I can still hear my high school wrestling coach talking to us about the dangers of “cutting weight.” That is to say, dropping large amounts of water weight in a short amount of time in order to make weight and be eligible to wrestle at a particular weight class. Sheer weight used to be the determining factor in how much water one has shed, but no longer. From a study conducted by University of Strathclyde a new wearable device could be able to provide real-time feedback on fluid loss and hydration levels to a computer or smartphone.

Similar to boxing, wrestling is divided up into various weight classes in the name of fairness. Of course, the weight can be very misleading as in just a few hours of intense workouts one can drop multiple pounds of water, allowing athletes to make weight, then rehydrate and technically be above the allowed weight class. Cutting weight is an old story, one that has been around for years despite numerous deaths in the high school and collegiate ranks. The NCAA enacted rules, specifically banning the use of saunas, rubber suits, and pills, but without a way to measure just how dehydrated an athlete is, it’s a fuzzy line between working up a significant sweat and being in real danger.

Dr. Stephen Milne of Strathclyde’s Department of Biomedical Engineering said of the new device:

On an individual level this would allow people to rehydrate during and after exercise. When it comes to team sports, fitness coaches would be able to monitor the data during matches and ensure athletes get what they need to maintain their performance. The sensor is small and wearing it on the skin does not cause any discomfort. During exercise the user would barely be aware of it, allowing them to focus on the activity without distraction.

Given the uniqueness of each person, the need for a personalized game plan for each individual’s workout plan and thus hydration plan is varied. The sensor itself has been designed in part by Professor Patricia Connolly of the Medical Diagnostics Research Group at the university who credited Dr. Milne, saying

Stephen has been able to take our work in medical sensors and transdermal sensing from the healthcare applications into the field of sport.

As someone who managed to stay at the 103 pound weight class all four years of high school, cutting weight was something I was all too familiar with. There were no doubt times I was dehydrated, but our coaches and managers were keen to notice fatigue and sloppiness in me, and would scale back workouts if need be. I would run laps in the pool room where the sweat would just pour out of me, but I never felt in any danger. If I did, I have no doubts the workout would have ceased as I was fortunate enough to have an excellent coaching staff. With this new sensor, the guesswork and “gut-feeling” of coaches is removed. While the context is focused on weight-class athletics, no doubt distance runners, weight trainers and athletes of any caliber should take careful note of their fluid levels. With issues of dehydration to hydrating at the wrong times or even over-hydrating abound, the sports world has been waiting for a wearable device like this for too long.

(Header image courtesy of and features the very dorky author)

I do this weird thing where I take a GoPro on the golf course. It’s not because I love doing trick shots or utilizing bunkers as launch ramps for my golf cart — it’s because I want to look at my swing. One of my biggest issues this season is transferring success on the range to success on the course. I record portions of my practice sessions, but didn’t have anything with which to compare those recordings. So I now take my GoPro out on the course and record a few shots here and there to see how they compare with my technique on the range. It’s dorky, I know.

And while I like walking a course when I’m by myself, I’ll take a cart if I’m with a group. I don’t get as much exercise, but I’m not slowing everyone else down. The cart makes for an excellent GoPro tripod (quadpod?) so I’ll just clip the camera on there and let the recording roll. When I go through the footage, there’s a bunch where the cart is just rolling along. Some of it is boring, but sometimes the camera catches an interesting view or a pretty sunset as we’re meandering down the fairway. I always think this would be cool footage to share, but, well, it’s so dang long. Unless the viewer has some sort of ASMR reaction to video of fairways and sounds of the wind, no one is going to sit through the whole thing.

I imagine that those who participate in real action sports — you know, the people GoPros are intended for — feel the same way. Footage of downhill skiing can be cool, but it can also be quite long and tedious. Microsoft is working on technology that would help alleviate this situation by shortening and smoothing action video.

