WEBVTT - Fw:Thinking Plays Ball 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.200 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:14.280 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.400 --> 0:00:17.239 podcast that looks at the future and says our players 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:20.720 are fast and strong and brave, and your ganys not 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:24.120 so much. I'm Jonathan Strickland, I'm Lauren Bob, and I'm 0:00:24.160 --> 0:00:29.760 Joe McCormick. So do you all love sports? No? No, 0:00:31.080 --> 0:00:34.960 we're nerdy non sports types. I can. I can enjoy 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.280 playing a sport, not usually so much into watching that. 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:41.560 I enjoy watching a baseball game once in a while. 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:44.640 I love hockey, I can. I can get into hockey 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.040 and uh soccer football, And we're being told to call 0:00:48.080 --> 0:00:50.640 it by many people. Hockey is a sore subject here 0:00:50.680 --> 0:00:54.520 in Atlanta, poor thrashers. Yeah, but at an't rate to 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:57.560 Wait a minute, there is a sport I know you love. 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:03.360 What's that? And it's the fine masculine ballet of professional wrestling, 0:01:03.440 --> 0:01:07.400 and that that is a sports entertainment and you genuinely 0:01:07.520 --> 0:01:11.960 love it. You know, sometimes we think about what's the 0:01:12.000 --> 0:01:15.640 future of of and we can't think of a thing, right, 0:01:15.760 --> 0:01:18.640 how about sports? Well? How come on? Yeah, alright, So 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:22.480 you had a specific science fiction film where you you 0:01:22.520 --> 0:01:26.119 wanted to describe the sport in that and how that's 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:28.600 got to be the future, right, Yeah, you're talking about 0:01:28.640 --> 0:01:32.479 the movie Starship Troopers. But yeah, of course we're We're 0:01:32.520 --> 0:01:36.840 always talking about Paul Verhoeven's Starship Troopers. Is so so 0:01:36.920 --> 0:01:39.440 deep in the world of sci fi sports. Yeah, well, no, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.880 I actually brought this up because it was when I 0:01:41.920 --> 0:01:44.480 was trying to think of future sci fi movies that 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.720 have sports scenes in them. This was just the first 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:49.240 one that came to mind. And there's really no good 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:51.840 technology and it, as far as I can recall, the 0:01:51.960 --> 0:01:55.280 uniforms look weird. They're wearing these shiny jumpsuits and uh, 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:58.560 and they've got weird looking helmets that are more kind 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:01.600 of like hockey helmets than foot ball helmets. And people 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.800 keep doing these jumping somersaults like eight feet in the air. 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:07.960 They don't explain why. I don't think you usually see 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:11.720 that in real football. Doesn't really give a notable advantage. No, 0:02:12.000 --> 0:02:14.840 And also the football looks like it's made of metal, 0:02:15.240 --> 0:02:17.760 and I'm not sure why that would be a thing 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.320 people would change, like, because when I want to catch 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:23.280 quick moving objects thrown at me by highly athletic people, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.480 I want those objects to be made of metal, really dense, 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:28.919 so that way it causes huge amounts of damage. Right, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:31.160 it might just be a regular football painted to be 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.399 shiny gray. I don't know if the exactly right. Futuristic 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:38.560 things like spaceships are shiny and made of metal, so 0:02:39.320 --> 0:02:43.680 you know this football by the same logic. Uh No, 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:47.280 that doesn't really work. So what about what about Blearn's ball? 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.760 That's a phenomenal sport. It's a wonderful sport. I can't 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:57.480 really explain the rules. I think they're kept obscure on purpose. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:00.639 It seems to be something about hitting a ball that's 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.440 attached to a tether. Uh, and then robots pop out 0:03:04.440 --> 0:03:07.720 of holes. I think there's a multi ball setting like 0:03:07.760 --> 0:03:11.920 in pinball machines. But other than that, I know there's 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:21.640 some other ones with James Khan. Yeah, you might be 0:03:21.639 --> 0:03:24.760 thinking of Death Race. Yes, actually there was a terrible 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.920 remake roller Ball, You're right, or um or Pyramid the 0:03:27.919 --> 0:03:30.200 game that was played in the new version of Battlestar Galactica, 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:31.919 and it came out although we never saw it as 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:34.160 it was really intended to be played. It was all 0:03:34.200 --> 0:03:37.840 like post apocalypse version of of Pyramids. As far as 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.360 Star Treks concerned, I think the only sport that survives 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:44.520 is fencing since Sulu goes crazy with that one episode. 