For 30 plus years and now a few more after being pulled out of a relaxing, yet short-lived retirement, Raphael Feldman has been pioneering his way to the top of the athlete tracking industry.
Holding a number of patents in the realm of real-time locating systems as well as radio frequency identification technologies, the CEO of SysGen and his company have recently dedicated their time to helping implement these up-and-coming technologies into the sports arena, an industry that is experiencing a handful of major changes in a short amount of time.
“I’m seeing a major paradigm shift now in the tracking industry,” said Feldman. “It’s the fusion of metabolic data collection and positional data collection to yield the most advanced analytics and predictive modeling that will be used by a number of stakeholders; those stakeholders being the leagues, the teams, the broadcasters, and most importantly, the fans.”
In addition to already being able to monitor heart rates, heart rate variability, oxygenation levels in the blood and the blood pressure readings of athletes exerting their energy on the field of play, some hot ticket technological advancements will soon be added to the already massive stockpile of gadgets and algorithms.
“There is a new technology that is arising,” said Feldman. “It’s a patch technology as opposed to a shirt or some other kind of device worn on the human body. This is like a band-aid.”
When worn by an athlete, this band-aid like device yields in-depth information about an athlete’s acceleration, deceleration, recovery rates, hydration levels and even sleep patterns.
As broad as the sports industry is however, athletes are not the only beneficiaries of these game-changing technological upgrades. Once the leagues determine how to work with the data being collected, Feldman believes that coaches will be able to keenly monitor almost every aspect of a player’s performance during practice, dissect and exploit matchups during the heat of the battle, and keep their athletes as fresh as possible with the aid of all-encompassing health monitors all because of this positional and metabolic data yielded by tracking.
But at the end of the day, it’s the largest stakeholder group, the fans, which will come to benefit the most.
As Smart TV capabilities continue to expand, the sports technology industry is on track to transform the way fans watch games. In the future, Feldman believes that fans will be able to pick out certain players on the field and monitor their every move, whether that includes gaining access to an exhaustive list of individual statistics or, for example, monitoring a cornerback’s acceleration and closing speed to a wide receiver. The unthinkable may soon become a reality for fantasy football enthusiasts looking to get a leg up in their league or even just a casual fan looking to get more out of their fan experience.
“That’s the future because the fans really want to see this data,” said Feldman.
In order for everyone to get the most out of the data-laden mine that exists in the sports world courtesy of these technological innovations that are being developed across the world, Feldman has one simple request.
“I think the next step must be a symposium of sorts where a leading authority from the broadcasters, from the leagues, somebody from the teams, gather in a room and present an open debate on the use of this technology during game day,” he said.
The treasure trove of data is out there. Now, it’s a matter of granting coaches access to this information during the heat of a competitive match so that they can make well-informed decisions to not only keep players safe, but also to make for a more entertaining spectacle for those watching.
“The fans would be the biggest beneficiary of all,” said Feldman.