The software is called Hyperlapse, which conspicuously shares its name with a similar solution from Instagram. Microsoft takes the technology a little further, however. While Instagram’s Hyperlapse will simply just cut out frames to produce a time lapse, Microsoft’s version will pick out the smoothest and most important frames. According to Engadget:

In the mobile version of the app, instead of speeding up the footage by only keeping every tenth frame (for example) Hyperlapse only preserves frames that appear to visually follow the camera’s estimated path through the landscape. By removing wild card frames with sudden jerks or movements, the sped-up footage ends up being automatically smoothed and stabilized. As a result, the faster you decide to speed up your video, up to 32X, the more watchable the results will be.

Hyperlapse comes in two flavors; a mobile app for Android and Windows Phone, and software for PC. No word yet on iOS compatibility, but given Microsoft’s recent push to embrace the platform, I imagine one is coming soon. The PC version is currently a preview version of professional software, so expect that to cost some kind of money at some point in time. The PC version is the most obvious choice to edit footage from a standalone camera like a GoPro, but GoPro’s app does allow exporting to phones which could theoretically be imported into Hyperlapse. A Dropbox/Google Drive option could work as well, perhaps. You can see how well the software translates what would be puke-inducing time lapse video into something much more watchable.

A lot of action footage videos are a lot like vacation photos — they help you remember great times you had, but no one else really wants to see them. By giving us an easy way to edit and smooth this footage out, Microsoft is helping to create more dynamic and engaging material for us to email or post to YouTube. I’m not 100% sure it will help make my golf footage interesting, but I’ll still probably give it a try. I just finished a round on one of the hilliest courses I ever played. Perhaps that will make for some interesting footage when put through Hyperlapse. If not, it will still be more interesting than the source material. And certainly more impressive than my score that day.

One week from today the final piece of the 2015-16 English Premier League will be decided. A single match between Middlesbrough and Norwich City will kick off at 10 am eastern time on May 25. The winner will advance to arguably the best soccer league in the world, the loser remains in England’s second tier league, the Football League Championship. Unfortunately, despite the high stakes, only a limited number of soccer fans — in particular those with cable subscriptions — outside of the United Kingdom will have access to the game.

Foreign broadcast rights for the Championship here in the United States and Canada fall to beIN Sports. Directly from the beIN website, they offer a free online system called beIN SPORTS CONNECT, allowing users to stream live events to their computers, iOS and Android systems. The downside is there is no standalone option for the service. You have to be in an area with beIN available to you, with a compatible cable provider and then purchase a qualifying cable package.

The good news is Sling TV offers a package for $10.00 per month that includes, among other sports options, beIN Sports. Perhaps this is one of the first times in broadcasting history where cord cutters without a traditional cable package sit in an advantageous position to those with a cable subscription. Despite some channel lineups coming with beIN, the vast majority of cable packages don’t offer beIN until their highest package, or as an add-on at additional cost. In my area in particular, beIN isn’t available for my current provider. A competing cable and internet provider does offer beIN, though it isn’t an included feature — it is available as an add-on for $10.00 with the second and third most expensive packages —  until the highest cost package, coming in at a hefty $91.00 per month. That bill is before taxes and without accounting for internet or installation and activation.

At this point it’s hard to say which is more accurate: that the cord cutting generation is winning or that the old school cable TV model is losing.

(Header image via beIN)

If I told you Barry Zito did yoga, odds are you wouldn’t be too shocked. You could pick out most interviews with the pitcher and put it together like “Yeah, I can see that.” Not to say the former Cy Young winner isn’t an athlete, but it’d be a stretch to call him a jock. On the other hand, you would most likely be very surprised to hear a slugger such as Giancarlo Stanton utilizes yoga in his workout routines or USMNT midfielder Jermaine Jones regularly incorporates yoga to focus him.

Gaiam, likely the largest yoga focused company in the United States, recently announced both Stanton and Jones as stars of video series aptly named Yoga for Power with Giancarlo Stanton and Yoga for Conditioning with Jermaine Jones. Now available either traditionally via DVD or digitally online (but not through their GaiamTV streaming service just yet) the videos are designed to improve various aspects of one’s game. Where the ties between football and another non-traditional athletic event in ballet are quite established, recent years has seen yoga take off in baseball circles. A number of MLB teams have turned to yoga for various needs including strength, balance, conditioning and focus, and perhaps this latest wave of videos will shed further light on the subject.

