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SPORTS PERFORMANCE & TECH JUNE 2016 | #21
Streams Vs Subscriptions: Sports Broadcasting’s Battle With Piracy As the ability to stream almost any sport illegally increases, companies need to look at how to combat it | 18
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5 Times Analytics Has Changed The Face Of Sports The use of data is constantly improving performances, we look at the five times it has revolutionized an entire sport | 6
TV Rights And English Football’s Imminent Dominance With the English Premier League signing a TV rights deal worth over £5 billion, they are set to dominate international football | 30
Wearable Tech in Sport Summit November 9 & 10 2016 | Amsterdam
Speakers Include
Contact Details Sean Foreman
+44 207 193 1655 sforeman@theiegroup.com ie wearable amsterdam
ISSUE 21
EDITOR’S LETTER Welcome to the 21st Edition of the Sports Innovation Magazine
Sports technology today is having a huge impact on the way that athletes perform and train. We have cameras that analyze movements to detect whether they are susceptible to injuries, GPS tags that can record exactly where a player is on a pitch and even wearable tech that can show if an athlete is dehydrated. However, I believe that new sports technologies are not just about making our top athletes perform, it is also about allowing people to take part in sport who otherwise may not be able to. I recently checked out the Shimano Steps electric bike system at an event in London which showed how far electric bikes have come. Rather than feeling like riding a slow motorbike, it allows you to pedal like a regular bike but with considerable assistance, up to 15mph. It allows people who may not otherwise enjoy
cycling to still enjoy the sport, those with heart conditions, the elderly or simply don’t like hills. We have seen significant strides forward in the perception of athletes with disabilities too, with Oscar Pistorius becoming the first athlete to compete in both the olympic and paralympic games. This came from his use of prosthetic limbs for his legs, which allowed him to run at the same speed at able bodied athletes. We have seen the increased use of carbon in sports equipment to help paralympians and we are even beginning to see the use of exoskeletons to allow those with disabilities to perform tasks they would never have been able to previously. EKSO are a company based in Richmond, CA who are transforming the rehabilitation of patients and in the future may even allow people to play sports again.
We often discuss the use of sports technology from a performance perspective, but when we see the kind of impact that it can have to simply allow people to partake in sport, it is arguably even more important. It is great seeing analytics pushing the boundaries of human capabilities, but I would say that giving the gift of access is arguably the biggest thing that sports technology can give us.
George Hill managing editor
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Sports Analytics Innovation Summit Speakers Include
San Francisco August 23 & 24 2016 Contact Details Sean Foreman
+1 415 692 5514
sforeman@theiegroup.com ie sports san francisco /4
contents 6 | 5 TIMES ANALYTICS HAS CHANGED THE FACE OF SPORTS
The use of data is constantly improving performances, we look at the five times it has revolutionized an entire sport 10 | THE RAPIDLY EXPANDING MARKET OF SPORTS ANALYTICS
What began as a niche industry has become one of the fastest growing, we look at how sports analytics is now big business 13 | MIPS- A HELMET’S NEW MOST IMPORTANT FEATURE
We investigate the latest in concussion prevention technologies and take a look at offerings from Lazer and POC 17 | WHY IS THE NFL SLOW TO ADOPT ANALYTICS FOR DRAFT?
Despite the success in others areas of the business, they are yet to adopt it effectively on the pitch
20 | STREAMS VS SUBSCRIPTIONS- SPORTS BROADCASTING’S BATTLE WITH PIRACY
As the ability to stream almost any sport illegally increases, companies need to look at how to combat it 24 | TEAM SKY’S INNOVATION HUB - WE TALK TO SCOTT DRAWER, THE IMAGINEER AT TEAM SKY
We sat down with Dr Scott Drawer to discuss developments in sports technologies and what the future holds 30 | TV RIGHTS AND ENGLISH FOOTBALL’S IMMINENT DOMINANCE
With the English Premier League signing a TV rights deal worth over £5 billion, they are set to dominate international football 20 | REVIEW: FITBIT SURGE
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David Barton, Head of Analytics
5 Times Analytics Has Changed The Face Of Sports David Barton, Head of Analytics
OAKLAND ATHLETIC’S COACH AND EARLY PIONEER OF ANALYTICS IN SPORTS, Billy Beane, once said, ‘We’ve got to use every piece of data and piece of information, and hopefully that will help us be accurate with our player evaluation. For us, that’s our life blood.’ It was, perhaps, Beane who first brought the use of data in sports to the public consciousness, with the film Moneyball showing his success to millions. Now, every major professional sports team employs an analytics expert - or a whole team of experts - who pour over every bit of data that players amass from sensors around the stadiums, wearable devices on players, and information taken from within the bodies of the athletes themselves such as DNA. Analytics is now vital to decision making in sport - choosing which players to draft, trade, develop, coach and which system to play, replacing the reliance on gut instinct that coaches traditionally relied on. We’ve look at five teams who relied heavily on analytics in their decision-making, and saw tremendous, and often unprecedented, success as a result. /6
