MLB Advanced Media, or the biggest media company you’ve never heard of, is about to embark on a video streaming expedition the likes of which the internet has never seen, supporting five launches in the next month alone, all while providing video streaming infrastructure for CBS Sports, ESPN, and WWE.

Take a look at this list put together by TechCrunch’s Matthew Panzarino:

• 3/18 – Sony’s PlayStation Vue
• 3/18 – March Madness streaming for Turner
• 3/29 – Wrestlemania
• 4/6 – MLB Opening Day
• 4/12 – HBO Now debut with Game of Thrones

That launch calendar would be great if it occurred in a year’s time, but MLBAM is doing it in one month. If they nail it, MLBAM will be in prime position to do what has been speculated for months — spin off into their own digital entertainment company. As our esteemed managing editor, David Temple, noted, “Through some forward thinking, some early investments, and a little bit of luck, a sports league has ended up being a giant in one of the biggest tech industries around.”

As was previously reported by TechGraphs, HBO Now is being launched with an exclusive partnership with Apple TV, which created whispers that Apple is looking to start their own over the top streaming service like Sling.

In his interview with TechCrunch, Bowman responded to a question about the possibility of MLBAM supporting Apple in these efforts by saying, “I have no idea. We’d be honored to be part of anything, really… What people forget is how long they’ve been together, and how well they’ve been running the company. I think everybody would do a lot of things to be partners with Apple, but it’s hard to imagine there’s anything technologically we could bring to Apple.”

Continuing with the Apple theme, Bowman gave an update on the At Bat app launch for the Apple Watch, saying, “We obviously built a whole interface, when it launches in April and people sync their phones, [sic] obviously, the interface is different. Every piece of hardware has to look different… Hopefully, it looks cool and neat and — the watch itself, there’s ways to dig deeper. When you move it, you might just get an update, but when you punch it a couple times, it’ll dig a little deeper.”

Right now MLB.com is 85 percent of MLBAM’s business, but obviously that number is likely to fall given all off the business they’re taking on. When asked pick a competitor for MLBAM, Bowman responed, “I think the biggest competitors that we have are inertia.”

(Image via Ming-Yen Hsu)

Look close at Wilson’s Wx “connected basketball,” and it’s hard to tell what’s so different about it until you spot the Bluetooth logo by the inflation valve.

“That is not something we usually deal with,” Wilson’s Vice President of Innovation Bob Thurman chuckled.

The ball was presented, along with an accompanying mobile app, at last month’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston. Wilson developed the basketball in partnership with SportIQ, a Finnish company whose player tracking solution combines wearable sensors with synchronized video to help coaches analyze their teams’ performance.

When asked, SportIQ CEO Harri Hohteri (pictured above) was reluctant to talk about the “secret sauce” behind his company’s basketball. But he was quick to differentiate it from other smart sensor basketballs like 94Fifty’s.

“[The 94Fifty ball] was designed around shooting mechanics as a training tool,” Hohteri said. “But the first thing for us is the consumer side of things. We wanted to develop a professional-quality basketball.”

Hohteri, who played four professional seasons in Finland’s Korisliiga, insisted the feel of the basketball was of the utmost importance to players. “I can’t tell the difference between this and a game ball,” he said.

The quality of the basketball is further underscored by SportIQ’s partnership with the Korisliiga. For the third straight season, Finnish players are wearing the company’s sensors (and using its basketball) in league games. The data is used to automatically tag events in a synchronized video that Hohteri says coaches are using to track the efficiency of their offensive sets. And because it relies on sensors, the system doesn’t need the extensive camera setup used by STATS’ SportVU tracking system.

“It’s about doing things more efficiently,” Hohteri said. “That’s the whole idea. We can do the whole thing in real time with less manpower than teams are using now.”

But for those of us who aren’t running a professional basketball league, Wilson’s connected basketball is launching this year. The demo at the conference included a smartphone app (projected onto a television) that showed players their accuracy from various distances on the floor. A machine learning algorithm in the app detects makes and misses without the need for an additional sensor attached to the net, unique among smart basketball systems. Each distance stripe was color-coded, according to the percentage of shots made from anywhere in that arc.

SportIQ’s partnership with Wilson started in August 2012, when SportIQ first began its relationship with Finnish basketball. Because Wilson is the official basketball of the league, Hohteri approached Wilson’s innovations department about developing a smart basketball.