Stanton, while speaking on yoga and his videos noted

Yoga has become an integral part of my training regimen. It strengthens my body and mind and pushes me to be more in tune with myself not only physically, but mentally as well. I truly feel that yoga has been a key component in developing a solid foundation on which I can continue to build a healthy athletic career while benefiting my life as a whole.

From casual workouts to more focused goals, yoga has certainly gained traction as a workout option in the United States. Via Statista, the revenue of the Gaiam specifically and yoga and pilates industry in general has been on a sharp rise since 2007 and projects to continue to do so.

As the stigma surrounding alternative workout routines drops, potentially more professional athletes will step forward and embrace what yoga offers on both the physical and mental fronts. The mental side of sports while tough to quantify, shouldn’t be overlooked. As Yogi Berra famously once said: “Baseball is 90 percent mental, the other half is physical.”

(Header image via Gaiam)

Professional baseball is a grind, with daily games and countless hours of batting practice for hitters. But younger hitters working in a batting cage lack the feedback of seeing how that last hit would have traveled on the diamond. To help hitters get that experience, the company InMotion has developed the HitTrax system, capable of tracking batted ball speed, launch angle, and a number of other parameters that tell hitters how far each ball would have traveled during an actual game.

The system consists of separate hardware and software components. The hardware, encased in the rectangular white box seen above, consists of three near-infrared cameras and two near-infrared LED arrays that better illuminate the ball. Like other motion-capture systems, multiple cameras track the ball as it crosses the camera volume. The location of the ball in each camera’s field of vision, combined with the known distances between each camera, are combined to measure the position of the ball in three dimensions.

The box containing the cameras is positioned inside the cage, a few feet behind the batter and just in front of the plate, in a fixed position for both right- and left-handed batters. You typically wouldn’t want to stand by the box when someone is in the cage, of course, but the hardware is still well-protected from foul balls: the LED arrays are behind bulletproof glass, and the front of the box is “made from the same material as hockey boards,” according to Tom Stepsis, InMotion Systems’s director of marketing.

The tracking data is then fed into a physics engine to project the distance each hit would travel in the real world. But in addition to distance and trajectory, HitTrax also estimates whether each batted ball would result in a hit or an out. The fielders’ ability has been programmed to match the hitter’s, so high school hitters will face high school fielders, whereas more skilled fielders and deeper fences await older hitters.

InMotion, based in Northborough, Mass., claims that the speeds reported by the HitTrax system are accurate to within one mile per hour, as compared with conventional radar guns. Stepsis also claimed the distances reported were accurate to within five percent of the actual distance, as measured manually with a tape measure. The system does not track the ball’s spin (which has been shown to have an important impact on the distance a fly ball travels) but instead makes its calculation based on the first few feet of trajectory captured by the cameras.

The HitTrax software is controlled by a touchscreen, where the user can enter personal information, change settings, or switch between training and game mode. In training mode, the system can produce detailed spray charts, strike zone “hot and cold” zones, and trajectory data such as launch angle and exit velocity. Reports and leaderboards are available online so players can track their performance and get a sense of how a change to their swing mechanics might translate to in-game performance.

But game mode, Stepsis said, was entirely separate. Here, hitters can compete in home run derbies and on teams in simulated games. The system also includes fun features, like power boosts, to affect trajectories.

Despite its name, the HitTrax system is also capable of tracking pitchers. The system tracks the horizontal and vertical break of the ball, the “end speed” as the pitch crosses the plate, and where in the strike zone the pitch was located. Because the cameras are fixed in front of home plate, however, more in-depth statistics like release point, starting speed, and a more detailed trajectory of the ball’s path to home plate, are not available.

Prior to founding InMotion, the company’s founders had decades of experience with motion tracking technologies and a passion for baseball. It took InMotion “a solid two years” to develop the HitTrax system to the point where it was ready to be sold. Stepsis said that, because the product was so unlike other available offerings, the initial marketing focused on showing potential customers how to use the system.

