This year’s football season is set to begin in September, and for the first time 17 National Football League stadiums will employ radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology to better track how players move on the field during games. The league has partnered with Zebra Technologies to use its quarter-sized RFID sensors inside the shoulder pads of players. These sensors will track not just where players are on the field, but also how fast they get going, and what their acceleration was like on the way there — all in real-time.
All this information could show up as part of information shown on TV or in stadiums during games, and on second-screen game apps. Imagine something like the lines TV sportscasters draw on the screen to track a receiver’s route, but done using the tags instead. The NFL also plans to hand the data over to teams so that they can analyze it, but not initially. USA Today notes that the league plans to do some testing on the data it’s gathered before making it available to teams, and that all NFL players agreed to wear sensors as part of their collective-bargaining agreement in 2011.
via The Verge