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.080 But yeah, it's it's one of the things that we thought, well, 0:03:47.840 --> 0:03:49.839 you know, we this isn't an episode of you never 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:52.280 see that in science fiction. We really wanted to look 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:55.600 at what are some of the cutting edge technologies that 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.880 are are starting to debut in sports today in various 0:03:59.040 --> 0:04:02.840 parts of sport, not just the performance, but sometimes the training. 0:04:02.880 --> 0:04:06.120 We're just keeping people safe, right, Well, I think in 0:04:06.240 --> 0:04:10.440 reality we're already doing better futuristic sports tech than the 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:14.040 Starship Troopers middle football. Yeah, just being able to if you, 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:16.080 if you are the type to watch a football game, 0:04:16.360 --> 0:04:19.559 you know you can see where the first down line 0:04:19.640 --> 0:04:23.720 is on your television screen. That alone, that that's simple 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:29.719 technology alone, is superior to the the Starship Troopers version. Yeah. Well, okay, 0:04:29.800 --> 0:04:32.520 here's the first thing I would ask about the future 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:37.719 of sports. I sometimes watch people playing football or boxing 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.960 or something like that and see and see it looks 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.720 like there's a lot of injury going on here. Is 0:04:43.760 --> 0:04:46.240 there a way to still get all of the athletic 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:50.400 enjoyment people get out of playing and watching contact sports 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.640 without so much risk to your body. Yeah, that's um, 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:56.960 that's a big concern obviously. And you know, there have 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:00.640 been some very high profile news stories that have come 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.800 out over the last few years of UH football players 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:09.920 in particular, suffering terrible injuries from multiple concussions. Sometimes, you know, 0:05:10.040 --> 0:05:11.920 to the point where a couple of people have lost 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.600 their lives, um because they've suffered such terrible brain injury. 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.320 The thing about a concussion, which you know is an 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.760 injury to your brain. It often is caused by the 0:05:20.839 --> 0:05:26.640 brain shifting, twisting, stretching rapidly, or colliding with the inside 0:05:26.640 --> 0:05:30.480 of your scullion. That that it causes uh damage to 0:05:30.520 --> 0:05:33.120 the brain, damage to the brain cells that you can 0:05:33.160 --> 0:05:35.440 recover from with rest, but it does make you more 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.920 vulnerable to further injury. And it's not always something that's 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:43.560 easily detectable. It's not an external injury, so you know, 0:05:43.640 --> 0:05:47.920 unless you're paying close attention to someone, you may not notice. Uh. Now, 0:05:48.040 --> 0:05:51.560 there are sometimes indications like a person's walk might change 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:54.640 the way they hold themselves, might change their speeching patterns. Right, 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:57.400 but you know, in the in the context of a 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.640 game that's really fast moving, UH, you not pick up 0:06:00.680 --> 0:06:03.080 on it. They might not really be aware of it either. 0:06:03.160 --> 0:06:05.000 They may just you know, the idea of oh, I 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:08.719 had my bell wrong, I felt a little out of it. Uh. 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.840 And they run the risk of getting even more seriously 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:16.279 injured if they continue to play. It's so serious that 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:19.520 the CDC, the Center for Disease Control here in Atlanta, 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.159 created a document that educates people on the dangers of 0:06:22.160 --> 0:06:26.039 concussions in general and in football in particular. It's specifically 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:30.120 geared for really for parents and for coaches, for the 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:32.960 people and officials referees, is for the people who would 0:06:32.960 --> 0:06:35.880 be watching over football games to know what to look 0:06:35.920 --> 0:06:40.320 for in order to spot problems before they become really serious. Uh. 