Coach Sir Clive Woodward has long championed technology and data in sports, and has done so now across a variety of sports, including soccer with Southampton
ENGLAND RUGBY TEAM’S 2003 WORLD CUP WIN Coach Sir Clive Woodward has long championed technology and data in sports, and has done so now across a variety of sports, including soccer with Southampton. However, it is the 2003 Rugby World Cup that still offers the best evidence of his approach being successful. Prior to world cup, he approached Prozone to build a technology solution that provided the same insights that football coaches and clubs were using to support their tactical preparation and strategy, becoming the first coach to adapt Prozone to rugby. When Sir Clive started in the role, rugby had only been a professional sport for eight years, and was lagging behind, due both to lack of investment and lack of expertise. Woodward installed cameras all over Twickenham that collected data on how England and their opponents played. Woodward would give the players a CD containing all their data and videos of their performance, which they would take two days to analyze. They would then have to present analysis of their personal
performance to him and set targets from it. Woodward has noted that the data removed preconceived notions about the way other teams played, and removed the mystique around opponents that allowed them to more easily spot their weaknesses. Woodward said, ‘Prozone gives you a birds-eye view of all the players, there is no hiding place. From a coach’s point of view it’s a brilliant system, it actually allows you to coach and I think it makes you a better coach and a better team.’ England would go on to win the 2003 Rugby World Cup, defeating Australia 20 points to 17 in a nail biting final, and analytics in rugby has become the norm, with Saracens using it heavily to win their first ever premiership title in 2009.
TEAM SKY The reputation of professional cycling has taken a battering over the last decade, as revelations around the extent of doping in the sport coming thick and fast. For Team Sky’s Chris Froome, this resulted in him having urine thrown at him, with p eople apparently unable to believe he could go so fast unaided by illegal means. However, his success is really primarily down to the approach taken by Team Sky, which makes heavy use of the latest internet of things sensor and network technologies as well as data analytics to ensure optimal performance. the auspice of analytics expert Robby Ketchell, they have won 3 of the last 4 Tour De Frances. In a recent interview, Ketchell told us: ‘Numbers have always been a big part of sports, not just cycling. Endurance sports in general have recently become more and more data dependent with new sensors that measure aspects of physiology and physical performance. Cycling /7
We can run queries like ‘show me all races in last three years where we ran a particular suspension strut at a particular setting
has grown to become more of a numbers aware sport with similar sensors, social media and using humans as sensors, onboard devices, and software dedicated to the analysis of all of the data collected.’ One of the key ways they have managed to use data to revolutionized the way that data is used in sport is through looking at it in a completely new way. By employing Tim Kerrison as their Lead Sports Scientist who had no previous experience in cycling, he could look at what actually mattered in a performance, rather than what was perceived to be the best from traditional thinking.
OAKLAND A’S When Billy Beane took over at Oakland almost 20 years ago, he decided to rely heavily on data analytics, using a technique known as sabermetrics, implementation of which had begun under his predecessor Sandy Alderson but which he really took to another level. The success he saw using the techniques, despite having one of the smallest budgets in the league, inspired the film Moneyball, and showed the world of elite sports what could be gained from looking at the data. They went on to set an American League Record with /8
20 consecutive wins, and while they didn’t win a championship themselves, the methods were adopted by teams like Boston Red Sox who have won three using the techniques. Now, almost every MLB team is heavily reliant on analytics, although Oakland is still the most efficient team in major league baseball in terms of wins per dollar spent, with just eight players on the A’s Opening Day roster earning in excess of $2 million.
MCLAREN FORMULA 1 VICTORY 2014 The McLaren Group has taken home the last two Formula 1 championships, and it has done so by relying heavily on data analytics. The McLaren F1 car is fitted with more than 160 sensors that send a constant stream of data to the engineering team, with decision makers analyzing the information in real time using SAP’s HANA platform to make decisions during a race, as well as leveraging insights to design cars in the future. Stuart Birrell, CIO of McLaren – and former CIO at Gatwick Airport – describes how the racing team’s engineers are beginning to use SAP’s in-memory database HANA. ‘We can run queries like ‘show me all races in last three years where we ran a particular suspension
strut at a particular setting’. How could you query that in a traditional database? It would take hours. We use MatLab at the top level to model and compare, say, fluid dynamics, wind tunnel and telemetry timesequenced data. For that query we got a result from 13 billion data points in 100ms.’
