CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) – It is no longer enough for a basketball team to know how many shots a player makes, or even where he was standing when he made it.
Sports data is going biometric, tracking players’ heart rates, movements and energy levels to get a better picture of what’s going on inside their bodies as they run, jump and even sit on the bench. And, device-makers say, the technology can help coaches decide who needs a rest, who needs more work, or who might be most at risk for injury.
“Do you have eyes on every single athlete, every single session?” said Calvin Torres, a sports scientist with the tracker and data company Catapult, who’s heard all the complaints from old-time coaches who insist that they can do the same thing with their eyes and their instincts. “If you put a monitor on them, you do.”
Catapult is already working with 16 NFL teams, 15 in the NBA and four in the NHL, along with more than a thousand in high school, college, national and pro teams in dozens of countries and sports from rowing to rugby and badminton to bandy.
The company had a booth set up this week at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, an annual gathering for those trying to use math and technology to reshape the way games have been played for a century. The conference attracts 3,500 people – many of them math-savvy students trying to break into sports or simply learn about the latest innovations from panelists such as NBA commissioner Adam Silver or data journalism pioneer Nate Silver.