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:44.560 And so it's a big deal, and it's it's really important, 0:06:44.560 --> 0:06:46.560 and it's got some people thinking, well, what can we 0:06:46.600 --> 0:06:49.760 do to help minimize the risk of concussion. And one 0:06:49.760 --> 0:06:52.720 of the big things is actually not related to technology 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:55.520 at all. It's just related on how the game is played. 0:06:56.000 --> 0:06:58.680 And the big bit of advice I've seen is keep 0:06:58.680 --> 0:07:00.960 your head up. That's the big one is that don't 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:03.599 don't put your head down in anticipation of a tackle, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:06.640 whether you're making the tackle or you're about you know 0:07:06.760 --> 0:07:09.360 that you're about to be tackled, keep your head up, 0:07:09.360 --> 0:07:13.080 and that helps reduce the risk. Keep in the mind 0:07:13.360 --> 0:07:16.800 that rotation can also cause a concussion. It doesn't have 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.800 to be impact, So if your head is rotated very quickly, 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:24.000 that could be enough to create a concussion. So, uh, 0:07:24.200 --> 0:07:27.000 that's one thing is just behavior. Now that being said, 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:31.680 there are people working on technologies to help protect football players. 0:07:31.720 --> 0:07:35.280 So a biomechanical professor at Purdue developed a football helmet 0:07:35.400 --> 0:07:38.560 liner that's supposed to reduce g forces to a player's 0:07:38.560 --> 0:07:43.080 brain by fifty per cent. So the thing about football helmets, 0:07:43.080 --> 0:07:45.640 you know, they've got that hard shell which is really 0:07:45.680 --> 0:07:49.680 there to protect against skull fractures, so it's not necessary. 0:07:49.680 --> 0:07:53.800 It can't necessarily protect against um uh concussions because that 0:07:53.800 --> 0:07:57.360 that energy gets transferred through the helmet to the person's head, 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:00.640 and while there they might not suffer a broken bone, 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.120 they could still suffer a concussion. So this liner is 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:06.800 meant to absorb some of that impact and disperse it 0:08:07.160 --> 0:08:11.000 so that you receive less of that hit as a result, 0:08:11.080 --> 0:08:16.080 and thus reduced the risk of having a concussion. Um 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:18.520 The way they designed it, the way this this professor 0:08:18.520 --> 0:08:21.160 actually designed. It was first put he put sensors in 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.640 helmets between the padding and the actual helmet to detect 0:08:24.680 --> 0:08:29.680 the strength and location of hits during a particular play, 0:08:29.760 --> 0:08:32.720 like he would be able to see how that player 0:08:32.880 --> 0:08:35.320 and uh was was playing and whether or not they 0:08:35.320 --> 0:08:38.800 were at danger of a concussion or other serious brain 0:08:38.840 --> 0:08:42.920 injury and um Also he wanted to find a way 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:46.320 to try and reduce this rotational force, this other problem 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:50.040 of if a player's head turns too quickly, that could 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:52.679 be an issue. And so his idea is to have 0:08:53.160 --> 0:08:58.160 a double shell helmet where you have an external hard shell, 0:08:58.640 --> 0:09:01.280 then you have a layer of hatting, and then you 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.240 have an internal hard shell and then the liner and 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.319 those two shells can move a little independently of one another, 0:09:07.360 --> 0:09:11.520 so it takes some of that rotation. They don't know 0:09:11.679 --> 0:09:15.760 yet if this will actually be effective in preventing concussions. 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:17.320 They said that it's going to take some years of 0:09:17.360 --> 0:09:20.880 testing to see how well it performs and whether or 0:09:20.920 --> 0:09:24.240 not it actually is reducing that risk. But at least 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:27.000 it's it's a move toward that direction. But they're not 0:09:27.040 --> 0:09:29.679 the only people who are using sensors to monitor that 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.600 kind of thing, right right. The Florida Times Union reported 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.079 that helmet sensors are required now in the Arena Football League. 0:09:37.120 --> 0:09:40.600 So arena football. Uh you guys, are you familiar with 0:09:40.640 --> 0:09:43.800 the arena sports ball? Okay? So arena football is played indoors. 