“At the same time, our business director was asking us for a way to measure makes and misses in the driveway to keep kids in the game,” Thurman said. “So we agreed that we would help engage them on tracking the basketball, and they would help us with this make/miss aspect.”

Thurman hopes the partnership between their companies will combine SportIQ’s intelligence with Wilson’s broad user base to “gamify” practice and inspire the next generation of basketball players.

“We want to activate 12-15 year old kids, to get them off the video games, and get them back in the park, to be more active,” Thurman said.

Analytics is everywhere in the sports world. I’m not telling you anything new, and I don’t need to convince you, so I won’t. The tech world continues to create new ways to compile data on the field that range beyond statistics. Whether it’s video tracking (Major League Baseball Advanced Media’s StatCast) or wearables, a player’s speed, route and jump off the ball can be measured, compiled and analyzed.

Off the field, things are vastly different. As I wrote in December, the Milwaukee Bucks hired a facial coding expert to build an emotion metrics database in an attempt to quantify the previously unquantifiable – character, personality and chemistry. The Bucks are looking for an edge in the analytics race, a race which most teams have finally joined after sitting the past few years cautiously watching from the sidewalk. Will measuring intangibles be that edge in performance data analysis?

SportsBoard, a player assessment platform, and HUMANeX Ventures, which specializes in identifying and developing non-physical talent, are banking on it. The two partnerted in January to provide coaches the tools to recognize the best physical and non-physical talents of athletes and develop players to reach their true potential. They have many common clients in the Big Ten, Ivy League, PAC 12 and SEC. One client in particular, former UCLA softball head coach Sue Enquist, suggested the two companies marry tech and science to help her, and others, coach in a more efficient way. And so the relationship began.

The platform SportsBoard developed caters mainly to college coaches, however they also work with US Women’s Soccer and IMG Academy. Its streamlined assessment processes helps coaches identify and track high school recruits, analyze practices and games track results of various clinics or camps and create, distribute and montior strength and conditioning plans for its athletes.

Meanwhile, HUMANeX developed something called the Select7, which assesses a player’s intangibles (leadership, will to win, desire, mental toughness, etc.) and to what extent an athlete possesses those traits. Once an athlete takes the 60-question assessment, the results feed over that player’s SportsBoard portfolio, and a coach can review the athlete’s stats, notes scouts have scribbled, physical prowess and whether Timmy Football’s personality is best suited for his team.

“Until coaches embrace this, they’ll forever be drinking from a firehose,” said SportsBoard CEO Gregg Jacobs. Prior to developing SportsBoard, Jacobs worked in the enterprise software industry for 20 years and spent two years working at Price Waterhouse.

Of note, 60 percent of SportsBoard’s men’s college basketball clients made the NCAA Tournament. Small sample size alert — three schools, Ohio State, Georgia State and St. John’s participated in March Madness, with the two former teams winning their first-round games.

Brad Black, CEO of HUMANeX, said his company is researching athletes every day.

“Our goal is to create a relevant, impactful mirror with this assessment,” Black said. “We’re trying to give the world a pin number to their tool box. If you don’t know what’s in your tool box, how do you know what tools you can use?”

Clients include professional athletes, a Heisman trophy winner and Olympians. He said his database of assessments can be used to calibrate a current athlete, say a four-star high school recruit, against a former legend, and compare common traits. As a result, Black has identified several traits that the most successful athletes all have in common, which will be reviewed later.

Black graciously agreed to let me take the Select7. For a frame of reference, I started playing baseball when I was 9. I made all-star squads every year until high school, made varsity and then hit a wall. Part of it was because my peers caught up to my physically (I hit puberty in fifth grade). But I think a more damaging part was my mental toughness. Looking back, I didn’t deal with failure well. I wasn’t able to turn the page and ignore a hitless game with a throwing error. Ultimately, rather than work harder on my deficiencies, I just quit. So last week when I took the test, I tried to put myself in that 17-year-old baseball player’s mindset that I had. But I think some of my more mature thoughts snuck its way in to my results.

The assessment took about 20 minutes and included questions about character (keeping promises, doing the right thing type of stuff), goal setting, preparation, how I handled failure and how I was as a teammate. I figured my results would indicate how little mental toughness I had, scold me and prove that it was my downfall. But it didn’t. Rather, it highlights my seven strongest attributes. Some of these I found on the baseball field, but a lot are attributes that have carried over in to my personal and professional life.

