As recently as October, we mused about the possibilities of augmented reality in sports, and I concluded with a brief story about some strange display technology my grandfather encountered in the 1960s — a device that could purportedly display 3D images without 3D goggles. I have always had trouble conceptualizing that idea. How to you make light stop mid air? How can you create a hologram without some sort mist or substance to reflect the light in transit? Well, I dunno. Maybe it’s not possible.

And maybe this:

This technology could be significant in many ways. It could illuminate the ball path for a touchdown throw, a three-pointer or a fastball on the outside edge for fans in the stadium (not to mention umpires and referees). It could show a glowing yellow line for the first down marker that more than just the audience at home could see. It could change the role of a scoreboard as we know it.

Obviously, glittering dots in the sky are a long way away from an illuminated pitch tracker. But computers went from singing Daisy to World is Mine, this, in under 60 years. We cannot say where this current technology can and will end.

Purchasing tickets online is nothing new, but Gametime has made the process even easier when buying from your mobile — Android or iOS only — device. The company has just update their free mobile app and now rather than refreshing a page again and again, the app now has a “pull to refresh” email style option. It’s a small change that goes a long way in terms of convenience.

Not only is it easier to search for tickets with the pull to refresh option, Gametime now shows exactly where you’ll be sitting. With a birds eye view of the stadium or a field view, you know if you’ll be up in the nosebleeds or right on the sideline.

The field view gives the section, row and seat while showing what the field/court/rink will look like from the seats you’re interested in.

The app allows purchasing up to 20 tickets per transaction and is within one second of real time availability. In an interview with VentureBeat, Chief Executive of Gametime Brad Griffith said of the updated ticket availability:

“We shifted to a video game style technology that can be immediately updated…It’s like playing a video game with another player. You have to keep it synchronized or it’s not a good experience.

Gametime currently works in 22 different cities and 60 venues. With app you can purchase tickets to NFL, MLB, NCAAF, MLS, NBA and NHL games. One downside is you’ll need a credit/debit card on file, as neither Paypal nor Venmo is currently a pay option.

Another curious quirk was the start times of certain games is wrong. After selecting Detroit as my city, it showed the Lions are playing at 8 am on Sunday, November 9. The game actually kicks off at 1 pm.

Gametime did get the University of Michigan game and the Pistons start time correct, but they were an hour early on the Michigan State game. There wasn’t a way to change your timezone, so make sure to cross check the actual game times with what is listed. After checking more Lions games, it appears as though each game time for the Detroit football team is wrong.

If you happen to find any other unusual goings on, reporting them to Gametime is as easy as shooting an email to their feedback email address or one could call or text them from 8am-11pm Pacific at their 1-800 number. Both help options are listed on their website FAQ, not in-app however.

Overall the app does exactly what it should: purchasing tickets from mobile quickly and easily, usually  without having to print them off. A small number of venues still require a paper PDF ticket but that is outside of Gametime’s control. It can certainly be a useful app for everything from a last-minute decision to go to a game or if you just need an extra ticket while on the way to the stadium.

Most everyone remembers the old “shin bone connected to the knee bone, knee bone connected to the thigh bone” song. While not exactly taught in medical school, everything in the leg is connected one way or another. And according to a recent study, calf muscles, not hamstrings may have more to do with ACL and knee injuries than previously thought.

The study was conducted by The University of Western Australia’s School of Sport Science as well as the University of Tennessee’s Exercise and Health program. The groups observed a series of Australian Rules football players each doing single leg jump landings while attempting to grab a football.

Analysts set up a series of 12-cameras to create a three-dimensional computer model of each football player’s jumping and landing. The findings surprised the researches and Assistant Professor Cyril Donnelly of UWA said:

“This was initially surprising as 30 years of clinical research has suggested the hamstring muscles were key players for supporting the knee during sporting tasks, We are not saying you don’t use your hamstrings, just not as much as we originally thought.”

The previously linked article states over 200,000 ACL injuries occur every year in the United States alone, and these numbers by the University of California, San Francisco claim approximately 70% of these injuries occur playing sports. Soccer, football, skiing and basketball being the primary sports behind ACL injuries.

Be it a figure skater coming off of a double-axel, a defender trying to head a corner kick out of his box or an outfielder leaping at the wall to rob a home run, one-leg jump landings are incredibly common in many sports. From an injury prevention standpoint or even rehabbing post-injury, perhaps we’ll begin to see trainers and medical staff focus more on the calf when dealing with ACL issues.

(Header photo via Becky Stern)

We are already accustomed to seeing unreal sights in our sports. But what about seeing tracers for free throws and drive charts on the gridiron when we are at the stadium?