“When we introduced this, part of the hurdle was explaining what it was to people,” Stepsis said. “And seeing is believing, so we did a lot of demos. And then once people saw it, word of mouth started to spread, and things really took off.”

The system is now in facilities across North America, along with some high schools, colleges, and the occasional private residence. For those in publicly-accessible facilities, the price for a session can vary widely.

“There are some places that charge over $100, there are some places that just put this in a coin-op [batting cage] and just charge double, so instead of $1 for 20 balls, it’s $2,” Stepsis said.

InMotion has gotten positive feedback from players, coaches, and facility owners as a training tool, but Stepsis said some users were also using it for tryouts or scouting purposes.

“Some of our customers who own facilities are also MLB scouts, and they love it,” Stepsis said. “They feel like the data we’re providing them just paints this elaborate picture of what the player’s like.”

As InMotion grows and HitTrax becomes more popular, Stepsis hopes that his company will be able to give players and coaches instant access to the type of data that will allow them to monitor their progress and quantify the effect of any changes in their swings.

“We’re not coaches. We just want to be data providers,” Stepsis said. “It’s all about making the indoor training environment more engaging and more beneficial.”

The UEFA Champions League final will be set Wednesday as Real Madrid and Juventus square off to determine who will face Barcelona in the finals. Barcelona defeated Bayern Munich en route to their finals bid on a 5-3 aggregate score, but it could have easily been 5-4, and a one goal lead — technically two due to the away goals advantage — as a shot in the 39th minute nearly brought a bit of panic to the Barca side.

Bayern’s Robert Lewandowski received a pass near the penalty spot, turned and sent a strike that beat Barca’s keeper, Marc-Andre ter Stegen. From the game feed, as well as the reactions of the Bayern players, it looked as though it may have been a goal.

A different angle shows the entire ball did not cross the goal line, and thus the no goal call turned out to be correct.

While this second angle is no doubt an improvement over the game feed, it is still off-angle and not parallel with the goal line. The Champions League is one of the few leagues in Europe to not have some sort of goal-line technology (GLT) either planned or already in use. From the Dutch league to Italy’s Serie A to England’s Premier League, GLT is something that absolutely needs to be an industry standard.

Just two days ago GLT was the difference in the EPL as Swansea downed Arsenal 1-0 due to a no-goal call being overturned. Reddit user Poet-Laureate, via Gfycat, clearly showed the use of GLT to determine the game.

Both men’s and women’s World Cups as well as numerous domestic leagues have embraced the usage of GLT, though few international leagues have done so. Aside from the UEFA Champions League which pits clubs against each other, national teams in the 2015 Asian Cup nor the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations did not benefit from any form of goal-line technology. Similarly in North and South America the CONCACAF and CONMEBOL respectively have yet to implement GLT in any capacity. One of the reasons behind the lack of GLT is cost, as UEFA President Michel Platini deemed the technology too expensive in 2013, citing a preference to use the money “on youth programs and infrastructure.”

According to Statista, money paid to clubs in the 2012-13 season equated to €910 million.

Given the UEFA distribution model, 75 percent of the total revenue goes to clubs with the remainder being kept by UEFA. Revenue above the €430 million mark will be split at 82 percent going to teams and 18 percent to the league. It’s hard to cry poor with that amount of money being  publicly disclosed. Soccer leagues are unfortunately notorious for a number of murky and handshake deals — not to mention outright awful human rights — but not utilizing goal-line technology due to something as easily dismissed as cost is absurd. If the finals game is decided by a questionable goal or no-goal call, then maybe UEFA and other international leagues will stop sitting on their hands.

For those frustrated in the United Kingdom regarding the Sky TV’s Go and Go Extra no longer being watchable on Google Chrome, help has arrived in the form of Slingbox’s M1 now being available throughout Europe. Via press release, Slingbox announced their set-top box system is now being sold for £129.99 or €199.99 and boasts being compatible with every cable and satellite provider and 100 percent channel availability in their M1 video.

