Player Tracking and Analysis

"It's still about the game," says Gene DeFilippo, athletic director of Boston College, "but technology is being used aggressively throughout training and analysis, and our athletes continue to look for any advantage technology can offer." Technology is effectively being used as a surveillance and understanding tool largely focused on the competition but also inwardly on a team's own players: post-game analysis via video capture, Internet-based rumblings of other teams, and detailed player tracking on the field to name just a few.

"We've had video play analysis in football for many years," continues DeFilippo, "but the new digital and communication technology offers us significant benefits." In years prior, coaches would watch VHS tapes of various games (both their own team and an upcoming opposing team). Tediously, they would scan for plays and maybe go so far as to boil down a set of plays to another tape for detailed analysis by a particular coach or set of team members. "Today, all coaches have laptops and can watch plays at home or on the airplane or here in the office. The software and tools operate more like a database now. They can rapidly call up all the first-down plays, or all the second and shorts, or second and longs, and really focus on whatever aspect they care to study. The players, too, can analyze plays in the comfort of their own room, over and over again. The data and technology is no longer only available in some backroom video-monitoring area, and it can be shared rapidly."

DeFilippo next describes how the larger community of schools is tighter now as a result of communication efficiency. "The technology has brought the sports world into a tighter group across colleges throughout the country. The Internet online groups exchange information so fast, if something happens in North Carolina everyone knows about it momentarily," cites DeFilippo. "If some player has an outstanding game, good or bad, everyone knows about it immediately. In the past, it was hard for news to even reach the local papers a day later. The connectivity gives us more information and faster than ever before." Players are essentially tracked by their fans via the Internet in perhaps a less-formal but nevertheless detailed fashion. A good pass, a rough hit, or a notice of a fatigued left ankle, all become part of the global information to be exploited for the next match.

Sports statisticians have long since tabulated useful metrics such as innings pitched, balls thrown, yards run, player played minutes, pass attempts, and so forth. Often, these values are used during a game to guess at player fatigue level or readiness for a particular play. Cairos (a German company) is making small radio-frequency (RF) transmitters that are embedded in the shin guards of soccer players. They then outfit the field with the necessary receivers and computer uplinks. This produces volumes of time and geographic data that then gets boiled down into individual player details. For instance, exactly how many minutes was player X on the field? How many minutes was he in the goal zone? How much total distance has he run this game and at what average speed? How many ball kicks did he achieve and at what velocity? Such data leads to a better total understanding of a player's abilities and vulnerabilities and ultimately better game strategy.

Bean Pot

The Boston Bean Pot is a traditional hockey competition among four prominent large Boston-area colleges. The 2004 Boston Bean Pot used a similar tracking technology developed by Trakus. Trakus puts a small RF patch into every hockey player's helmet; the patch transmits accurate geographic and velocity information continuously. This data could be critical for game-time decisions about player rotation and player positioning and even more so for post-game analysis and training. Furthermore, by having individual player tracking, television media providers and in-stadium media providers could provide a whole new level in presentation to the audience. Three-dimensional time-ordered spatial information of games will allow for fantastic post-play analysis and simulated replays. These new forms of detailed per-player real-time information gathering devices are starting to show up across various sports.

Technology is used throughout training but not always as elaborate as a wired-up swimmer or hockey player. For example, some universities use student ID cards (or similar technology) to accurately track workout schedules and uses of various training equipment (primarily in the weight-training rooms). A coach can act a bit more like a doctor and prescribe a set of exercises or activities and understand better how the athlete responds. Some systems use video capture, and the coach can then show the athlete before and after progress of a particular exercise. Data and data sharing allows both the coach and the athlete to have better knowledge and insight. Has athlete X been training less as the months past? Does his amount of training on a particular apparatus compare to others of a higher talent level? Is his arm motion as smooth as the top athlete ever recorded by this school? Such information is now available, and the savvy players and coaches will exploit all tools at their disposal.

Where does the use of technology cross the line in sports? Most agree that any use of nondrug technology prior to a game (as in training) is acceptable. Whether it is deeper analysis of the opposing team via video or body-wired inertia analysis during training exercises or massive statistical analysis and cross-correlations of data, if its pre-game no one seems to question its legality. As game time gets closer, the area gets grayer. If a coach keeps track of a player in-game time via a clipboard, no one worries. If he uses a passive shin-guard tracking device simply to save the labor of the clipboard, might anyone worry? What if now (as a result of the shin-guard tracking) he has a far deeper picture into a given athlete's energy consumption, is he unfairly using technology? What if his computer system is able to real-time correlate a given player's energy level to the 48-hour caloric intake as reported by his meal card against historically similar situations? Although books could be written strictly on technology and sports, the Inescapable Data interest is in the cross-use of data and connectivity. If there is data available, someone will figure out values of relationships and such information could be exploited even in real time, game time.

In pro football, the coach today has a wireless transmitter to the quarterback and is allowed to call in plays while the team is in a huddle. How was that allowed? The observation was that coaches were calling plays anyway by using either hand signals or voice or coded voice to carry the message. The wireless headsets simply streamlined the process and perhaps allowed for faster huddles and a more exciting game pace. So, we're okay with wireless voice technology and quarterback headsets up until the huddle breaks it seems, as if play time is still off-limits for nonplayer communication. Yet, in baseball, as the runner rounds second base, he is clearly taking commands from the third-base coach, wirelessly (albeit, hand signals and screaming). The point is this: Coaching indeed happens during plays already. How soon before baseball runners have wireless headsets much like quarterbacks, under the same guise of streamlining an already existing communication path? How soon before the message "run to third" is emphasized by real-time automatic computer analysis of all the players' field positions and ball location (via shin-guard data or stadium video analysis)?

In a pre-Inescapable Data world, the sports technology scene was more black and white. Whatever use of technology occurred off the field or pre-game was a team's own business and fell into the general category of "training." By in large, there wasn't much electronic data aside from the standard metrics such as innings pitched, times at bat, etc. Now, things start to get a bit blurry merely with passive-monitoring tools at game time (such as detailed time played in a game) and simple real-time access to databases and computers that can do rapid correlations. Add in some direct use of newer technology such as wireless headsets and opponent player tracking and the door is wedged open to the deeper opportunities.