedures, guidelines or protocols and often include hand-timed scores, which deceive kids with unrealistic, biased numbers. In his research, timing can vary up to .205 seconds on a 40-yard dash. A five-second 40 could mean a lot to a high school athlete telling college coaches he ran a 4.8.

Will Weinstein watch the draft?

“Probably not,” he said. “I didn’t even watch the Super Bowl.”

The NFL has been gracious enough to stream the draft itself for the past few years and 2015 is no different. The stream for the draft is an NFL.com exclusive and they are boasting a record setting 53 hours of coverage between April 30 – May 2, though not all of their content is available online. Owners of an XBox One can access the draft through the app, however authentication is required. On the NFL Youtube channel, the first round picks will be uploaded, but if you’re looking for more information before the first pick is announced, there is no shortage of other sources.

For standard coverage such as pre-draft boards and predictions, the normal Sports Illustrated, Fox, ESPN, Yahoo! and CBS sites do the job, however for someone who is looking to put something on in the background, 120 Sports is the place to go. We’ve taken a look at 120 Sports in the past, however they warrant another go with their impressive schedule of events. The 120 Sports site is already indexed with videos of player information, evaluations and look-ins. Their full press release can be found here, though the following are some of the highlights.

– Beginning on Sunday, April 26 a mock draft sets the tone for the rest of the week as the four-hour event will have insight from former players, scouts and experts.

– The next event isn’t until Wednesday, April 28, however it should be worth the wait as at least five NFL prospects will have exclusive interviews. Some of the scheduled interviews are projected first-rounder Dorial Green-Beckham as well as Ameer Abdullah and Devin Gardner.

– Once the actual draft kicks off, 120 Sports continues to offer programming as a second screen to the NFL.com broadcast. Pre-draft as well as backstage interviews with players are on the docket throughout the three day event as are fan interviews.

Available on mobile for iOS and AppleTV as well as Android and Chromecast, 120 Sports offers plenty of ways to stay up to date on the draft for those without a cable subscription. Seeing such an extensive amount of programming from a non-TV entity is perfect for cable cutters. Hopefully they’ll do the same with the upcoming MLB draft.

On top of the obvious ill-effects of traumatic brain injuries, we can add class-action lawsuits to the list. The Illinois High School Association is facing a lawsuit of their own, one also involving concussions, and a legal suit they’ve been involved in since November of last year. The suit against a high school organization is the first of its kind, as previously only collegiate and professional football have been faced with legal action. Where the National Football League will soon be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to former players due to long-term concussion effects, not every governing body or football organization is capable of doing so.

Via the Chicago Tribune, word broke the IHSA filed their first response to the lawsuit, hoping the suit will be dismissed, calling it “a misguided effort that threatens high school football.” The lawsuit does not seek any monetary compensation to previous victims, but rather one to force better prevention and immediate medical care for both games and practices. The closest thing money chasing in the suit is the plaintiff including a provision within the suit for the IHSA to pay for medical testing of previous high school football players going to back to 2002. The suit doesn’t make demands such as the Mayo Clinic recommended CT scan, just to take action in both prevention and treatment. Even if it something as basic as the NFL’s sideline Baseline Test, action is clearly required.

Centered around the IHSA’s desire to see the suit thrown out is the cost of the medical staff and testing. IHSA Director Marty Hickman believes the cost would hurt the less-well off schools in the state, and was quoted saying the sport would turn into “haves and have nots.” Another argument on behalf of the IHSA is in their words within the response “would be unwieldy.” The response goes to to say “If a high school … fails to have a court-ordered medical professional at a football practice, how will such a violation of the Court’s injunction be remedied? Sanction the IHSA? The local school board? The principal? The athletic director? The coaches? All of the above?”

