Representatives from the major sports team unions in North America met last month in New York to discuss the state of sensor technology and its use by teams and leagues.
Representatives of the MLB Players Association, the National Basketball Players Association, the NHL Players’ Association, the NFL Players Association and the MLS Players Union are said to have been present at the meeting.
The meeting took place at the office of law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges in mid-October. Weil has served as outside counsel to North American sports unions over the past three decades and is outside counsel to the NHLPA, NBPA and NFLPA.
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Sensors like this one are used on the field, but others can be used for functions such as sleep monitoring.
Photo by: ZEBRA TECHNOLOGIES CORP.
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Weil partners Bruce Meyer and Jim Quinn declined to comment. But some union officials said the purpose of the meeting was to share information about how technology was being used in their sports and how they could protect players’ rights.
“This train of using sensor technology is moving forward, regardless, and we need to be in a position to establish protection for the use of information,” said Sean Sansiveri, NFLPA vice president of business and legal affairs. “We got everyone together in a room and talked through this issue. It’s being done in a different way in all the sports, but it is still being done. And player protection is the key issue on everyone’s minds.”
Players, teams and leagues are increasingly using sensors in several ways, including enhancing the television experience for viewers and improving performance for players. Requiring players to use the technology in games and practices is a working condition, and therefore a subject of collective bargaining. Yet the four major sports do not have a set standard for how it is used because the technology is so new, and the unions are just beginning to tackle the issue.
“We are going to keep talking about it and looking into it,” MLBPA general counsel Dave Prouty said. “I can’t tell you anything more than that.”
There are benefits to the technology. For example, in the NFL and MLB, clubs are using sensors to monitor players’ sleep patterns and trying to help them sleep better.
“We’re all for that,” Prouty said. “We think … a smart way for players to deal with the stress of the schedule is to have good sleep patterns.”
But unions worry about the collection of so much personal data about their members and how it could be used. Union officials and agents have expressed concern that the information about players’ body functions and speed could be used against them in negotiations for free agents or could be sold or used commercially in some way.
“We are concerned about all of these issues, player privacy, player rights, confidentiality, how information would be used, consent, access to information,” Prouty said.