Goal Orientation

This is an example of my more mature mindset bleeding over in to my results. If my 17-year-old baseball-playing self created plans to grow and ensured I met my desired outcomes, I at least wouldn’t have quit prior to my senior season, and would have maximized my physical abilities. Rather, goal orienting is something I’ve done more since college. And while it’s not written down for anyone to read, I have ideas of where I’ve wanted to be, put myself there, and where I want to go.

Passion

I fell in love with baseball when I was 8. Roy Hobbs was my first favorite baseball player, followed by Wally Joyner. I grew up an Angels fan, mainly because of all my Orange County friends in the third grade liked the Angels. It helped that Wally World took the region by storm and the Angels had a good team in 1986. I somehow was drafted in my first season, at 9, to play in the 10-12 year-old majors division – the one that competes on ESPN every August for the Little League World Series. I don’t think I put one ball in play during my try outs. But my coach saw a tall gangly kid with good hands, a decent arm and a project. My coach handed me my White Sox jersey with 9 as my number. “Just like in The Natural,” I told my dad. I was stoked.

Passion matters. Check out the difference between Russell Wilson and JaMarcus Russell and tell me it doesn’t.

Achiever

An achiever sets high expectations which pushes one towards excellence. I do have this. As most are, I’m my own worst critic. My problem was that 20 years ago, I kept it all inside. If I wasn’t achieving, I’d quit. I didn’t ask for help. I didn’t put in extra hours or figure out new ways to improve. I gave up. It’s hard to achieve if you don’t try.

Flexibility

This one is innate. It’s always been a part of my personality. Laid back. Chill. I roll with the punches. I might not like the change, and it might take me a bit to adapt, but I recongize the need to do so. Unfortunately, it makes figuring out dinner difficult with the Mrs. “I’m cool with whatever, babe.” An hour later and we’re still sitting on the couch in sweats.

Resilience 

This is another attribute that’s developed as I’ve grown older. If I had this in high school, I would’ve achieved more. And really, it’s only developed out of necessity. In 2012 my 4-year-old son died following a drowning accident at a neighbor’s pool party. My wife has miscarried three times in two years. I’ve been kicked in the nuts, stepped on and tea-bagged by life for the last two-and-a-half years. Yet I still get out of bed every morning. I’m not living life through the bottom of a bottle as much as I wish I could. People have called me strong. I’m not. I just do what I have to do for my twin 4-year-olds and my wife. I have to keep getting up when life knocks me down. There are no other options.

Activator

This is the energizer. As you know, I’m laid back. However in the dugout, I became the person I needed to in order to help the team win. Does my pitcher need a boost? I’ll give it to him. Is my team playing tight and gripping? I’ll loosen the mood.

I help out with my kids’ tee-ball team. Before this weekend’s game, I was slapping helmets of 5-year-olds, nudging their shoulders and trying to pump them up to play. I’m pretty sure they thought I was just a creep.

Mastery

Russell Wilson and his Surface Pro come to mind on this one. An athlete with this trait has a strong learning orientation. He studies and becomes an expert in his sport. Not to pick on JaMarcus again, but I doubt Mastery scored highly in his Select7.

Black shared the common traits found in successful athletes. Competitive is the most obvious trait. Others include achiever, which Black says is more of a talented trait than competitor drive, since an achiever is always putting the pedal to the floor; passion, as an athlete is more likely to choose sacrificing for his love of the sport than focusing on parties or an awesome social life; and grit, which features a strong fortitude, resolve and courage. Black added other features that stand out to coaches, including mastery and coachability. 

SportsBoard and HUMANeX hope their venture leads to providing clients with a complete picture of athletes, both physical and non-physical, with measurable data.

“Coaches don’t get the physical wrong,” Black said. “They just don’t know the non-physical.”

(Image courtesy of SportsBoard)

Earlier this week heavyweight boxing legend Mike Tyson uploaded a YouTube clip to his channel with a caption that read, “Help me pick my 10 best knockouts to feature in the Mike Tyson story starring Jamie Foxx and directed by Martin Scorcese.”

Whether you’re a fan of the big fight knockouts Tyson served on Michael Spinks and Larry Holmes, or his early career beat downs on the lower rungs of professional boxing as an 18-year-old phenom, they are all there in over 57 minutes of punishing fury.