Perhaps no argument is lazier than the “slippery slope” that the IHSA is bringing to the table. The good news is they aren’t claiming or feigning ignorance on the matter of concussions, just crying poor. While showing any semblance of favoritism towards a particular sport isn’t ideal either — someone can get a concussion on the track, the volleyball court, etc. — this suit is particular in its desire to see better attention in the football realm. The IHSA reports having an annual budget of $10 million for over 40 sports and activities across all levels of high schools and claim court mandated would essentially break the bank. For an organization with a television broadcast deal with Comcast/CSN Chicago, the lack of available funds seems to be a weak defense. If the money truly isn’t available for additional medical staff or improved helmets, perhaps a better mouth guard, one already partnered with multiple collegiate teams, is the first step in the right direction. The first hearing is set for 10 days from now.

(Header image via IHSA)

Apple once again took the tech news industry hostage today, as their Spring Forward event promised to bring new insights into a few of their current products as well as the much anticipated Apple Watch. They announced an HBO partnership with the (now cheaper) Apple TV, an incredibly thin new MacBook, and also previewed ResearchKit — a new way for health professionals to crowd source medical research. But the biggest buzz leading up to the event was Apple’s new wearable, and the folks from Cupertino certainly made that a highlight of the presentation. We don’t know all the specifics yet, but sports fans and fitness nerds should have at least a few things to look forward to.

The biggest fitness app really isn’t an app at all, but a built-in feature to the watch. Apple Watch is chock full of fitness and activity tracking options including a workout app, basic step and burned-calorie counters, and will even feature reminders alerting you when it’s time to stand up and walk around a little.

Third-party apps will also be available for tracking fitness. Offerings from Nike+ Running, Strava, and Runtastic are also being featured on Apple’s web site. Data from Watch will be synced with these services, allowing users more access to and control over their data.

So far, only two apps for sports fans have been announced — MLB At Bat and ESPN. Both will feature team-/game-based notifications and general scoreboard functions, while the At Bat app promises player stats, news, and even highlights. I have to admit, watching highlights on a watch would be pretty cool.

Apple has released the iOS update that features the Apple Watch app, but as of this writing access to the Watch App Store was not available. Nevertheless, the Watch API has been out for some time, so it’s easy to assume there will be plenty more offerings above what has been announced today. We’ll keep you updated as soon as we get any more info.

The Apple Watch will be available for preorder on April 10th, with units becoming available on April 24th.

Since we last visited with startup i1 Biometrics, developers of the Vector mouth guard which measures the level and location of each hit on the football field, the demand and the market for their product has grown significantly. Yesterday i1 announced a new partnership with Texas A&M football. Already partnered with the University of Kansas, Louisiana State University as well as the University of South Carolina, i1 Biometrics is making strides to measure potentially concussion inducing levels of impacts.

The Vector mouth guard itself measures rotational and linear impacts and then sends the impact data in real time to to the coaching and training staff where it is stored in their cloud computing for easy access. Notifications can be sent to mobile devices for immediacy or the information gleaned from the mouth guards may be accessed online through a phone or computer.

In a joint study between Harvard University and Boston University last year covering 734 NCAA football players from the 2013 season, the concussion numbers are jarring, and not just the speed of the impacts. The players claimed six potential concussions and 21 “dings” for each confirmed concussion.

Given what is already known about the long-term effects of concussions — and even more alarming is what is unknown — seeing front-line collegiate football teams taking things more seriously is a step in the right direction.

The National Football League is getting all Kim Kardashian on us. It wants to break the internet. Or at least try to.

As John Ourand reported for Sport’s Business Daily on Monday, the league aims to air one regular season game on the internet in 2015 as a test run. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced his plan during the Super Bowl press conference, and Ourand provides us with some details that have finally emerged.

The game would be carried in both team’s respective markets on television and broadcasted online to the rest of the world. Or, as Ourand’s sources tell him, to anyone outside of the Buffalo and Jacksonville markets, as the NFL is “looking closely” at the October 25 game in London. And if that one isn’t chosen, it’s likely it’ll be one of the other two London games on the schedule.