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS WIN THE 2014/2015 NBA CHAMPIONSHIP In 2015, the NBA’s Golden State Warriors won its first NBA state championship for 40 years. According to FiveThirtyEight’s Elo ratings, it was the best team the NBA has ever seen that didn’t have Michael Jordan in it. Central to this has been the use of data analytics, which they have used to great effect in every facet of their operations. The Warriors’ owners include a number of Silicon Valley heavyweights, such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers’ partner Joe Lacob and Mandalay Entertainment chairman Peter Guber, which puts them in a good position when it comes to adopting new technology. The Warriors were one of the first NBA teams to invest in, among other analytic devices, SportVU cameras, which
monitor player movement during a game. In training, every aspect of players’ fitness and performance is measured and analyzed. In March 2016, they were named recipients of the ‘Best Analytics Organization’ award at the 2016 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, with General Manager Bob Myers saying of the accolade: ‘We’re extremely appreciative and proud to receive this award. Analytics has become a huge part of sports, especially over the last few years, and we certainly put an emphasis on it as an organization. Kirk Lacob, in particular, has led our charge in analytics and he should be commended for putting us in positon to be viewed as a leader in this area and recognized for our efforts.’ Assistant GM Lacob has acknowledged the role analytics has played in their success, but noted that it forms just part of their efforts rather than being the main driver. He said, ‘I wouldn’t directly credit our success to analytics, but a large portion is due to how we utilize things like analytics. We like information. We make good decisions because we analyze a lot of information. Sure, we could run our team without all of the available data. But why would we?’
By employing Tim Kerrison as their Lead Sports Scientist who had no previous experience in cycling, he could look at what actually mattered in a performance
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WHEN CHARLES REEP’S PRIMITIVE ANALYSIS of 1950s soccer came to the (incorrect) conclusion that soccer teams were more likely to score from plays of three passes of fewer, he set in motion something that is still growing today. Reep’s findings, though fundamentally flawed, raised the notion that individual metrics Reep focused on chance conversion - could be isolated and improved on, and that the effect of their improvement could be measured. Fast forward 60 years, and sports analytics is exploding. Through decades of scepticism, traditionalists delighted as innovators floundered, and an industry-wide opinion that gut instinct was as or more valuable than number-crunching prevailed. Analytics has now seen widespread adoption, though, and you won’t find a top level soccer, football, baseball or basketball team without a dedicated analytics division working to find areas in / 10
The Rapidly Expanding Market Of Sports Analytics Aaron Fraser, Sports Analytics Commentator
which a decisive extra 1% could be squeezed. The Oakland As’ well documented, data driven successes is a high-profile and in many ways anomalous example, but sports analytics teams work daily to inform decision-makers in institutions across all major sports. And the sports analytics market has grown in line with the industry’s appreciation of its uses, a trend set to continue into the next decade. The global market is expected to balloon, from $123.7 million this year to $616.7 million by 2021 - one of the more conservative estimates - at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 37.9%. In terms of the regions expected to hold the largest market shares, North America dominates thanks to ‘the dynamic market environment and higher technological adoption,’ according to Business Wire. Europe follows, while Asia-Pacific (APAC) is expected to see the highest CAGR in the period, thanks largely to an emerging soccer market that is seeing incredible investment.
Data and analytics can influence everything from player acquisition to ticket pricing, but analytics teams are currently dealing with over-saturation
Data and analytics can influence everything from player acquisition to ticket pricing, but analytics teams are currently dealing with over-saturation - the idea that all data could potentially be useful has sports teams mining everything they possibly can for information. Companies that offer solutions to the hordes of data collected across sports will profit as the identification of the data points that are actually relevant to coaching staff and decision-makers is one of sports analytics’ key challenges.
need of a rest or is at risk of picking up an injury. This kind of information was simply not available to coaches before the analytics boom and, according to Wired, ‘a three-year trial has shown that Kitman’s athlete management system can reduce injuries by 30% using known injury indicators.’
The global market is expected to balloon, from $123.7 million this year to $616.7 million by 2021 As the market grows, its applications will diversify, and developments in sports analytics are by no means limited to athlete fitness. As each sports team looks for the marginal gains that can be the difference between winning or losing, those who find ways to best utilize their data will reap the rewards. Sports have always been, at their core, numbers games - the explosion of data collection only saw these numbers multiply and diversify. As sports teams learn to harness and extract value from their data for both competitive and commercial gain, the market surrounding that process will continue to grow its already mouthwatering valuation.