0:09:44.679 --> 0:09:49.640 The field is smaller than an NFL field football. It's 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.360 it's faster paced, it's meant to have higher scoring games, 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:56.319 and it's kind of a it's an alternative for the 0:09:56.360 --> 0:09:58.560 big NFL game. So it's the it's it's like the 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:02.480 third largest UH football league behind the National Football League 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:04.599 in the Canadian Football League. Okay, what was it, the 0:10:04.640 --> 0:10:07.640 one that was invented by that guy from one of 0:10:07.679 --> 0:10:13.960 the wrestling or man. Yeah, it's similar thinking of the XLA, 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.319 which was shut down after like a year. Yeah, it's 0:10:16.360 --> 0:10:18.640 no longer a thing, but they just mainly to have 0:10:18.679 --> 0:10:21.679 people body slamming each other on the field. They played 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:26.959 by a variation of arena football rules, so variation being 0:10:27.280 --> 0:10:30.040 a kind word for it. Uh. Yeah. The XFL did 0:10:30.040 --> 0:10:33.360 not last very long. But the sensors inside the ad 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.679 nobody tell them that extreme doesn't start with an X. 0:10:38.520 --> 0:10:41.640 This is a problem. A lot of X games come on. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:47.839 It's not unique at all. Okay, I'm sorry, I apologize. 0:10:48.200 --> 0:10:51.080 Getting back on track. So, the sensors measure impact and 0:10:51.120 --> 0:10:54.760 can actually alert players and coaches and officials when a 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:58.600 collision is strong enough where a concussion may have happened. 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.600 The sensors are attached to little blinking lights that are 0:11:02.600 --> 0:11:05.120 on the base of the helmet, and if the impact 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:07.560 is greater than a certain threshold, the lights start blinking. 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.480 The official says, all right, well, you cannot play until 0:11:10.559 --> 0:11:13.120 you are checked out. The player has to leave the field, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.319 go and be checked to make sure that the player 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.839 is all right before they can return to play. So 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:20.520 the hope is that that will end up detecting any 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.440 early issues, so a player can be taken off and 0:11:23.480 --> 0:11:27.040 put on the injured roster until they're able to recover 0:11:27.600 --> 0:11:30.400 and then return to play. Because again, you know, it's 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.520 a concussion is something if it's not really really severe, 0:11:33.520 --> 0:11:37.360 it's something you can recover from with enough rest. But 0:11:37.480 --> 0:11:39.400 if you don't have that rest, then you're just going 0:11:39.400 --> 0:11:41.840 to aggravate that injury and possibly turn it into something 0:11:41.880 --> 0:11:45.080 far more serious. Uh, not that a concussion isn't serious 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:48.720 already it is, but anyway, so that that's the other 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.600 element of sensors in uh in actual football uniforms that 0:11:53.679 --> 0:11:56.880 are meant to help the safety of the players. But 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.679 it's not the only place where we're seeing sensors. Will 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.400 get to some other elements a little bit later, and 0:12:02.440 --> 0:12:05.839 it gets kind of, I don't know, a little half 0:12:05.920 --> 0:12:09.640 half awesome and half kind of creepy. But but between that, 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:14.240 I have another great story about a training system that 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:16.200 is meant to help take some of the wear and 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:21.840 tear off football players by reducing the physical um toil 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:25.680 of training. You guys might not be aware of this, 0:12:26.640 --> 0:12:31.800 but football players have to practice a lot. That's crazy. Yeah. Yeah, 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.080 I go by this one field. The train ride I 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:38.120 take goes by this one field, and I see football 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:42.160 players drilling on that field every day from late summer 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:45.199 all the way through fall, and they run plays over 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:47.440 and over. You know, they're they're they're making sure that 0:12:47.520 --> 0:12:51.240 their agility and their physical skills are as high as 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:52.920 they can as they can make them, as they can 0:12:52.960 --> 0:12:56.840 train them. But they're also running specific plays to see 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.280 what plays work in different situations. So quarterbacks have access 0:13:01.320 --> 0:13:04.760 to a playbook. That playbook has all the different potential 0:13:04.840 --> 0:13:08.240 plays they have practiced that everyone on the team knows, 0:13:08.360 --> 0:13:11.120 so they can work together and coordinate to give the 