“That 9:30 a.m. [ET] time slot is interesting internationally when you start to think of parts of Asia, where it reaches into Sunday night, as well as parts of Europe,” NFL senior vice president of media strategy Hans Schroeder told Sports Business Daily. “The one-off, over-the-top game is more of a test to see if digital companies can handle the large audiences that watch NFL games.”

An over-the-top broadcast refers to one which is provided over the internet, or via mobile, directly to the viewer, rather than distributed by a multiple-system operator.

While Ourand lightly speculated in his piece that YouTube, Google or Yahoo could carry the game, there isn’t any sense yet of which digital companies the NFL will talk to. Likely, those three will be involved, as the NFL will perform its due diligence. Whichever company it will be, it will have to be able to prove to the league that it can accommodate millions of viewers at one time from across the globe. Because really, this is what the whole thing is about.

Sure, the NFL sees that the future is in digital. And the present is as good a time as any to lay the ground work for a multi-billion deal with whichever company it eventually strikes an expansive deal with. Streaming games, at no additional costs to fans (if it worked out that way), would go a long way to rebuild a perception that the league has developed over the years as greedy and money-hungry. And more eyes watching more games gives the NFL the leverage it needs when it develops relationships with corporate sponsors and asks for dump trucks full of money for broadcasting rights. But it’s more than that.

The whole thing is about reaching Asia. The National Basketball Association has fantastically marketed itself throughout Asia to the tune of 70 million followers on Sina Weibo and Tencent’s microblog platforms, which are similar to Twitter or Facebook. Conversely, the NFL has fewer than 400,000 followers.

Reuters ran a story prior to the Super Bowl regarding the NFL’s attempt to market globally. In it, the author interviewed a female Chinese student studying business and economics. And she succinctly summed up the NFL’s issue in her country.

“Most Chinese people don’t have the foggiest idea of American football,” Zhao Yaginq said. “Instead, many boys in China are familiar with NBA and European soccer.”

So if you’re peeved that the lone streaming game will start before you wake up from your Saturday night hang over, this isn’t about you. It’s about Zhao and her university buddies and Europe. The NFL already has its claws in you. It wants to reach those that don’t know what a 4-3 defense looks like. And if all goes well for that lucky provider, it won’t break the internet.

Image via Mike Sanchez 

Seeing the Super Bowl being the most watched television event in the United States is no surprise, but football is growing around the world. The NFL has been expanding its reach to Canada and England over the past few seasons by playing regular season games there, but those are not the only countries where the game has shown growth.

Via Statista, the upward trend of the Super Bowl here is clear.

Even after a slight dip in 2013, the Super Bowl has an undeniable increase in popularity here in the US. Thanks to Global Web Index, there are a number of signs showing how the NFL is expanding. According to the over 41,000 polled non-US residents, 38% considered themselves fans of the NFL, with 10% of that group having watched NFL games online. In terms of population percentage, almost 60% of Mexico consider themselves fans of the NFL. In terms of sheer number of fans, China’s 211 million fans and India’s 64.6 million rank as the top two countries. Strictly by population and not percentage, there are four times as many international fans than in the US.

As the number of cord cutters here in the US continues to grow — particularly among millennials — the 16 to 24-year-old and 25 to 34-year-olds are both the least likely to watch an NFL game on TV and the most likely to watch online.

Given the wide reach of the NFL as well as the trend in popularity in both the US and the world, it appears like the National Football League is rapidly becoming an international league.

EA has been using its Madden franchise to simulate Super Bowls for fun and profit for some time now. So when the time came to plug in 2015’s Super Bowl contenders and let the ones and zeros predict the future, EA did so again. The results, as people say, will shock you.

According to Yahoo! Tech, the simulator picked the final score exactly right. This would be an impressive feat in and of itself, but it gets way deeper. I’ll let Yahoo! explain it. The details are far too bone-chilling for me to type:

… it even foresaw Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter game-winning pass to Julian Edelman.

And that was just the tip of the prognostication iceberg.