When the yellow line appears on the first down line, we don’t hide behind our couches in caveman fear, nor do we dive under the bed when car names and driver photos appear above the machines zipping around the Daytona Speedway. And baseball fans have embraced the new MLB Statcast, which debuted during the 2014 MLB All-Star break and has shined in the 2014 MLB postseason. It essentially quantifies every movement on a baseball field and then visualizes the data for viewers at home:

But Google’s recent acquisition of startup Magic Leap has me pondering the next integration of the real and non-real sports experience. Here’s a quick primer on Magic Leap and why it’s important:
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Overview

FindTheBest.com is a [re]search engine that aggregates data from on- and off-line to give users detailed overviews of and the ability to compare products, services, industries, employers, and other topics. They structure information in a visually-oriented way with lots of graphs, charts, and tables. It’s aesthetically engaging and easy to use. More about what they do, per their About page:

There’s a tremendous amount of information on the web, but no way to know it all and be confident that you’ve reached the best conclusion. Search engines and topic-specific websites are great at returning facts, but not so much at providing knowledge. We’re collecting, structuring, and connecting all the world’s data so you have everything you need to research with confidence.

It’s a pretty useful tool for comparing hotels in an area, airlines, or even colleges, among other things. But it appears that the company’s ambition extends far beyond that. When I first happened upon FindTheBest, being a dutiful baseball nerd, I immediately started to explore their MLB player pages.

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Those wanting access to video training and analysis tool Ubersense no longer have to switch platforms, as the company has announced that an Android version of their popular mobile app is now available. Ubersense uses your devices camera to capture high-speed video of your performance for later reviewing. It offers slow-motion playback and drawing tools to break down movement frame by frame and help understand body position and angles. Ubersense claims it’s had over 2.5 million downloads since its inception from athletes in over 50 sports. Ubersense has even been used by US Olympic bobsledders.

The sport independence of Ubersense was always its selling point. While specific tools and apps for golfers and tennis players have been around for some time, Ubsersense doesn’t differentiate. It can be used by baseball players, bowlers, track and field competitors, and even dancers. Anyone who wants to take a look at themselves or their students in a hyper-specific manner can use the app.

Now, Ubersense can also boast platform independence. The Android offering comes in lockstep with their acquisition by Hudl, a similar app that focuses more on the coaching side of the sport.

Ubersense is a free download on either the iOS or Android stores, with a monthly or yearly charge for Ubersense Elite, which offers the ability to upload videos to online storage and sync across multiple devices.

(Photo via Ubersence Facebook)

The wonderful folks who run the Trade Rumors websites launched their latest app today. Rather than individual apps for MLB, Hoops and NFL goings on, now all three are together in a single free download for iOS and Android users.

The welcome screen loads all three sports at once, however a simple touch of the settings button allows the user to toggle which rumors they’d prefer to see. Running all three sports took a moment to load, so I decided to parse down the content.

As a baseball fan — the only football I follow is fútbol — fan I decided to hide both Hoops and NFL news. Upon narrowing the field down to only MLB news, I added my beloved Oakland Athletics.

Rather than just teams, the minds behind the app also allow the user to add news updates for specific players. If you’re looking for news on free agents, say, Hanley Ramirez or Max Scherzer, it’s as simple as typing their name in the search field.

In addition to customizable players and teams, you’re also given the option to filter All Stories or just Top Stories within each field. It’s impossible to tell what constitutes a Top Story, so it seems prudent to leave the default All Stories on.

The free app does a perfect job of keeping people up to date on trades, signings and the like. It’s a condensed version of their full site, and that is a compliment. Trade Rumors is basically an RSS feed for whichever team or player you could want, without the need to set up a real RSS feed. Given the quality of work from the Trade Rumors people over the years, it should be no surprise to see their latest project work so well.

A company based in Washington state, i1 Biometrics, is taking a different approach to using sensor tech to detect concussions in football players. Other companies that work in this space, like The Shockbox, rely on sensors placed in the helmet. As Information Week reports, i1 Biometrics is cutting out the middle man, so to speak, and looking to gather data right from the source. They are working on a device that will track collisions from the head itself by using another piece of already-used equipment — the mouthguard.

The reasoning behind this is fairly straightforward. According to CEO Jesse Harper (via Information Week):

“We’re not the first sensor company to enter the space,” […] “One of our main differences is accuracy.” Because the mouthguard is in contact with the skull, “everywhere your upper jaw goes, the mouthpiece goes.”

By comparison, he said, sensors attached to helmets measure the impact to the helmet, not the head.