Where predictive analytics has had a major impact is in injury prevention. A player’s biometric data is collected by teams and analyzed by the likes of Kitman Labs - the first company to use machine learning to evaluate injury risk - who present injury risk alerts specific to each athlete. A coach can now pull out their smartphone and quickly check, via an app, which of their players is in / 11
Wearable Tech in Sports Summit Speakers Include
San Francisco August 24 & 25 2016 Contact Details Sean Foreman
+1 415 692 5514
sforeman@theiegroup.com ie wearable san francisco / 12
Radians per second squared - the standard metric for rotation - can be reduced by as much as 55%
MIPS: A Helmet’s New Most Important Feature Charlie Sammonds, Assistant Editor
CONCUSSION IS NOW MORE OF A TOPIC in the world of sports than it ever has been. In football and in cycling - sports that necessitate helmets the topic is a hot one; the NFL’s admission of the link between football and brain damage later in life has set a precedent that sports bodies and sports manufacturers of sports equipment must accept more of a responsibility for the wellbeing of those they market to. Lawsuits around CTE cost the NFL $765 million in 2013; it is in everyone’s interest to advance the effectiveness of protective helmets. The industry is advancing along with public awareness, and there are now numerous new technologies on the market promising to reduce the danger of brain injury during a collision. From Vicis to MIPS, companies working to bring these technologies to market are garnering serious interest, and it is the latter that has touched on one of a helmet’s key inefficiencies: the lack of compensation for rotational acceleration. Traditional helmet testing involves dropping them vertically onto a flat surface and analyzing the impact. This method does simulate trauma, but is not how accidents actually occur at speed.
In football, a player very rarely simply takes contact from one angle with no sideways or rotational movement. Collisions are messier than this; a player can be knocked from their feet when being tackled and collisions can come from various angles and with varying intensities. As for cycling, the rider is ordinarily traveling at some speed when collision with the ground occurs, and the rotation forces endured by the brain must be taken into account when developing new helmet technology. This is where MIPS (multi-directional Impact Protection System) is potentially revolutionary. Swedish / 13
neurosurgeon Hans Von Holst began evaluating how helmets are constructed in 1995, landing on the conclusion that existing helmets were inadequate in providing protection against brain trauma, the consequences of which can be severe. Fast forward six years to 2001 and Mips AB is formally founded in Stockholm. The company has since developed its technology of a low-friction layer that allows the helmet to slide relative to the head, one that is quickly being picked up by more and more helmet manufacturers. MIPS is also set for use in some football helmets, a welcome move following the NFL’s CTE revelations. The concept behind the technology is relatively straightforward - the helmet is separated into two layers, the inner of which is allowed to slide and rotate slightly upon impact, eliminating some of the rotational force behind the collision before it makes its way to the brain. This lack of rigidity in the collision displaces some of the energy the brain would have otherwise absorbed, potentially protecting the brain from suffering serious injury. The company’s testing is sophisticated, dropping their helmets onto a moving flat platform which simulates a road surface at speed, as well as the more common / 14
stationary anvil test, as used by NOCSAE. Mips AB’s dummy head is fitted with nine accelerometers which measure the linear force transmitted during impact, which is then translated into rotational acceleration by a computer.
In football, a player very rarely simply takes contact from one angle with no sideways or rotational movement Radians per second squared - the standard metric for rotation - can be reduced by as much as 55%. Peter Halldin, a biomechanical engineer at the Royal Institute of Technology and one of Mips AB’s founders, said: ‘We can reduce rotation in all directions, and it’s significant in most directions. We might get 35% in one direction, 25%in another direction, and 15% in another. And hopefully the 15% is not in the most common impact direction for that sport,’ according to Popular Science. These percentage points can be the difference between a football player leaving the field with or without a concussion, something Halldin describes as ‘f***ing amazing.’ The
consequences in football, skiing, cycling, cricket, and any sport that uses helmets could be huge; the NFL brought the concussion conversation to the fore, and the technology that has been there for some time is finally getting the application it deserves. The technology is gradually making its way into more and more helmets too. We have seen it in several high end helmets such as the Lazer Z1 and poc Octal. However, it is now also being seen in helmets further down the pecking order and Giro have even included it in some kids helmets, such as the Foray and Scamp.
Mips: Review AS THE MIPS SYSTEM HAS GROWN in stature over the last few years we took a look at two helmets that have adopted the technology. Both helmets were chosen because we have the same helmets, but without the Mips element and we wanted to see what the difference was. The two helmets we tried out were the Lazer Z1 and the Poc Octal. Inside both helmets the Mips elements looks very similar, a yellow thin plastic vented sheet. This sits on four clips that are attached the the helmets through an elasticated band, which allows the entire Mips area to move independently of the helmet. The Z1 and Octal both maintain the ventilation that have made them a staff favourite whilst also still combining the comfort. The fit is good and in both the Mips system sits nicely on the head without causing any kind of issue with chafing or scratching.
