Sports has been one of many entertainments option for the world’s population; since the gladiator era until the rise of eSports. Now, the world is modernizing through data and analytics. How will this development change the sports that we have known for long?
What changes?
Indeed, technology development has modernized the sports that we know. Technologies such as virtual reality promises sport enthusiasts of an immersive experience on watching sports. Users can now enjoy the stadium atmosphere on their couch, thanks to the VR-headset that they use whilst watching the game from their cable TV (Pierce, 2019). Furthermore, the sports league is also trying to bring more personalization to the users. ESPN, for example, provide users the option to choose their favorite broadcaster to comment the game for them (Pierce, 2019). As such, I think, these technologies might change the way fans watch sports matches. But is that it?
The answer is no. And that is because we have this rising technology called (buzzword alert!) machine learning. The technology offers interesting applications for sports team, particularly, around prediction domain (Warner, 2019). With machine learning sports team can predict, for example, winning probability and player performance, provided enough historical data exists. The English Premier League, for example, use machine learning to predict the direction of opponents’ penalty shot, using historical data, to help the goalkeeper make better decision (Morgulev, et al., 2018). Likewise, in US’ Major League Soccer, machine learning has been used to recommend the optimal game plan to coaches (Barlas, 2014). Another example will be the National Football League (NFL), who are using machine learning to understand the best route to run the ball (Lemire, 2019). Furthermore, the NFL has also put sensors in the players shoulder pads, therefore, allowing the player stats to be tracked continuously (Proman, 2019).
Better or Worse?
All in all, sports have and will change; be it on the way fans watch the matches or teams adjust their game plans. Fans no longer need to go the the stadium miles away to watch the game, they can simply put on a VR-goggle and enjoy the stadium atmosphere. Coaches no longer needs to assess the fitness of the players, as sensors already record their diets and fatigue (Barlas, 2014). Players no longer need to watch game films as extensive data analytics will provide them with their opponents favorite moves or ’hotspots’.
The question is, does it change sports for the better or for the worse?
References
Barlas, P., 2014. Data Analytics Get In The Sports Game Soccer, football teams turn to wearable tech, software for big wins. Investor’s Business Daily , Volume A01, p. 1.
Lemire, J., 2019. Sport Techie. [Online] Available at: sporttechie.com/nfl-big-data-bowl-running-backs-michael-lopez-analytics-director-football [Accessed 16 October 2019].
Morgulev, E., Azar, O. H. & Lidor, R., 2018. Sports analytics and the big-data era. International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, 5(4), pp. 213-222.
Pierce, D., 2019. The Wallstreet Journal. [Online] Available at: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-future-of-sports-is-interactive-immersive-and-intense-11552827600 [Accessed 18 October 2019].
Proman, M., 2019. Techcrunch. [Online] Available at: https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/01/the-future-of-sports-tech-heres-where-investors-are-placing-their-bets/ [Accessed 1 October 2019].
Warner, J., 2019. Customer Think. [Online] Available at: https://customerthink.com/sports-and-machine-learning-is-there-a-connection/ [Accessed 16 October 2019].
Future of sports is interesting! Loved to read your post being a sports fan myself. But I have been wondering about the way fans experience the game, because people can put on their VR-glasses and experiencing the atmosphere themselves. However, if everyone is watching the game through VR, what will the atmosphere be like in a stadium? I have watched some soccer matches being played in empty stadium and it is no good, so I am curious to how this emerging technology will develop. Moreover, for the players themselves it is also a huge transformation as they will not feel as much support as they are doing currently. On the other hand, I do feel that the future you are portrayed is inevitable, simply because it is much more convenient for the fans. I am just worried that this may affect the perception of sports, which will have negative financial implactions as well.
Hi Vizaddo! This is such an interesting topic. This indeed will change the way our society behave. However, I think living with (more) technology and be dependent on it will reduce the sense of humanity. In particular, we would have less real-life interaction with other people. From a psychological perspective, this might affect our psychology, such as the feeling of loneliness, more tendency of depression, and maybe addiction towards technology or social media.
But overall, i do believe that there are benefits that we get from these technologies. However, the total value (cost and benefit) depends on individual’s use of these technologies. In my opinion, technology has been growing so fast, while society is still struggling to learn how to balance the cost and benefit of having technologies.
Definitely consider it an interesting read! Linking it back to Bram’s comment, I think this whole VR approach would be very cool, not for fans watching in the stadium, but more for fans watching from home. Can you imagine sitting on the couch on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening with a VR Goggles on for a Champions League game? How cool would that be? I know I’d surely buy them!
More from the perspective of the sport itself, technology is changing it in many different ways, and not only for the athlete or team, but for the game. Take football/soccer as an example. Here, goal line technology was introduced, and later the Virtual Assistant Referee (VAR) was introduced. This has all been done to make the as fair as possible, allowing referees to look back on their decisions. So, yes, I think it is changing sports for the sake of the game, but also for the sake of the people watching, however, I do think – in the case of football – that the majority of the fun and excitement has been taken out. The question I would like to dive deeper into is “how can the introduction of all new technologies in sports keep the average spectator excited?