Clemson quarterback Trevor Lawrence likely had a high Player Impact Rating in last season’s College Football Playoff Championship. He was named the offensive MVP. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Tuesday, Aug. 20, 2019 – A roundup of some of the key sports technology stories you need to know, including SportTechie’s own content and stories from around the web.
- ESPN has launched a Player Impact Rating system for the upcoming college football season in partnership with PlayStation. The new metric evaluates the impact of every college football player relative to their position by tracking team success when a player is on-field versus when they are not, and attempts to adjust for the skill of their teammates and opponents on each play. Ratings will be updated weekly and the metric will be used throughout ESPN’s cross-platform college football game and studio coverage. “The Player Impact Rating is a more in-depth, comprehensive plus/minus rating specifically for college football,” said Matt Morris, ESPN’s associate director of sports analytics.
- Google Arts & Culture has uploaded hundreds of high-resolution scans from cricket history to an online exhibition on Australian sport. The scans are part of the Australia: Great Sporting Land site that launched today. The experience includes video tours of the Bradman Museum at the International Cricket Hall of Fame. Viewers can see historical bats, as well as an inside look at the Sydney Cricket Ground’s away changing room. Google linked with 30 Australian partners to create the digital sports experience, including Cricket Australia, Tennis Australia, and Rugby Australia.
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- Free live streaming service Pluto TV has launched a new NFL channel to house archival content. Programming will include past seasons of HBO’s Hard Knocks series, team-specific season recaps from previous years, and replays of classic NFL matchups. The NFL channel will be occasionally refreshed with new content including NFL Network’s season ranking of the top 100 players, recaps, previews and press conferences. Pluto TV is owned by Viacom, which recently merged with CBS to form a new company named ViacomCBS.
- Singapore-based cryptocurrency exchange GCOX has become the first cryptocurrency sponsor of La Liga. The agreement covers Asia and the Middle East. La Liga digital tokens will now be created alongside other celebrity and brand tokens on the GCOX platform. La Liga token holders will have opportunities to attend training sessions in Spain, VIP access to La Liga matches and meet and greet sessions, as well as events hosted by the Spanish soccer league in Asia.
- The Champions Hockey League has partnered with fan engagement platform Pico for the upcoming European ice hockey season. According to Pico, the software platform helps organizations build identifiable customer profiles on fans. “The fact that Pico’s technology will help us elevate their experience and enable us to present them with better and more targeted content and offerings was one of the great reasons we partnered,” said Monika Reinhard, communication and digital media director for the CHL, in a press release.
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