While this still requires a cable subscription, Slingbox does not require any monthly fees to watch sports and shows on the go. That their computer and laptop interface is compatible with Chrome (as well as Safari and Firefox) is a major chip in Slingbox’s favor. Sky Go doesn’t cost anything extra for eligible cable subscriptions, however features such as international viewing, downloading or watching downloaded content are limited to the Sky Go Extra package, costing an additional £5 per month. Currently Sky Go and Extra are limited to iOS and Android whereas the M1 works with iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Kindle devices.

Slingbox is looking to fill what appears to be a self-created void created by Sky for many soccer fans throughout the UK. Given Sky — and to a lesser extent BT Sports — dominate the English Premier League broadcasting rights, it’s surprising to see a company refuse service on a web browser. Fans who can’t be in front their televisions could turn to Slingbox for their on-the-go needs. Senior VP and GM of Sling Media Michael Hawkey is counting on that and said of the latest market expansion:

Given its strong reception in the United States, we are excited to introduce the Slingbox M1 into the European market….With a Slingbox M1 that has been completely localised for customers, we’re delivering the most affordable Slingbox packed with the most robust set of features that we believe will significantly expand the mobile TV and video market.

If the M1 sells well enough and Sky finds many subscribers canceling their Sky Go Extra package, perhaps then the message will be clear: keep up to date with the consumer’s demands or you will lose money.

(Header image via Slingbox)

Last year’s Super Bowl being streamed online was a huge move for the big four — NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL — though the other sports have yet to cater to the streaming population. More fringe or niche leagues may be more willing to embrace the available technology as they attempt to grow their brands, or so it would seem within the ranks of the Professional Bull Riders. Last week PBR announced a partnership with the streaming company Flipps to showcase via pay-per-view their Ring of Honor: Unfinished Business event.

Earlier today via press release, Flipps posted additional details about the Ring of Honor stream. Set to take place on May 30, will consist of a three hour live broadcast of the various competitions with riders aiming to take home up to $160,000 in the winner-take-all formats. In order to view the event, a $29.95 price tag is attached, the same price to watch on Dish Network. Flipps CEO, Kosta Jordanov, said of the partnership with PBR:

PBR is the premiere bull riding organization in the world and we are honored to be able to elevate that content to new audiences through the Flipps platform.

Flipps, a free app available on iOS, Android, most SmartTVs and more, offers both free and PPV options for sports highlights, games and matches ranging from the ACC Digital Network to UFC Sports, the Golf Channel and dozens of others. The entertainment isn’t limited to sports coverage, though. Flipps is dedicated to bringing live coverage to their user base, and includes select programming from Showtime, music videos, plus dedicated genres for children and news. The channel selection also includes industry updates and videos from automotive, health and tech sources. With much of their content readily available for free, Flipps’ revenue comes from in-app ads and video ads, though given their impressive lineup, it is understandable. If you happen to be a bull riding fan who has cut the cord, this is mana from streaming heaven. For those who have dropped their cable packages but are not terrible enthusiastic about the PBR, Flipps has enough other options to be well worth a download.

(Header image via Doug Wertman)

I think it’s safe to say that the Tiger Woods Era is over in golf. Sure, he may find his swing (or a swing), again. We may see him in contention at a major tournament here and there. Hell, he may even win a couple. But personal problems, age, and a slew of injuries has put an end to what can and should be considered one of the most dominating runs in sports history. Although it’s actually been a while, it doesn’t seem that long ago that he was basically unstoppable.

And with the rise of Tiger Woods, golf as a sport saw a rise in popularity. Woods’ presence created must-see TV for even the most casual of golf fans. Woods inspired droves of kids to pick up the sport. EA jumped on the chance to use his likeness in video games. A rising tide lifts all boats, and as Woods lifted trophy after trophy, the PGA Tour’s boat came with.

But now, golf is in trouble. Or at least people think it is. The crash of the real estate market has lead to countless golf course closings. Concerns over environmental sustainability of courses are being raised. Less people are playing, less people are watching. Golf isn’t dead, it’s just less alive than it used to be. I doubt we’ll ever see a talent like Tiger Woods in our lifetime, so it’s safe to assume that golf won’t see another surge in popularity any time soon. But that doesn’t mean they’re not trying. In fact, the PGA Tour is investing big money in technology in hopes to heighten the fan experience.