Madden predicted New England would score first in the game. It predicted Tom Brady would take home the MVP trophy. It was 27 yards off Brady’s total passing yardage (355 vs. 328) and got his total touchdowns (4). It was only 3 yards and 1 catch away from perfectly calling Julian Edelman’s entire game.

I would like to say — because I know they’re reading this — that I, for one, welcome the coming of our sentient-robot overlords. I’m sure if we behave the way we are instructed, that no harm will come to us or our families. All hail Lord XBOX! So say we all!

(image via YouTube)

It’s Sunday. The sun has set. Katy Perry and all that is horrible about corporate America’s involvement with the Super Bowl have gone with it. You’re stuck on the couch, beyond bloated from stuffing your trap with pigs in a blanket, chips and guacamole and seven Bud Light Platinums. The Seattle Seahawks hold a 17-14 lead with seven minutes remaining in the third quarter. Tom Brady and his New England Patriots failed to convert on third down and goal at Seattle’s four yard line. Take the sure three points against Seattle’s defense, right? No, no. Go for it on fourth down, because if the Pats don’t make it, Seattle has horrible field position.

What do you do? Flip a coin? It’s hard to think through the fog of booze and carbs. “What do you do?” asks Dennis Hopper’s Howard Payne from 1994’s blockbuster Speed. “What do you do?”

Refer to 4^th Down Bot. He’s got all the fourth down answers.

Carolina punted on a 4th and 4 at the Arizona 37. I would have gone for it: http://t.co/ReNCna7IjZ

— NYT 4th Down Bot (@NYT4thDownBot) January 3, 2015

Produced by The New York Times in 2013 and upgraded for this NFL season, 4^th Down Bot utilizes a model created by Brian Burke of Advanced Football Analytics and ten years of data to live-critique coaches’ decisions via the Bot’s web site and on Twitter. The Times published its methodology here. It bases decisions on expected points, which measures the average number of points each situation is worth. The creators admit the model is similar to that developed by David Romer, a University of California, Berkeley economics professor who authored a paper in 2002 exploring  fourth down options. The Times notes more seasons of data differentiate the two models.

“The game is ball possession, and coaches are losing sight of that,” David Leonhardt, editor at The Times, told Bill Littlefield of Only A Game.

The model assumes both the offense and defense are league average, with its goal of scoring as many points as possible. But once the fourth quarter hits, winning becomes the priority. The Bot measures how often teams won following a punt, field goal kick or fourth down attempt using data from NFL games played previously played.

Here is an example from The Times:

A field goal is worth 3 points, if it’s successful. But there is a catch: after scoring, you must kick off to your opponent, which, on average, will begin its drive on the 22-yard line. Judging from the chart above, a first-and-10 from your 22 is worth about 0.4 points. To NYT 4th Down Bot, a field goal is worth 3 points minus the cost of kicking off: 3 – 0.4 = 2.6 points. (Similarly, a touchdown and extra point is worth 7 – 0.4 = 6.6 points.)

What if the kicker misses? It’s a long field goal, about 55 yards, and the success rate of 55-yard field goals is only about 40 percent.

If the kick is no good, the opponent takes over on its 45-yard line. From our chart above, a first-and-10 from there is worth about 1.8 points. In this case, however, it is a first down for your opponent, so the point value from your perspective is –1.8 points.

NYT 4th Down Bot uses the expected points from success, the expected points from failure and the likelihood of each outcome to compute the net value of a decision.

Per the scenario above, 4^th Down Bot would have kicked the field goal and settled for a 17-17 tie with 22 minutes of championship football left.

To be certain, the Bot is a fun tool for couch coaches everywhere rather than a serious, analytical decision-maker. It has its holes (it still doesn’t know what teams are playing, their strengths, or injuries involved). But when you want to look smart in front of friends and family this Sunday following a huge fourth down play, just whip out the Bot. He’s got your back.

“What do you do?” Payne asks again.

Take the three points.

Image via M P R