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:15.800 best performance they can. But these plays are sometimes that 0:13:15.960 --> 0:13:18.400 you have to make adjustments depending upon how the defense 0:13:18.480 --> 0:13:21.560 lines up, so that if you have planned this particular 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:24.080 play and you all get information and then you notice 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.199 that the defense is really empathetical to what you had planned, 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:29.800 you have to start coming up with a new new 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.760 plan on the fly. So one of the things that 0:13:33.040 --> 0:13:36.240 uh that that might be helping players in the future 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.240 is something called the Axon system A X O N. 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:44.680 So instead of running the same physical play dozens or 0:13:44.800 --> 0:13:46.559 hundreds of times so that you can learn all the 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:49.040 different variations in the best way to make a decision. 0:13:49.800 --> 0:13:53.599 It all is a system that that kind of simulates 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:56.800 the picking of a play and how it plays out, 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:00.840 so that quarterbacks get used to making snap decisions in 0:14:01.520 --> 0:14:05.199 decreasing amounts of time. So when it first starts a quarterback, 0:14:05.240 --> 0:14:07.880 who's and it actually can be used for any position 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:10.000 on the field, but quarterbacks are what they tested it on. 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.960 Quarterback will start a play and then the conditions will 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:16.320 be such that they have to decide who would they 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:19.240 throw to in this situation? Right who? Who is the 0:14:19.320 --> 0:14:21.320 person most likely to be able to catch based upon 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:23.360 coverage all that kind of thing, and then they have 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:26.520 to make that decision. Uh. And then the time for 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:29.080 them to make the decision decreases as they do well 0:14:29.560 --> 0:14:33.520 in this game, and that allows them to train their 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:38.760 ability to make fast, accurate decisions, which is all part 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:41.360 of football. Right. So it starts to get to a 0:14:41.360 --> 0:14:43.440 point where the amount of time you would have would 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:45.800 be about the same as the point where you would 0:14:45.840 --> 0:14:48.200 break from a huddle to where you're lined up at 0:14:48.200 --> 0:14:51.680 the line of scrimmage, and then you have to commit. Uh. 0:14:51.800 --> 0:14:54.800 So the ideas that originally this system was meant for 0:14:54.840 --> 0:14:57.600 people who were recovering from something like a concussion. It 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:00.240 was a way to help train their minds to get 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:02.760 back on focus and to to kind of get an 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.040 idea of how they were performing before putting them back 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:07.440 in play. But now it's also being used as a 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:10.640 way of actually training football players so that they take 0:15:10.720 --> 0:15:13.360 some of that physical training and they convert it to 0:15:13.520 --> 0:15:15.880 mental training so that you don't have to have this 0:15:16.000 --> 0:15:20.160 incredible physical toll on the players during the training season. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:22.480 I mean, obviously they still need to do it right, right, 0:15:22.640 --> 0:15:24.920 I assume that being you know, in shape is part 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:26.920 of that. I think. I think having a bunch of 0:15:27.000 --> 0:15:31.240 really really super sharp football players who are all very 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:34.200 pudgy and slow is not an effective way of winning 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:37.240 a game either, So but it it would be. Uh, 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:40.440 it is interesting that they're taking out the some of 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.600 this physical toll because because injuries can happen in training 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.120 as well as in games, so this is a way 0:15:46.120 --> 0:15:48.880 of making sure that you keep your team healthier longer, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.520 which I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, but okay, so 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.680 you said that we still had more to say about, um, 0:15:54.800 --> 0:15:57.840 some of those sensors. Let's get back into that conversation. 