It’s certainly an interesting idea, and their reasoning for using a different approach not only differentiates them from competitors, but has the potential to do more accurate tracking. i1’s product also utilizes a different communication method to relay the information to the devices that collect the data. i1 doesn’t trust SMS or Bluetooth to be 100% reliable in a stadium full of fans with their own mobile devices. To avoid coverage outages or missed communications, the mouthguard leverages a proprietary radio signal. If the signal is lost, the mouthguard stores the data locally until the link can be restored.

With the increased scrutiny sports like football and hockey are under to ensure player’s safety, technology that captures head trauma data is big business these days. i1 isn’t the only company looking to make players safer while making a profit at the same time. While taking any steps to studying and preventing brain injuries is a good thing, the entire market could come down to which product is most accurate. By getting as close to the brain as possible (without sci-fi implants at least), i1 is trying to get data right from the source.

(Header image via Erik Drost)

One of the bigger problems with diagnosing concussions, especially during an actual game, is that symptoms present themselves differently for every person. When a player goes limp, becomes dizzy, or loses consciousness, a concussion becomes easier to diagnose. But often times a concussion can occur without presenting such harsh symptoms. A player may experience a concussion without severe side-effects, or even without knowing it.

The Canadian company Shockbox is striving to create an easier way to treat and prevent concussions with the help of sensors placed in the helmet. The sensors go for $179.99, and can last up to three years with periodic charging. After the sensors are secured in the helmet, they are paired with a smartphone or tablet. Up to 125 sensors can be paired with any given device, so even an entire team can be monitored at once. Any significant impact will send data to the device, and alerts can be set up to notify coaches or parents of a specifically hard hit so that the player can be removed immediately for further testing or rest. Shockbox also offers a cloud service (for Android platforms only at the moment, though an iOS platform is in developement), so that multiple days/games worth of data can be stored for research or to keep tabs on a player’s history.

Shockbox’s CEO and CTO, Danny Crossman, started the company in 2010 after transitioning from developing the same type of technology for the military. His company now has six full-time employees and is gaining partnerships with multiple youth leagues and college teams. Crossman noted that all of the manufacturing is done in North America, with no contracting going overseas. Sensors are sold throughout Canada, the United States and Europe. Shockbox offers sensors fitted for many types of helmets, including football, hockey, lacrosse, skiing/snowboarding, and biking.

Scalability is what makes Shockbox’s product so appealing. While it’s feasible that an entire team or league can be outfitted with sensors, sometimes that just isn’t an option. However, concerned parents of young athletes can purchase a sensor individually and pair it with their own phone or tablet to keep tabs on their child’s impacts with realtime monitoring, allowing them to pull their child from competition if they suffer a significant blow. It’s just as Shockbox’s motto states: Know When a Hit is Too Hard.

As we know more about concussions and how they happen, devices like Shockbox will become even more valuable. Crossman himself admitted that by the time his sensors reach end-of-life after about three years of use, the technology will surely have changed. Nevertheless, Shockbox offers an easy and reasonably-priced way to help ensure player safety. Undoubtedly, as the dangers of head injuries continue to rise in visibility within the public, more and more teams and organizations will adopt this kind of technology on a sweeping scale. That’s good not just for Shockbox’s bottom line, but for parents, coaches, and players everywhere.

(Header image via Elliot Connor Photography)

Microsoft is already having a bit of a branding issue when it comes to the NFL, and it now appears that the NFL is looking to nip a future problem in the bud. The NFL has an exclusive contract with Bose, and part of that agreement features language that prohibits headphones from other manufacturers appearing on camera. In this case, it seems as if the NFL is specifically targeting the Beats brand. Players are not allowed to wear Beats during pre-game warmups or during post-game interviews. I suppose they aren’t allowed to wear them during the game, either, though this seems like an unlikely scenario.

According to the NFL, Bose isn’t the one actually making the stink. The league is. According to their statement (via Re/Code):

“The NFL has longstanding policies that prohibit branded exposure on-field or during interviews unless authorized by the league. These policies date back to the early 1990s and continue today,” an NFL spokesperson said in a statement. “They are the NFL’s policies – not one of the league’s sponsors, Bose in this case.  Bose is not involved in the enforcement of our policies. This is true for others on-field.”

The NFL is big business. They make a killing via TV rights, ticket and merchandise sales, and a slew of branding deals. But they also lean heavily on sponsorships. In the 2013-14 season, the NFL and their teams brought in about $1.07 billion through sponsorships alone. Needless to say, they want to keep sponsors happy. The recent fallout from the Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson suspensions further proved that. With Bose v. Beats, the NFL is looking for an easy win to keep at least one sponsor happy.

The NFL has a long way to go to recoup its image with some fans. They will be under a large microscope for some time. And they know that their sponsors know that as well. They may take a hit with players after taking away their preferred brand of headphones, but it looks like that’s a price the NFL is willing to pay.

(Header image via Titanas)