The Impact Of Technology On Sports (Part 1)

I. Introduction

From robots that may be used as sparring partners to smart helmets that can be worn in contact sports to reduce and warn against injury risks to the human athlete, sports has indeed come a long way from its days where the use of technology was limited to recording sporting performances with a video camera and analysing the recording thereafter. Sports technology has revolutionised the way sport is managed, prepared, played, viewed and commercialised. It has also even extended the scope of sporting activity to non-traditional, technology-driven virtual games.

This is the first of a two-part article which discusses the evolution and state of technology which is deployed in sports today, the impact of the use of such technology in sports, and some of the legal and ethical issues arising from such use.

II. The State of Technology Deployed in Sports

1. Coaching

Technology has allowed coaches to better analyse athletes’ sporting performances. In the 1980s, the humble video camera was the state-of-the-art technology which provided sports coaches with a way to first capture and thereafter analyse sports performances. The hand-held video camera of the 1980s has today evolved into micro cameras built into racing helmets, cricket stumps and goal posts. Advanced replay tools are used to enhance the value of video recordings by showing the intricacies of the game, like how and why goals or points were scored, and how they could have been prevented.

Elite athletes are now training using sensors that instantly port performance metrics to their coach’s computing devices, which in turn present a dashboard of the athletes’ performance statistics for analysis. Sophisticated sensors that are available today are capable of monitoring heart rates, body temperatures, hydration levels, and even brain activity. Global Position System tracking and heat map generation technologies allow for the collection and visualisation of data and statistics on player performance, allowing coaches to measure speed, distance and areas covered. This helps coaches find out what is lacking in a particular part of an athlete’s performance, and enable them to bring their points across to athletes in a clearer and more evidence-based manner.

Training and performance data can also be transmitted across the globe with the click of a button for remote analysis and feedback by coaches overseas. This approach was most recently deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the world was locked down to varying degrees.[1] More recently, in the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, Catapult and Energous Corporation showcased their new smart football which has an embedded chip that records the football movements and allows American football coaches to have a complete picture of practice sessions and games.[2]

2. Training and Wearable Technology

In a recent international survey conducted by the American College of Sports Medicine, wearable technology was found to be the top fitness trend for 2023.[3] To stay on top of the game, the modern athlete requires more than just training facilities and coaches. Artificial intelligence (AI)-based technology has allowed training sessions to be tailored specifically to the individual athlete. This is necessary because every athlete is different and has unique needs. Athletes can now wear devices with electronic sensors that enable heart rate, body temperature, hydration levels, and brain activity to be monitored and analysed by fitness trainers. Such devices have been worn by divers and gymnasts to track bodily movements and speed after each jump,[4] while smart glasses have been worn by cyclists that deliver real-time cadence, speed and heart rate data directly into the cyclist’s field of view, and enable the cyclist to react to the information and make decisions that optimize performance.[5]

Software applications that monitor an athlete’s daily routines are also available. For example, Orreco’s @thlete app has the ability to monitor the athlete’s eating and sleeping habits, and collect personal information such as exercise regimes, menstrual cycles, travel and sleep patterns, and training and game schedules, and combine them with data from latest scientific research to create customised user training programmes and deliver action plans to optimize performance.[6] Such information can also allow athletes to assess when to take a break and when to push harder, and help prevent injuries by striking a better balance between load and recovery.

3. Nutrition

Nutritionists have used AI to develop customized diet plans for athletes according to body type, weight, physical movements and a sport’s specific performance requirements. Algorithms have been developed to better understand and predict inter-relationships between nutrition and health outcomes, and improve dietary assessment based on data analytics. One example is ZoneIn, a machine learning platform that uses AI to provide automated meal plans to all athletes which are personalized to each athlete’s unique physical requirements, their training and game schedule, and desired goals.[7]

Nutrition is a significant aspect of an athlete’s conditioning, and with the help of technology, nutritionists can develop customised diet plans for athletes based on their body type, weight, physical movements and the specific performance requirements of their sport. For example, some sports rely on quick reflexes and rapid hand-eye co-ordination, while others rely on upper body strength. As such, the nutritional needs of athletes from different sports will be different. As the way sport is played evolves in terms of intensity, speed and physical requirements, these nutritional needs may also change over time.