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:01.600 And sensors can do a lot more than detect things 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:04.520 like injury these days, they could they could be used 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.440 for for data analysis and tracking, right. Yeah, So obviously 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:11.120 people who are really big into sports, a lot of 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.400 them are also big into statistics, right, tracking everything from 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.600 how a player, how many yards rushed if you're talking 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:22.840 about football, or if you talking about baseball, number of 0:16:23.120 --> 0:16:25.320 home runs they're batting average, all this kind of stuff. Well, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:28.040 you know, sports has always been this really data heavy 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:32.360 kind of of pursuit or or hobby or entertainment, depending 0:16:32.400 --> 0:16:35.600 upon you know, whatever you're however you're approaching it. Is 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.720 this what that movie Moneyball was all about? Money Ball 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.560 certainly does play a roll into this sort of thing. Yeah, 0:16:41.640 --> 0:16:45.240 the idea of being able to to look at a 0:16:45.320 --> 0:16:49.080 person's actual performance, relate that into some sort of quantifiable 0:16:49.560 --> 0:16:53.960 uh system, and then use that to have meaningful conversations 0:16:54.040 --> 0:16:56.440 or just show off how much you are able to retain. 0:16:56.920 --> 0:16:59.480 But you know, we're only able to gather so much 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:03.440 information and usually unless we were to put I don't know, 0:17:03.560 --> 0:17:07.720 sensors in uniforms of like football players, for example, which 0:17:07.760 --> 0:17:10.800 is happening. Um, so you're not relying on just the 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.320 keen eyes of the observers, but you're actually getting a 0:17:14.520 --> 0:17:18.440 mechanically produced data. Yeah. So for example, you know, there's 0:17:18.480 --> 0:17:20.800 certain things that we can look at, especially for like 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:24.320 a televised game right where we can see exactly how 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:28.040 far someone ran during a play on a football game, 0:17:28.520 --> 0:17:31.679 but we don't necessarily know how quickly they were moving, 0:17:31.720 --> 0:17:34.760 how much, how how fast is their acceleration, how long 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:36.600 does it take them to get to their top speed? 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:40.360 You know, what position were they in at a specific 0:17:40.440 --> 0:17:42.639 point in the play. That kind of analysis takes a 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:44.360 lot of time and it's hard to do on the fly. 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:47.199 So if you are a broadcaster and you're trying to 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:50.760 relay the events of the game to the audience and 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:53.879 explain what's going on and why the game is unfolding 0:17:53.920 --> 0:17:57.160 the way it is, you know, you're often limited by 0:17:57.240 --> 0:17:59.960 the amount of information that you can have at your disposal. Well, 0:18:00.080 --> 0:18:03.400 that was kind of the idea behind the the NFL 0:18:03.480 --> 0:18:07.680 going in and putting sensors into players outfits, actually into 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:11.720 their their shoulder pads essentially, so it's uh it's meant 0:18:11.760 --> 0:18:15.760 to uh track their acceleration in particular, but other other 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:18.520 metrics as well. It is developed by a company called 0:18:18.600 --> 0:18:22.520 Zebra Technologies unless here from the UK and then Zebra 0:18:22.760 --> 0:18:26.520 Technologies UH. They use r f I D enabled sensors. 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.960 They discussed they decided that r F I D was 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:33.840 the most reliable means of transmitting information rather than some 0:18:33.920 --> 0:18:36.760 other form like bluetooth or whatever. They decided r f 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:40.200 I D was the way to go, and so UM 0:18:40.240 --> 0:18:44.120 the player players can be tracked like their position can 0:18:44.119 --> 0:18:46.320 be tracked based upon the way that the r F 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.760 I D communicates with various receivers that are set up 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:53.359 around the stadiums UH that are hardwired to a server, 0:18:53.520 --> 0:18:55.840 and the server collects all the data and makes sense 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:59.240 of it and can even turn it into visualized data 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.280 very quickly. So you can get something like an arrow 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:06.480 that shows the acceleration of a player and be able 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:10.000 to really communicate why a play unfolded the way it did. 0:19:10.080 --> 0:19:15.400 So if you saw a really really effective blitz, for example, 0:19:15.440 --> 0:19:17.920 in football, you