The Application of Internet of Things in Sports Worldwide

  Sports is an emerging market with growing Internet of Things technology, and sports organizations are increasingly benefiting from valuable data analysis. Their goal is to improve their competitive skills and business performance.

  To understand the potential of the Internet of Things in sports, you just need to look at the American Professional Rugby League (NFL). They actively use the Internet of Things, using sensors worn by players to measure and record their team's performance. Recently, they have expanded their data collection by inserting sensors inside football bodies.

  The U.S. -based Zebra company is an expert in printers, scanners and mobile computers and an important player in the sport. Their company's RFID sensors have been on NFL players'shoulder pads for three seasons. At the same time, the player data for each match is transferred to about 20 Internet of Things data collection beacons deployed around the stadium and forwarded to the Zebra Company Network Operations Center in San Jose, California.

Crazy Statistics

  NFL and the media use this data to inform fans around the world about the game. Since the beginning of this season, the Zebra RFID tag has also been successfully embedded on every Wilson sphere used in the competition to increase the fun of enthusiastic statistics enthusiasts and to measure all the information about the position, speed and height of the ball.

  About a third of the NFL teams also use Zebra's training practice solution to obtain training analysis to measure player performance and health. These include the New Orleans Saints, who recently beat the Miami Dolphins in an NFL match at Wembley, London.

  The data collected can be sent to the coach's laptop, tablet or mobile phone in real time. "The data provided by Zebra has proven to be an important asset for assessing our players and training the entire team, increasing football tracking and pushing our team to new heights," said Shawn Peyton, New Orleans Saints coach.

Other participants in this field

  In addition to Zebra, there are other competitors in the field of sport Internet of Things, including Catapult, Australia, which provides a player measurement system for one-third of the NFL teams and, like Zebra, extends its use to the American college football team.

  Catapult has a more diverse customer base as it also includes several top football teams, such as Chelsea Football Club in the UK, Paris St Germain in France and Bayern Munich in Germany. The company's system is also used in the Rugby League (by the British Salasons); There are also many basketball teams in the NBA, including the Golden State Warriors in Auckland, California, and Australian football and cricket teams.

  The third player in the sport Internet of Things is Zephyr Technologies, a U.S. -based company that creates a "biosafety belt" that allows coaches to monitor a team's heart rate, respiratory rate, core temperature, acceleration, and other parameters.

Opportunities and Barriers

  On a recent trip to San Jose, California, we were invited to Zebra's Sports Command Center to see how Internet of Things opportunities were formed and what obstacles must be overcome for wider use.

  For example, when it comes to deploying the Internet of Things, there will definitely be a conversation about data security. Internet of Things data beacons around the Major League of American Football stadium receive data from players'Jersey chips and football at a speed of 25 times per second.

  Mike King, Director of Sports Products at Zebra, said the collisions on the stadium were exceptionally rapid and the information was sent to different beacons on the stadium in real time. The security threat leaked during the process was not significant. However, he adds that it is the players'brokers who really care about data security, who value the data they record.

  The actual match data is controlled in the NFL's secure database and distributed to all teams after the game ends, with the team deciding what to publish publicly.

  Usually only part of the content is published to the media during a match. "The broker wants the data of a specific player (including the team practice data) to be kept private because it may affect the individual value of the player," McKin said, but he also pointed out that this is a two-way street and that if the player's personal status data looks good, the individual value of the player may increase.

  The safety of the data is closely related to the health and physical fitness information collected. Mike? King said both the coach and the players care about this.

  One obvious question, however, is why the American Professional Football League (NFL) does not place RFID tags in players'helmet to help measure the potential impact of brain damage, which is also an increasingly controversial issue in competition. Studies have shown that some recently retired NFL players show signs of rapid brain aging, which is associated with injuries on the field.

  A Zebra spokesman told us:'Based on the requirements of the American Professional Football League (NFL) and the purposes they want to serve, we have jointly decided that the chip is best placed on the shoulder pad. We will not measure or calculate strength or collision information. These requirements do not require our participation'.

However, Catapult does offer a physical solution to measure impact, which has been used by Australian football and football teams.

Extending the Internet of Things to Other Projects

  How to use the Internet of Things in professional football matches (or more specifically, "football") will be decided by the International Football Federation, which has so far not agreed to use wearable technology outside of training.

  FIFA, which makes slow decisions, has a record of technological backwardness. In fact, only in some high-profile matches, including those in the FIFA World Cup, will FIFA be forced to support goal-line technology after the referee and the ruling wrongly reject the goal.

  Although many Australian Australian football teams have used Catapult's Internet of Things technology in professional matches, the NBA (National Basketball Association) has not agreed to use Internet of Things wearable devices in actual matches. Zebra McKin says other sports have shown signs of using the Internet of Things in real sports, including football.

  He added:'This pre-season, we tested our technology in a friendly match with the Seattle SuperSounds and the results were very successful. When a blue ball gets into the crowd, we can track it to the nearest seat, which is interesting, and we have a limited number of balls.

  Zebra is also discussing with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in the hope of bringing the Internet of Things system into the athletes'training system.

  Obviously, professional sports is an increasingly vertical industry for the Internet of Things. It is believed that more and more professional sports fields will introduce the Internet of Things technology, and more and more Internet of Things service providers will participate in it.