that they are Mips equipped, aside from the sticker on the side of each that has the Mips symbol. So does Mips work? Initial testing shows that the concept seems to, with the system moving independently of the main body on both helmets. We aren’t in a position to test these fully (we don’t want to attempt to hit our heads hard enough to cause a concussion), but from the way it moves it seems to fit with the concept that Mips is based on. We are beginning to see that the use of Mips is being used by helmet companies throughout their lines and it will begin to become a more common sight on our roads. The Lazer Z1 Mips has an RRP of £219.99 - www.lazersport.com The POC Octal has an RRP of £274.99 - www.pocsports.com
I would say that perhaps the Mips system sits better in the Octal, but that is simply because it is a larger helmet. Neither show clear signs
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With both a salary cap and a revenue sharing system in place, the competing sides are placed on far more even a playing field than in baseball or soccer
Why Is The NFL Slow To Adopt Analytics For Draft? Aaron Fraser, Sports Analytics Commentator
FORMER PHILADELPHIA 76ERS AND DETROIT PISTONS COACH DOUG COLLINS once famously said he’d rather ‘blow his brains out’ than be an ‘analytic’. A man with a near-30 year NBA coaching career emphatically rejected a shift he must’ve seen having impressive effects elsewhere. Collins reflects a lingering suspicion of analytics in professional sports, and his misunderstanding of the value of analytics is, fittingly, betrayed by his wording. / 17
It’s important to remember when discussing analytics in sports as an influence on roster selection, that Moneyball was released in 2003 the book that brought sabermetrics into the mainstream is 13 years old, and Oakland As’ but some sports are still desperately resistant - at least outwardly - to adopting it in their own decision making. Generally in baseball, soccer, basketball, and even rugby, analytics and sports was, as put by Bleacher Report, ‘love at first sight.’ As soon as it became properly appreciated that analytics could hold the key to that extra 1%, that improvement on one metric that could be the difference between winning and losing, sports teams were quick to install analytics teams for fear of being left behind by their competition. Oakland As’ success was an early vindication of data’s place in sports, and was one built
on sound player selection using the otherwise largely overlooked metric of on-base percentage. Billy Beane and his team were able to find undervalued players in a market dominated by the country’s richer teams, demonstrating to the world the value of statistics in sports where tradition rules. In more fluid sports like basketball or soccer, specific metrics aren’t given quite the attention they were by the Oakland As, but data and analytics will influence player recruitment from the scouting process through to the medical examination. The NFL, though, has been remarkably slow to catch up. Management at most teams seemingly hasn’t been convicted, but analytics is still very much knocking on the NFL’s door. One of the reasons for analytics’ slow growth in the NFL is the sport’s financial set-up. With both a salary
cap and a revenue sharing system in place, the competing sides are placed on far more even a playing field than in baseball or soccer. No club is at a significant financial advantage across the competition, - innovation is both less necessary and less expected of teams with the means to properly compete with traditional methods. Yes, there are teams that dominate, and there are teams that are almost always considered outsiders, but there are no Oakland As, no team that must innovate or die. Additionally, the NFL’s positional specialism makes for tricky analysis. You can quite easily compare two hitters’ ability to get on base, but measuring the ability of a quarterback up against a wide receiver or a safety requires completely different metrics. Comparing quarterbacks is straightforward enough, but building
Generally in baseball, soccer, basketball, and even rugby, analytics and sports was, as put by Bleacher Report, ‘love at first sight / 18
This is not to say it cannot be done, though. The NFL is essentially behind other sports in the arc
a team using data alone is markedly more difficult in the NFL. ‘One of the most common questions I get is, ‘Can you do Moneyball’, for lack of a better term, in the NFL? And the answer is, ‘no, you can’t’,’ Former NFL coach Brian Billick said. ‘You can’t quantify the game of football the way you do baseball. It’s not a statistical game. The parameters of the game, the number of bodies and what they’re doing in conjunction with one another.’ Football is the ultimate team game, where baseball could be considered an individual sport. Each cog affects the other, and choosing picks based on one or a handful of metrics could damage the choreography painstakingly put in place by coaches. We have seen that in other areas of the club, such as business development and fan engagement, that analytics has a key role to play.
For instance, Jonathan Martinez the director of business development at the Oakland Raiders, is discussing how the franchise is using data in business development. So why hasn’t this transferred onto the pitch? This is not to say it cannot be done, though. The NFL is essentially behind other sports in the arc. The initial ridicule for the failed innovators eventually gives way to acceptance and then ubiquity - it would take just one Oakland As to convince the other teams of analytics’ relevance to football. According to some, many teams are working with analytics despite being publicly against its dominance of other sports. ‘There’s always an opportunity for it,’ said Aaron Schatz, editor-in-chief of FootballOutsiders.com. ‘NFL teams are already using it, but they just aren’t letting on to it. Just because
you don’t hear them talk about it doesn’t mean they’re not doing it. Lots of teams are criticizing it in public and using it in private.’ It’s unlikely players will be picked in the draft on one golden metric alone, football simply doesn’t cater for that. What football will undoubtedly see, though, is a rise in the application of analytics more widely, as the US’ most popular sport finally catches up with the trend.