could say, well, this guy, this, this 0:19:18.000 --> 0:19:22.000 defensive player was moving at such a speed there was 0:19:22.040 --> 0:19:24.119 no hope for the quarterback to be able to evade it. 0:19:24.160 --> 0:19:26.879 That kind of thing as opposed to saying the quarterback 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.639 delayed in throwing the ball. Because often in the course 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:32.600 of one of these games, if you don't break down 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:35.080 the data that way, you make assumptions as to why 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:37.040 a play unfolded the way it did. This could give 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.960 both the audience and coaches and players valuable information that 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:44.480 will end up shaping the game in the future. Of course, 0:19:45.000 --> 0:19:48.320 I can see an application of this that ties into 0:19:48.359 --> 0:19:50.960 something we've talked about on this podcast other times, which 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:55.200 is real time health sensing. Yeah, that's actually the kind 0:19:55.240 --> 0:19:59.320 of the paste on tattoos you've discussed that can you know, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:02.120 easily seamlessly go on you and keep track of all 0:20:02.200 --> 0:20:06.119 your heart rate vital functions. The the NFL plans to 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:09.560 do that in two thousand fifteen. So right now it's 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:13.720 it's sensors that are meant to track the movement of players, 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:16.479 but in the future it will also be sensors that 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.199 do things like heart rate, lung capacity, body temperature, which 0:20:20.800 --> 0:20:26.399 could presumably be broadcast to spectators, so spectators could actually see. 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:30.040 That's a whole another level of fantasy football. Yeah, that's right. Look, 0:20:30.160 --> 0:20:33.000 his heart's not even racing. This guy is a cool customer, 0:20:33.840 --> 0:20:36.400 or this guy is you know, this guy is really 0:20:36.480 --> 0:20:39.919 starting to to sweat it. So wow, he's doing that 0:20:39.960 --> 0:20:44.160 with five mill leaders of urine and his black don't. Well, 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.760 it's not gonna be that precise that early, but but 0:20:48.800 --> 0:20:51.280 this is some also something that the coaches may use 0:20:52.160 --> 0:20:57.040 in in future training, for example. Um, whether or not 0:20:57.119 --> 0:20:59.879 it actually gets broadcast to spectators, I don't know. The 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:03.080 way I was reading it, the report made it sound 0:21:03.119 --> 0:21:06.040 like this would in fact be part of it. I'm thinking, 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:08.919 you know, if I'm a professional athlete, I don't necessarily 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:13.080 want people to know how my body is performing at 0:21:13.080 --> 0:21:16.520 any given time. That's a little creepy. It's like I'm 0:21:16.560 --> 0:21:19.879 fine with I'm fine with my physician and maybe my coach, 0:21:20.560 --> 0:21:23.320 But you know, Bob who's got the cheap seats, knowing 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:25.840 what my what my heart rate and lung capacity is 0:21:25.920 --> 0:21:29.280 a little weird. Yeah, that's a little bit strange. Um. 0:21:29.359 --> 0:21:33.000 But but the NFL certainly isn't the only organization that 0:21:33.200 --> 0:21:36.160 is looking to this kind of data collection to help 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:40.160 its players out. Over in the UK, McLaren, the Formula 0:21:40.200 --> 0:21:43.600 one high end sport car company, has a branch called 0:21:43.680 --> 0:21:47.439 McLaren Applied Technologies that design sensor systems to monitor and 0:21:47.480 --> 0:21:50.080 track athletes performance as well, and they've paired up with 0:21:50.640 --> 0:21:54.560 rugby teams, UK Olympic rowers and cyclers and a bunch 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:58.280 of other kids to help them like micro refine their 0:21:58.320 --> 0:22:00.840 their training in their in game per format and even 0:22:00.880 --> 0:22:04.280 in the design of some of the sports gear, like 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:07.359 like the bicycle you mentioned. McLaren has done some work 0:22:07.440 --> 0:22:11.120 with designing bikes that they ended up taking into account 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:14.280 the writer as part of the bicycle in order to 0:22:14.320 --> 0:22:17.640 create high end bicycles that would be used in things 0:22:17.640 --> 0:22:20.400 like the Tour de France and we're talking like super 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:23.480 expensive gear here. Yeah, yeah, we did a whole episode 0:22:23.520 --> 0:22:26.600 on McLaren over on uh we're on board thinking right 0:22:26.600 --> 0:22:29.280 now over on tech stuff. Um and so if you 0:22:29.480 --> 0:22:31.239 if you'd like to hear a little bit more about that, 0:22:31.280 --> 0:22:33.760 you can check out that episode. Yeah, their company headquarters 0:22:33.920 --> 0:22:37.520 is totally like the place that you think James Bond 0:22:37.600 --> 0:22:42.000