4. Sports Equipment and Apparel

The development of high performance sports apparel and equipment has often directly contributed to phenomenal improvement in the  performance levels of athletes, leading to questions over the fairness of the use of such apparel and equipment. One example is Speedo’s LZR full body swimsuit, which was designed to reduce drag and increase the swimmer’s performance by forcing the swimmer’s muscles and skin into a bullet-shape aerodynamic structure that would reduce the drag and allow for faster movement while expending less energy. When it debuted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 94% of the races won,[8] while 98% of the records broken were achieved by swimmers using the suit.[9] Not long after in 2010, the Fédération Internationale de Natation (or FINA, now World Aquatics) banned its use on the grounds that it aided the user with speed, buoyancy and performance, and provided an unfair advantage over swimmers who could not afford the expensive suits.[10]

Another controversial sports equipment that has been banned from professional use is the so-called spaghetti string tennis racquet. Invented in 1971 by a German horticulturalist, Werner Fischer, it was a new way to string tennis racquets in which the main strings and the cross strings were not interwoven, and plastic spaghetti-like tubing were threaded onto the main strings. This arrangement generated so much spin on the ball that it allowed lower ranked professional players to beat much higher ranked opponents, leading to its eventual ban by the International Tennis Federation in 1978.[11]

Smart equipment with in-built sensors is today par for the course. The 2014 Wimbledon championships saw the introduction of tennis racquets with chips implanted in their handles to record power and spin.[12] There is also the Easton Power Sensor, a device which slips onto the end of a baseball bat and tracks swing speed, power, direction and more,[13] while the Zepp 2 Golf Sensor provides 3D modelling of one’s golf swings.[14]

Finally, technology has also brought about equipment designed to enhance the safety of the athlete. American National Football League (NFL) players have been known to have suffered brain degeneration and damage as a result of taking repeated blows to the head. With concussions damaging the sport, new helmets were developed which were equipped with built-in sensor and magnetic technology to detect and disperse force to the head, thus decreasing the chances of head injury. When an impact occurs, distinct electromagnetic wave patterns are generated and the helmet communicates to the coach’s computer that the player has been hit.[15] This way, coaches can take immediate action to perform a concussion diagnosis.

5. On-field Decisions

Electronic timing systems, start pistols linked to digital clocks, laser sensors that capture a gymnast’s movements and use data processing programs for analysis and scoring, and touchpad technology in swimming pools and starting blocks are but examples of how decision-making instruments deployed in the sporting arena have evolved. Refereeing instruments such as Goal-line technology, Video Assistant Referee (VAR), Decision Review System and Hawkeye technology are further examples.

Goal line technology would, if it had been available in 1966, have settled the still hotly debated question of whether the ball fired into the West German goal by football player Geoff Hurst (resulting in the declaration of a goal that gave England a decisive 3-2 lead in extra time of the World Cup Final) had indeed crossed the goal line as it came off the crossbar.[16] In 2018, VAR was deployed at the World Cup in Russia, and is generally accepted as being effective in increasing the accuracy of refereeing decisions and reducing errors by up to 80%.[17] Satisfied with the results of VAR, FIFA rolled out an improved VAR with semi-automated offside technology which was deployed at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar to help video match officials make more accurate offside decisions quickly.[18]

III. Conclusion

More examples of what other new technology is being deployed in sports and how they have impacted on sports in terms of creating new opportunities and meeting challenges faced by the sports fraternity, as well as the legal and ethical issues arising from the use of such technology in sports, will be covered in Part 2 of this article next month.

 

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Lau Kok Keng is a Partner and Head of the Intellectual Property, Sports and Gaming Practice at Rajah & Tann Singapore LLP.
Email: kok.keng.lau@rajahtann.com

 

REFERENCES

[1]        Olivia A Hurley, ‘Sport Cyberpsychology in Action During the COVID-19 Pandemic (Opportunities, Challenges, and Future Possibilities): A Narrative Review’ <https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.621283/full>.

[2]        'Catapult Creates the Football of the Future, on Display at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show', Businesswire (4 January 2023) <https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230104005025/en/Catapult-Creates-the-Football-of-the-Future-on-Display-at-the-2023-Consumer-Electronics-Show>.