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Streams Vs Subscriptions : Sports Broadcasting’s Battle With Piracy Euan Hunter, Sports Business Evangelist
FOR ALL THE TECH INVOLVED IN SPORTS, in the stadium and on the training field, some tech companies have been remarkably slow to innovate. Those creating wearables are booming, as are analytics and sports science firms. Broadcasting, though, could be doing more. Despite the unfathomable money paid out for TV rights, an incredible number of people still illegally stream live sports. Estimated to number in the millions, those who stream require only rudimentary IT skills and an aversion paying subscription fees to find quality streams on their laptop, with all the / 20
anonymity of the internet. Without change, illegal sites will continue to outpace broadcasters. The argument from those facilitating streaming is that broadcasters are holding sports fans to ransom, with a handful of giants holding the keys to the world’s top sports; the lack of genuine competition has seen prices skyrocket out of many fans’ price-ranges. Just as one streaming site closes for fear of legal action, another pops up to fill its place - as long as the demand is
Facebook was one of the other companies involved in the bidding for the Thursday Night Football, as Mark Zuckerberg and co. seek live streaming content to fit into their initiative of a video-first newsfeed there, this won’t change. The UK is a particularly interest case. There is a blanket ban on the broadcasting of soccer matches during Saturday fixtures. Known as the ‘3pm blackout’, the initiative is intended to drive up matchday attendances, which many argue are under threat given the relative convenience of streaming at home or watching on TV. The effectiveness of the 3pm blackout is a debate for another day, but what it does mean for fans is that there is no legal alternative to attending the match and - if they’re lucky enough to get there - paying the extortionate ticket prices are demanded. The ritual of spending 20 minutes before every Saturday fixture finding an adequate stream will be a familiar one to most technologically proficient UK soccer fans, and change is clearly needed to harness this demand legally. Illegal streaming is so normalized
that it is surprising it has taken this long for broadcasters to innovate. Last month, though, it was revealed that BT Sport had signed an agreement with Youtube to live stream two of European soccer’s biggest matches for free. The Champions League and Europa League finals will be available to all with an internet connection, a move BT Consumer chief executive John Petter hopes will bring BT Sport to a younger generation of sports fans, who principally view their entertainment online. ‘We plan to make these finals the most social sports broadcast ever,’ he said, ‘with lots of exciting content in the buildup and on the night across YouTube, Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Vine.’ Twitter, too, is finally muscling into live broadcasting. The social network is an incredibly popular companion to live sports, a second screen of discussion around an event and a place many will go to find highlights and other scores. Twitter announced last month that it would be streaming 10 NFL Thursday Night Football games live, for free, this fall. Amazon and Verizon were involved in the bidding process, and Twitter will hope that the effects of the victory can convince investors of the company’s growth prospects, despite its recent stall. Facebook was one of the other companies involved in the bidding for the Thursday Night Football, as Mark Zuckerberg and co. seek live streaming content to fit into their initiative of a video-first newsfeed. The situation in China is quite different. The nation’s no-expensespared campaign to make sport - soccer, in particular - part of the fabric of its economy has slowed down somewhat. The likes of Tencent, Alibaba, LeSports and Cina have shovelled huge amounts of cash into TV rights, but monetization in a country in which sport is generally consumed for free on state TV will not be easy. For example, / 21
Tencent parted with US$700 million in a five-year deal to secure the NBA rights in January 2015. After a grace season to get fans accustomed to watching on Tencent’s platforms, the company is now looking to monetize its considerable resource. ‘We’re a listed company ... we need to earn money, we need to find a way that we can earn [back] the licence fee we paid [to the NBA]. The main revenue [now] is from advertisement, we are trying new business models, trying to do subscription,’ said Echo Yang Lusha, business development and cooperation director at
The ritual of spending 20 minutes before every Saturday fixture finding an adequate stream will be a familiar one to most technologically proficient UK soccer fans, and change is clearly needed to harness this demand legally Tencent. With or without the ubiquity of illegal live streaming, TV rights deals will continue to prove incredibly lucrative for both broadcasters and sporting bodies alike. Live streaming should be seen as an opportunity rather than a challenge, though, and the selective, free, easily accessible games have benefits for broadcasters that are robbed by fans turning to illegal streams. The world will watch the Champions League final one way or another, BT Sport should endeavour to ensure it is through their platforms, for free or otherwise.
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DR SCOTT DRAWER IS CURRENTLY LEADING A NEW PROJECT with TeamSky and Sky to investigate the development of unique concept around the exploration of human potential through sport and other creative domains. Prior to this, he led a team of science and medicine staff across the player development pathway for England Rugby. His career started within the GB Olympic and Paralympic system – developing and leading the Research & Innovation programme across 5 summer and winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. We spoke to him about his work at Team Sky, his career and the changing face of sports analytics and innovation. / 24
TEAM SKY’S INNOVATION HUB WE TALK TO SCOT T DRAWER, THE IMAGINEER AT TEAM SKY George Hill, Managing Editor
Team Sky are widely credited with changing the face of cycling in 6 short years, what do you think the single biggest innovation has been? There is not one single innovation that you can identify as contributing to the development and evolution of the team. It is a constant organic evolution of practice driven by the coaches and front line staff that enables performances to evolve. There is a huge emphasis on doing the ‘basics’ better than anybody else to ensure riders are available to train, can execute to the best of their ability when training and competing, and rest/recover to the best of their ability as a fundamental element of the process.
is much more about connection of multiple data sources aligned to a timeline to INFORM decision making not to LEAD it. In some ways, the tail is often wagging the dog. Where it gets silly is where the technology drives the process. This will always lead to a lack of progress. The sports programmes that do ‘data’ well have a clear vision and strategy of how they want to train and compete based on years of expert insight supplemented by data. Everything they do is to align the data capture and measurement processes alongside this strategy, constantly tweaking and evolving as they learn on a team and individual level. Our challenge is ensuring this remains front and centre.