This clip adds more credence to Jamie Foxx’s announcement on the Breakfast Club Power 105.1 radio show last week that he will be starring in a biopic about Tyson, directed by Martin Scorcese and written by Terence Winter, who created  Boardwalk Empire and wrote the screenplay for Wolf of Wall Street. Scorcese’s last boxing film was Raging Bull, for which Robert DeNiro won the Best Actor Oscar in 1980.

Foxx said in the interview, “I just went in with Paramount with Mike Tyson. So I’m going to do the Mike Tyson story. Listen, to be in the same room pitching Mike Tyson to Paramount, Mike Tyson is on one side, I’m on the other side and doing Mike Tyson at the same time. And Martin Scorsese at the helm. This will be the first boxing movie that Martin Scorsese has done since Raging Bull.”

If Tyson is sincere about using the web to crowdsource his best knockouts, YouTube sure is an interesting community to select, as their commenters generally leave a lot to be desired.

However, the video has already eclipsed over one million views in just a few days, which adds support to the viability of the project. A film montage of Tyson knockouts would be one of the best ever, yet entirely unlikely to eclipse the best of all time — Push It To The Limit from Scarface.

(Header Image via Wikpedia)

ScoreMore Baseball’s main tagline is “Moneyball for all.” Grand words for a baseball scorekeeping app, but if you’re in the market to dominate the little league fields, this could be the app for you. It is available for Android, iOS and Blackberry systems and in addition to the standard hitting statistics such as batting average and on-base percentage, ScoreMore calculates Runs Created.

Unfortunately the app lacks any advanced pitching metrics, though given the necessary league numbers, statistics like FIP or SIERA are unattainable. As their tagline suggests, the phrase “Moneyball” is thrown around quite often within the app. There is a Moneyball Dictionary where terms ranging from slugging percentage to Runs Created are described — though no formulas are revealed, which is curious given that RC is a fairly straight forward one — and even a Moneyball Lineup.

Within the Moneyball Lineup option it describes each of the first six batting positions. Notably written under the first batter section is the sentence “Regardless of a player’s physical attributes, the primary criteria for the leadoff batter is to get on base more than anyone else on the team.” They are not “selling jeans” in the app.

The demo shows the optimized lineup — with seven out of nine starting players OPS above 1.000 I sure like the demo offense — but let’s see how it stacks up against a different lineup optimizer, one available at Baseball Musings.

For a difference of .013 runs per game, the ScoreMore Moneyball lineup (outlined in red) stacks up just fine against a different one. Curious that the Baseball Musings optimizer did find find four better lineups, but rounding to the hundredths of runs is beyond splitting hairs.

A nice feature in addition to the standard score keeping is the ability to chart balls in play, though any spray chart wouldn’t be anything more than an eye-based guess. While scoring a game, you’re given the standard option of on base or out, and within the on base options there is everything else you’d expect.

Say Andrews hit a double, of the line drive type, then you’re taken to a screen to confirm the hit location by tapping where the ball landed. Imprecision, the new Moneyball!

For a free scorekeeping app ScoreMore does the job adequately enough. The lineup optimizer, while not perfect, is a nice feature as is the ability to chart balls-in-play, but the imprecision is something to be expected. If nothing else just charting ground balls, fly balls and line drives by color makes for a fun spray chart for people to look at, however this app shouldn’t be taken too seriously.

(Header image via ScoreMore)

With millions of people filling out NCAA brackets and no doubt millions of, let’s say “jelly beans” being wagered, why not try to get the inside track on the opening round games? With thanks to WhatIfSports and their basketball simulation system (as well as Yahoo! for the bracket), we have the four play-in games plus the 32 opening round games predicted.

To participate in the premium features of WhatIfSports — such as creating or joining a sim league or dynasty — there is a fee. However, the NCAA single game matchup sim is free. Though no word on their methodology behind the sim (what stats are weighed, how heavily, is it a Monte Carlo, etc.) I’ll share my methods. I used the neutral court option and ran each team once. Small sample size is an issue, and rather than spend hours running a full simulation, like the tournament, I’m sticking with the one-and-done style. With that out of the way, lets take a look at the play-in games!

Hampton wins a fairly one-sided matchup, keeping Manhattan at arms length in the first and second half.

Our second play-in game is much more competitive, with Boise State narrowly defeating Dayton.