[3]        'Wearable Technology Named Top Fitness Trend for 2023', American College of Sports Medicine (28 December 2022) <https://www.acsm.org/news-detail/2022/12/28/wearable-technology-named-top-fitness-trend-for-2023>.

[4]        Giovanni Vinetti, Nicola F Lopomo, Anna Taboni, Nazzareno Fagoni and Guido Ferretti, ‘The current use of wearable sensors to enhance safety and performance in breath-hold diving: A systematic review’ <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276267/>.

[5]        Anna Marie Hughes, ‘Engo Eyewear unveils smart sunglasses with lenses displaying real-time data so you can ‘keep your eyes on the road’ <https://road.cc/content/tech-news/engo-eyewears-new-smart-sunnies-real-time-data-lenses-287531>.

[6]        Joe Lemire, ‘Orreco Debuts @thlete, a ‘One Stop Shop’ App That Bundles an Athlete’s Past, Present and Future Data’, Sporttechie (22 April 2022) <https://www.sporttechie.com/orreco-creates-thlete-a-one-stop-shop-app-that-bundles-an-athletes-past-present-and-future-data>.

[7]        ‘ZoneIn Is an AI and Automated Nutrition Platform That Personalizes an Athlete’s Meal Plan Based on Their Biometrics, Not Their Taste Buds’, Sporttechie (24 November 2021) <https://www.sporttechie.com/zonein-is-an-ai-and-automated-nutrition-platform-that-personalizes-a-players-meal-plan-based-on-their-biometrics-not-their-taste-buds>.

[8]        Denrie Perez, ‘The Technology Behind Speedo’s High-Tech Swimsuits That Challenged the Olympics’, engineering.com (2 December 2020) <https://www.engineering.com/story/the-technology-behind-speedos-high-tech-swimsuits-that-challenged-the-olympics>.

[9]        ‘Record Breaking Benefits’, NASA (31 October 2012) <https://www.nasa.gov/offices/oct/home/tech_record_breaking.html#:~:text=Within%20a%20year%20of%20its,while%20wearing%20an%20LZR%20Racer>.

[10]       David Meyer, ‘The Need for Speed: How High Technology Swimsuits Changed the Sport of Swimming’ <https://swimswam.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/The-Need-for-Speed-How-High-Technology-Swimsuits-Changed-the-Sport-of-Swimming.pdf>.

[11]       Simon Goodwill and Steve Haake, ‘Why were spaghetti string rackets banned in the game of tennis?’ <http://shura.shu.ac.uk/2237/>.

[12]       Keith Perry and Agency, ‘‘Smart’ tennis racquet records spin, shots and power in time for Wimbledon’, The Telegraph (14 May 2014) <https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10827869/Smart-tennis-racquet-records-spin-shots-and-power-in-time-for-Wimbledon.html>.

[13]       ‘The EASTON Power Sensor Powered by Blast Motion Scores a Home Run with Vicon’, Blastmotion (1 December 2015) <https://blastmotion.com/about/press/the-easton-power-sensor-powered-by-blast-motion-scores-a-home-run-with-vicon/#gref>.

[14]       ‘Train with Zepp’, Zepplabs <http://www.zepplabs.com/en-us/golf/smart-coach/>.

[15]       Ahiza Garcia, ‘Flexible NFL helmet aims to reduce head injuries’, CNN (18 September 2017) <https://money.cnn.com/2017/09/16/news/companies/vicis-nfl-helmet-concussions-safety/index.html>.

[16]       Satya Mallick, ‘How Computer Vision Solved the Greatest Soccer Mystery of All Time’, LearnOpenCV (3 May 2015) <https://learnopencv.com/how-computer-vision-solved-the-greatest-soccer-mystery-of-all-times/>.

[17]       ‘VAR increases refereeing accuracy, but not the total penalty count’, The Economist (25 June 2018) <https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/06/25/var-increases-refereeing-accuracy-but-not-the-total-penalty-count>.

[18]       'Semi-automated offside technology', FIFA (9 January 2023) <https://www.fifa.com/technical/football-technology/football-technologies-and-innovations-at-the-fifa-world-cup-2022/semi-automated-offside-technology>.