What do you think is going to be the next big performance innovation we see? Personally, I’m fascinated by the emerging application of years of know-how from the neuroscience field. Concepts around learning environments and performance behaviours provide a personal fascination. The technology which may support this (we don’t know yet as work not been done) could come through Virtual Reality, Mixed Reality and Actual Reality.
Team Sky also have a history of bringing in innovative sports scientists and innovators from other sports, what kind of impact do you think this has had? Remaining open to other ‘expert novices’ is a crucial part of the approach adopted by Sky. Engaging with others who are genuine experts in their field but new to the world of cycling means things are not taken for granted and the environment remains fresh.
How has the increased access to sports data helped you in your roles over the last decade? The emergence of the term ‘big data’ has not really done the world of sport any good. Big data in sport / 25
TV Rights And English Football’s Imminent Dominance Charlie Sammonds, Assistant Editor
WHEN HULL CITY AND SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY step out onto the field at Wembley on May 28th, they will compete in by far the most valuable fixture in the soccer calendar. It seems almost ridiculous that something as chaotic and unpredictable as a game of soccer can have such drastic financial implications, but at the end of the month one of 36 players will score a winning goal that takes their club into the Premier League and into the financial elite. In fact, there is no more valuable single action in / 26
team sports than the winning kick at Wembley. The prize for that kick? £170 million, at least. In fact, Deloitte claims that achieving promotion this season could be worth as much as £290 million, should the promoted club avoid immediate relegation. No one is suggesting clubs will be following Leicester City’s trajectory with any regularity, but simply having a seat at the table is enough to see significant financial return. A club can lose all of their 38 Premier League games following promotion and still
qualify for the millions of pounds in parachute payments awarded to teams that are relegated - Aston Villa, for example, are set to receive £87 million over the next three years. The Premier League is England’s most expensive export, with an incredible £5.136 billion in domestic TV rights deals secured between Sky Sports and BT Sports for the period of 2016-19. The former, who will show 126 games to BT’s 42, are putting up £1.392 billion per season - that works out to £11.07 million per match. The deal constitutes an
incredible 71% increase on the deal that ran from 2013-16, and Sky Sports themselves admitted that they paid about £330 million more than forecasted, according to BBC Sport. Such is the increase that Premier League clubs will see unprecedented financial power in the years to come. The £60.9 million in TV revenue previously awarded annually to Premier League clubs will rise to something in the region of £96 million - recent research suggests that this will take each of
the 20 clubs in England’s top flight into the list of the 30 richest clubs in the world, and investors will be the first to note the potential this affords even the smallest of those clubs. Indeed, shares in Manchester United jumped 5% at the announcement of the deal - according to the BBC - and the rest of Europe stands to be overshadowed by the UK’s growing behemoth of a competition. Crystal Palace co-owner, Steve Parish, described the situation as ‘insane’ when it was revealed that the London club could see more
TV revenue than Barcelona and be able to pay higher wages than La Liga giants and Champions League finalists Atletico Madrid. With overseas TV deals, the figure for each club could top £100 million, and the effect of the windfall could be felt as early as this upcoming transfer window. The clubs will receive the £8 billion windfall a month early, in July, having lobbied the Premier League to release the funds early. The move will help newly promoted clubs, who will be able to begin flexing their new financial
Deloitte claims that achieving promotion this season could be worth as much as £290 million / 27
muscle earlier than expected, giving them greater scope to compete at the top level come August. And the deal has clubs across Europe worried about English football’s imminent dominance. Barcelona’s club president Josep Maria Bartomeu revealed in February that the club consider the Premier League a more considerable threat to the Catalan club’s future than Real Madrid. ‘[They] will have an incredible financial situation from now on and we are worried,’ he told BBC Sport. ‘The Premier League is the best football competition. It has the most interest for fans and most revenues. They are doing things good and keeping teams in the competition where everyone being equal is of interest for everybody. We have different budgets in Spain and it would be difficult for someone like Leicester to be top of the league. Our rivals are the Premier League, they are the big adversaries. We have to do our best to increase our revenues and our financial situation to make the talent of our teams stay with us.’ The disproportionately weighted finance distribution system in La Liga means that the likes of Real Madrid and Barcelona will still hold considerable financial might, but the era of La Liga hoovering up the world’s talent may be coming to an end. / 28
[They] will have an incredible financial situation from now on and we are worried The influx of TV money is an exciting prospect whether you support Chelsea or Middlesbrough. The gap between the Premier League and the Football League in terms of quality will only increase in the years to come, but the prize of promotion to the top flight is now more of a holy grail than ever before. The Barcelona president may be dreading the imminent power shift, but as a fan of a certain London club that have had dealings with the Catalans in the past I, for one, welcome the coming shift.