Robert Morris couldn’tkeep pace with North Florida, getting doubled up on points in the first half. Though they won the second half, it wasn’t enough to overcome the early hole and UNF advances to the field of 64.

Our first power conference team is eliminated in Ole Miss, going down to BYU by doubt digits.

The rest of the results can be found in the brackets below, though note some of opening round upsets. In the Midwest bracket we see Buffalo beating out West Virginia for the classic 5/12 upset and Valparaiso downing Maryland. The upsets continue in the bottom half of the bracket with Butler dropping to Texas.

Moving on to the East bracket, a problem arose. Unfortunately the system did not have Northern Iowa’s 2014-15 season on file, so Wyoming got the upset by default. Boise State toppled Providence for their second win of the tournament and while Virginia beat Belmont, it was a five point game.

History was immediately made in the West bracket, as 16-seed Coastal Carolina shocks the world and beats Wisconsin! BYU defeats Xavier in another upset to finish the surprises for the day.

Events unfolded without much surprise in the upper half of the South bracket. Suddenly UCLA downed SMU, Iowa State fell to UAB and Davidson defeated Iowa, all upsets.

Clearly the surprise was for the first time ever a 1-seed, Wisconsin, lost in their opening game. Whether or not this proves to come true remains to be seen, but this bracket will probably do better than the one I filled out.

(Header image via Wikipedia)

When my oldest son was 3 he was obsessed with Cars. While my infant twins napped, he and I would hide in the office to be quiet. I’d do my thing at the computer, and he’d sit next to me in an office chair enjoying some iPhone time. Most of his allotted 20 minutes he’d spend on YouTube, following whatever trail led from my Lightning McQueen or Mater search that got him going.

On one particular day I was writing and chronicled the following:

The Boy, my 3-year-old, is easily influenced by what he sees on television. If something catches his interest, he commits every atom in his being to that one thing. It started with Toy Story and culminated with us buying him a Jessie hat, which thankfully he’s stopped prancing around the house in.

Then came Cars, and that obsession is still rocking. In fact, he’s sitting on an office chair next to me, watching YouTube on my iPhone. I don’t know what the video is, but I hear an adult male speaking with a slight accent describing a new Cars toy he recently purchased. He’s reading the box, extracting said toy from its container and describing it in detail…and it’s creeping me out.

The rabbit hole that is YouTube is a dangerous thing. According to Childwise, which specializes in children’s research, YouTube is the most popular digital brand between for those 16 and under. That’s ahead of Minecraft, Facebook and Instragram. And because of the way it’s designed, it’s so easy for a child to head down a road flacked by flowers and rainbows with a search so innocent and end up lost in a dark, dense forest of inappropriateness.

One day, while cooking dinner, Jax asked to watch Bambi clips on YouTube. I was convinced this was safe, and he could hide in his room from the twins for a bit before it was time to eat. Other than the mom dying at the beginning, it’s about as innocent as one could get, right? A few days later, he started asking me about zombies. He said Bambi’s mom was a zombie. Whattttt. This kid’s crazy, I thought. After some interrogation, he said he saw it on YouTube. So I searched Google and found what he was talking about.

Facepalm. Thanks for nothing, Cartoon Network.

Google recently relieved, at least a bit, parents everywhere when it released its YouTube Kids app for Android and iOS. As the company blogged, “the app was designed to be easier for kids to use, with a brighter and bigger interface that’s perfect for small thumbs and pudgy fingers.” It also includes features for parents to set up how and for how long the app is used. There’s a timer. We parents love timers. “Sorry, Little Jimmy. The timer says it’s time to be done, not me. I know, I think the timer is a bad, stinky mean guy, too.”

My twins, Ellie the girl and Gray the boy, just turned 4. I sat down with them to explore the sports options on the YouTube Kids app. Here is some of what we found.

SPORTS BALLS by Pancake Manor

“You throw this ball, through the hoop – a basketball” is sung by orange and purple muppet-looking things to the tune of a pop-punk two-minute music video. It’s the most watchable option under the sports search results. And that’s only because I have a huge thing for Marty Feldman.

Ellie: She really liked it, and she likes the orange guy. I guess she likes bushy eyebrows.

Gray: At first, he didn’t like it. He said the guys were weird. At the end of the video he pivoted, said he liked it, and now likes the purple guy. One day I’ll make him watch Young Frankenstein and it’ll blow his mind.

