RFID technology meets the Super Bowl

You couldn’t turn on the television or radio, or browse a website or newspaper over the past week without hearing about the New England Patriots’ “Deflate-Gate” scandal. It’s a little difficult to believe, however, that the NFL – one of the largest money-making organizations in the United States – has not figured out a way to integrate modern technology to prevent these types of controversies.

Fortunately, such inventions may not be far off for the NFL, and may even be accelerated due to the league’s recent humiliation. In the meantime, the league recently began to integrate some newer technologies that are having a big impact on the monitoring of player stats and data tracking.

Earlier this season, players who competed in one of 17 launch stadiums were required to wear two radio-frequency identification (RFID) chips that would track their acceleration, velocity, distance run, and impact measurements, among other information, in real-time. To install these chips in these stadiums, the NFL joined up with Zebra Technologies to install the company’s quarter-sized RFID sensors inside the shoulder pads of players.

The data derived from this player-tracking technology has allowed the NFL to produce new and proprietary statistics in real-time, generating feedback is being used to enhance the fan experience and drive media consumption. But the uses go far beyond the fan experience. At this time, the RFID technology is accurate up to 6 inches, which means it can't be used by officials to help measure plays yet. But next year's model is anticipated to be able to measure things like heart rate, temperature, and even lung capacity. These types of metrics may provide athletic trainers and strength and conditioning coaches with the information they need to make judgment calls about whether a player should be cleared to play or not.

The original 17 stadiums using the RFID technology were in Atlanta, Baltimore, North Carolina, Chicago, Cincinnati, Denver, Detroit, Green Bay, Houston, Jacksonville, Miami, New England, New Orleans, Oakland, San Francisco, St. Louis, and Washington. Interestingly, the University of Phoenix Stadium was not one of the original 17 stadiums to integrate this technology, but it has recently been added in advance of the Super Bowl XLIX. There are now 22 receivers to read and analyze the data coming from the player-mounted RFID chips located between the upper and lower decks of Phoenix Stadium.

So, curious minds have to wonder what sorts of surprising statistics are coming from this technology. Remarkably, the RFID chip technology has figured out that a full 30% of any given player’s efforts on game day actually occur during warm-ups!

Unfortunately, the RFID chips won’t alert officials, coaches or players to the air pressure inside a football, but it was used at last weekend’s Pro Bowl in an attempt to close the data-tracking gap that the shoulder pad chips alone can’t close. However, it will not be used during tonight’s Super Bowl.

Plans for the future include installation in the remaining U.S. stadiums where NFL football is played, and global expansion to venues such as Wembley Stadium in England. The NFL also plans to continue to work closely with its partners to dive further into the data and the impacts the data can generate, and there may be revenue and medical applications coming in the future.

Via SportTechie and The Verge