One of the biggest pushes being made is in the realm of statistics. Baseball fans may be salivating at the thought of what kind of data StatCast can bring to MLB, but the PGA Tour has been utilizing ShotLink technology for some time now. ShotLink brings everything to golf that StatCast promises for baseball. Using a laser system, ShotLink can track hyper-accurate distance and location data for every shot on the course. After these numbers are crunched, essentially any type of stat can be generated and consumed. And the PGA Tour does a magnificent job of this on their own stats page. With a few clicks, fans can find out which player hits the most greens in regulation from 190-200 yards away, who’s best at avoiding three putts from 40 feet away, and who is best at avoiding or finding the rough on the right or left side of the fairway. Baseball lends itself well to statistics due to its individualistic nature. Well, it doesn’t get much more individualistic than golf, and the PGA Tour and ShotLink are showing that seemingly every aspect of the game can be measured, compared, and analyzed.

Another big tech advancement has come with the inclusion of Protracer in TV broadcasts. Through what I can only assume is some version of witchcraft, Protracer hardware and software is able to track a golf ball throughout its flight and graphically display its trajectory. The PGA doesn’t do this for every event, but bigger tournaments — like this past weekend’s Players Championship — utilize the technology. This not only lets viewers see how the path of Sergio Garcia’s 3-wood,

but it can also be combined to show the aggregate of how all players faired on getting their drives to the hair-raising island green of the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass.

The use of Protracer is not only cool as hell, it appeals to the majority of the PGA’s fans — recreational golfers. This is where the PGA Tour has a huge advantage.

Professional golf is one of those rare sports where fans actually participate in the same sport themselves. Sure football fans might have a backyard game every now and then, and there is certainly no shortage of beer-league softball, but golf is different. We can play with (pretty much) the same equipment as the pros. We can play a lot of the same courses (if we shell out enough dough). While most golf fans can’t match the pros from the tee, all of us know the feeling of sticking an approach shot two feet from the pin or draining a 20-foot putt. Golf fans can do a lot of the things pros can do, just not nearly as often. We know what the trajectory of a perfect drive should look like, and seeing it on our TV screens time after time only solidifies our ideas of just how good these guys are. Football fans know that Aaron Rodgers is good. Golf fans know first hand just how stupid-hard a good golf swing is to make.

With accurate and in-depth metrics, we can know exactly how much better than us they are. We can see shot trajectories that have us yearning for a better swing of our own. If the PGA Tour has their way, these things will keep us coming back for more and more. No, numbers and shiny graphics won’t bring in the same amount of viewers as Tiger Woods once did. But it might be able to reach fans on a more personal level, which just might rekindle or intensify some viewers’ interest in the game. Until another Tiger comes along, that’s probably the best the PGA Tour can ask for.

The graphics and data visualization department of the FanGraphs family have received a significant overhaul in recent months, largely due to the majority of the staff utilizing Tableau. Our own Bradley Woodrum wrote up an extensive and easy-to-read guide on how to take advantage of the program and it more than warrants another read thanks to Tableau Premium being available for free.

Via press release, Tableau announced their Public Premium features are now free for everyone. Boasting the ability to chart 10 million rows of data, 10 GB of storage and the option for creators to keep their own work private or public. Director for Tableau Public, Ben Jones had this to say on the topic:

For people around the world, Tableau Public is the go-to place to create and share public data visualizations. Two years ago we expanded Tableau Public’s analytics capabilities from 100,000 rows to a million rows. We’re so excited to be expanding tenfold again, and we can’t wait to see the stories that people will tell and share.

For a first-hand look at what Tableau can show, both Sean Dolinar and Owen Watson at FanGraphs have data visualization skills that far outpace my own. Count on seeing plenty more descriptive charts, interactive tables and beautiful graphics throughout the FanGraphs family, and with the welcome addition of free premium features, perhaps more beautiful and informative Tableaus will pop up on all kinds of sports web sites.

(Header image via Wikipedia)