Baby Big Mouth Surprise Egg Learn To Spell – Sports

This is one part of a series of videos that utilize magnet letters, plastic eggs and cheap prizes to grab a kid’s attention. The camera isolates on the letters and a faceless man’s hands, which somehow creeps me out after a bit.

Ellie: She stinkin’ loved this and wanted to watch more. She’s interested in letters right now and loved discovering the prize in the egg at the end. I think he had her at the pink wristbands.

Gray: He was indifferent. He watched it, seemed interested, but at the end just wanted to move on.

Sports Finger Family

I despised this one. This is developed by a British company and features sports popular across the pond such as soccer, tennis and cricket. It’s filled with bad rhymes and gross animation. The singing isn’t any good, either. At the end of each sport’s short rhyme, the player becomes a finger puppet. A freaking finger puppet. I’d rather my kids watch zombie cartoons.

Ellie: She liked the girl playing tennis. She had no idea what the point was with the finger puppets.

Gray: Also unimpressed with the finger puppets. He asked what cricket was, and rather than get in to it, I simply told him I had no idea. He was satisfied with that answer.

Sports for Kids – Learning About Sports

Maybe I’m just a grumpy, cynical jerk, but the narrator’s voice is unlistenable. I’d rather listen to Fran Drescher read every line of hers from The Nanny. And as my wife would confess, I want to rip out Drescher’s vocal chords, load them on to the next rocket heading to space and pray that it explodes. The script worked for me, as it explains the goal in the sport, and that’s helpful to teach kids just learning about sports.

Ellie: She asked to stop watching after volleyball, 32 seconds in.

Gray: He asked to stop watching much, much earlier.

There’s more of the same after searching “sports” in the app. And while these videos were pretty lame, they held the attention of my preschoolers well enough. And I know I could hand them this app and let them head down a road that won’t lead them to zombies, twerking or Fran Drescher.

It does have Baseball Bugs, so even if it some day does lead to them learning how to assemble a pipe bomb with everyday craft items, the app is still a winner in my book.

The growth of soccer is something we’ve been hearing about since the mid 1990s. Major League Soccer may not have the top tier quality of European leagues just yet, but the quality of play has certainly been on the rise, particularly in the last few seasons. Older stars such as Thierry Henry, Robbie Keane and of course David Beckham have given the MLS a touch of precision it has been lacking. When seeing what these players can do in the MLS, many fans have seemingly sought out higher levels of competition, namely the English Premier League.

Back at the midway point of the EPL season, NBC — who owns broadcasting rights here in the United States — released viewership numbers and they showed an uptick from last season. NBC claimed a 15% jump in TV views and an encouraging 36% increase in streamed games via PC, mobile and tablets. Corroborating the continued rise in soccer’s popularity is the latest Global Web Index report, showing an bump up across the board in EPL watching.

Of the sample of about 40,000 users across 32 different countries, 28% claimed they watched the EPL on television. Another 16% reported streaming the games through their connected devices rather than the traditional TV route.

Unsurprisingly the 16-24 and 25-34 age demographics lead the online viewership numbers, with 19% and 22% respectively streaming their games

Given the time zone differences — a Tottenham fan in San Jose, CA is faced with a seven hour difference or a Bayern fan in NYC still has a five hour difference — it remains a difficult reality for the European leagues to grow here. While some people, myself included, are more than happy to wake up early to watch games, eventually we may reach a point where the casually interested fans are not willing to sacrifice sleep for their soccer fix. Until we reach that point, the rising popularity of soccer, especially the EPL, is a welcome sight.

(Header image via Ungry Young Man)

Winter is finally starting to release its grip on the U.S., but temperatures are still below average and there are several feet of snow on the ground across the northeast. However, golfers can still work on their game without trudging through the snow thanks to simulators like the OptiShot2.

OptiShot is a small company based out of Traverse City, Michigan (2015 snowfall: 89 inches). Their golf simulator allows users to play a full round indoors using every club in their bag*. Even in the summer, the simulator can still come in handy: since there’s no walking or hunting for balls, users can play a full 18 holes in under an hour.

* – While you can use real golf balls with the OptiShot, you might want to consider using their foam practice balls — or no balls — if you’re actually playing inside.