Inform. Inspire. Innovate Looking to find new ideas within Analytics or want to share your own?
channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/sports / 29
Review: Fitbit Surge WE TRIED OUT THE FITBIT SURGE, to see how Fitbit’s top of the line fitness tracker compared to others around it. Fitness trackers have come a long way since we first started writing about them. From the first which were basically glorified pedometers through to today, where I can upload what I do onto Strava at the end and compare my run to my followers and friends. At the forefront of this craze is the Fitbit Surge, which packs in a huge amount of tech into a watch sized package. It includes Bluetooth connectivity, GPS and data integration with apps like Strava. You can even receive text and control your music from it. / 30
The watch itself looks like a particularly thick watch, sitting around 10mm from the wrist at the largest part of its wedge-shaped body. It doesn’t weigh too much either, and sits well on the wrist. On the rear of the watch is the heart rate monitor which isn’t too uncomfortable, even when using it for a long period. The strap is made from a rubberised material and the buckle is a thick metal affair that keeps everything in place well with nothing slipping out of place when exercising. It has some really good functionality too, tracking runs, cycling, weights and even yoga. In addition to this it looks at how you sleep, how many steps you’ve taken, how you’ve slept and your average heart rate. I used it across almost every function that I could and found that heart rates were broadly comparable to my chest strap, steps walked broadly correlated with both my phone and another wearable I was using and distances matched up with my cycling computer. So far so good. Using the device is done through both swiping a touchscreen and three buttons on the side, one on the left and two on the right. You can customize the clock face and several elements of the Surge from the Fitbit app on your phone after connecting it through bluetooth too. The app itself is really well laid out and simple to use and out of all of the wearable apps I have used it is probably second only to the Jawbone app. There were a couple of issues that I had with the watch, one of which was moisture that got into the first version I had. This was after it was totally soaked and I was hot, and after some moisture got in condensation got behind the screen. The watch still functioned, but it made it very difficult to see the display. The second model I had didn’t have this problem, but after looking around the net there
are a few instances, although Fitbit, to their credit, seem very quick to respond. The second is that having leant it to my sister for a few days (she was thinking of getting on and so I leant her this one as a test run) she had an allergic reaction to the strap, something that has happened with previous Fitbit products, apparently this isn’t the only case, so make sure you check beforehand.
Overall, the watch performed very well and I was very impressed with not only its accuracy compared to more traditional methods of HR detection, GPS and the data integration. There are some wider issues, perhaps caused by batches, like the allergies and waterproofing, but with the second version I had none of this caused an issue after using it over several months.
The data created by the watch was good and easy to upload and once connected the app displayed it simply and clearly. Equally impressive was the speed in which it could be uploaded to partner apps like Strava. I found that no sooner had I synced the watch with my phone that the data from it was appearing on apps like Strava and Runkeeper, it was very impressive. / 31
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There are probably of definitions the single job of Head of Innovation and any withemployee, them dozens of perspectives What would happendozens if a company fundedfor every new product idea from no questions asked? on it should beAdobe done.did Without anythat. official credentials the Randall subject will I was asked give my personal account As how an experiment, exactly In this session,on Mark share thetosurprising discoveries of running an in innovation team in the of an innovation-hungry organisation that started on the highfor street Adobe made creating Kickbox, thecontext new innovation process that’s already becoming an industry model and has innovation. grown to employ 16,000 people overa 80 years. In red the box pastpacked year orwith so Iimagination, have learnedmoney that when comes igniting Each employee receives mysterious and ait strange to innovation culture trumps everything and there really aren’t any rules. In order to get by, I stick some guiding game with six levels. Learn why the principles behind Kickbox are so powerful, why Adobe is opentosourcing the principles and lots gutany feel. Join me forcan an honest andprinciples straightforward perspective entire process andof how organization tap these to ignite innovation.on a modern job without a
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Mark Randall's serial entrepreneurial career conceiving, designing and marketing innovative technology spans nearly 20 years and three successful high-tech start-ups. As Chief Strategist, VP of Creativity at Adobe, Mark Randall is focused on infusing divergent thinking at the software giant. Mark has fielded over a dozen award-winning products which combined have sold over a million units, generated over $100 million in sales and won two Emmy awards. As an innovator, Mark has a dozen U.S. patents, he’s been named to Digital Media Magazine’s “Digital Media 100 and he is one of Streaming Magazine’s “50 Most Influential People.”
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