The heart of the OptiShot system is a row of sixteen infrared sensors embedded in a practice mat. The sensors track the club tens of thousands of times per second, sending data via a USB cable to a laptop. There, the OptiShot software computes the speed of the club head, club face angle, and swing path. Of course, the system also computes the trajectory of the shot, projecting it onto three-dimensional replicas of famous courses from around the world. For added realism, the software also includes penalties that limit the range of shots out of the bunker and rough.

But OptiShot CEO Russell Edens says the company’s user base is what sets the OptiShot apart.

“We have the largest user base on the planet,” Edens said. “You can play against other golfers around the world online, and we hold events for people to play against each other.”

To keep its customers happy, OptiShot is constantly digitizing new courses, releasing the Riviera Country Club simulation (pictured above) last month. The device ships with 15 courses, replicas of the courses that host the U.S. Open, PGA Championship, and Ryder Cup; additional course simulations are available for purchase online. OptiShot’s course designers rely on high-resolution photos and detailed three-dimensional data “that maps every contour, dip, and bump” of the famous courses, Edens said.

OptiShot trained its system using launch monitors (like TrackMan) that track a shot’s speed and trajectory, and Edens is proud of the system’s accuracy.

“Frankly, the accuracy of OptiShot for the price point is shocking,” Edens said. “When it come to sidespin, we are often better than most simulators on the market.”

Edens said the touring and teaching professionals OptiShot has worked with to design and test the system were impressed by the system’s ability to capture their game.

“The reaction is nearly always the same,” Edens said. “They hit a shot, nod their head and say, ‘Yup, that’s my shot.'”

FanAngel is a site that, in a just world, wouldn’t exist. The crowdfunding site enables fans to become patrons of NCAA athletes, donating money to persuade said athletes to stay in school, with the site holding the money in escrow until the athlete’s eligibility expires.

While it is true that NCAA athletes from power conferences have been getting the shaft for decades by not being compensated properly for their increasingly valuable labor, crowdfunded donations from fans do nothing to alleviate the exploitative labor conditions under which NCAA athletes operate.

In the event that a FanAngel crowdfunding campaign is successful and the athlete’s NCAA eligibility expires, 80 percent of the money would go to the athlete, 10 percent would go to the athlete’s teammates (nice touch!), and 10 percent would go to a scholarship fund or charity. FanAngel makes money by taking 9 percent of the total amount raised (more on this later). Of course, if the athlete doesn’t stay in school the money is refunded.

Shawn Fotjik, founder of FanAngel, said in an interview with ESPN sports business reporter Darren Rovell, “If you wanted Marcus Mariota to stay in school for his senior year, you could give $20.” I applaud Fotjik on getting good PR from Darren Rovell, but Marcus Mariota is either going #1 or #2 overall in the 2015 NFL Draft and there is no amount of money FanAngel could raise that could keep him in school.

Contributing to a crowdfunding campaign for teenagers who are exceptionally good at big time NCAA sports, and also strangers to the donor, is something I’d assume would be creepy to most well-mannered adults. As has been proven time and time again in my life, I am wrong about this assumption.

Fans of Jarrell Martin, a sophomore forward for the LSU Tigers who, according to DraftExpress.com, is projected to be drafted at the end of the 1st round in the upcoming NBA Draft, have raised over $700 on FanAngels for him to return to LSU for his junior and senior senior seasons, completing his NCAA eligibility. Understanding that FanAngel is a new venture and will need time to scale both users and donations, it still strains credulity to see this ever happening.

For a glimpse of what might be in Fotjik’s future, FanPay, a crowdfunding site which raises donations as graduation gifts for college athletes, has received over 100 cease-and-desist letters from universities and conferences.

Additionally, FanAngel may want to rethink the 9 percent fee they collect for successful campaigns. Other supposedly altruistic crowdfunding donation sites have been taken to task in the past for collecting high fees. One of the worst offenders is Give Forward, which collects 7.9 percent of every donation plus a $0.50 transaction fee. Nine percent is a laughable amount that puts FanAngels in the same exploitative waters they claim they are trying to drain.

If college sports fans suffering from hero worship want to contribute to an NCAA athlete’s cause, they should skip crowdfunding platforms and donate to the National College Players Association (NCPA), which spearheaded the player union movement at Northwestern. Or do what has been done for time immemorial, put some cash in an envelope and make a handoff.

(Image via FanAngel)