You get a tracker. And you get a tracker. Everybody in the NFL games is getting a tracker! Oprah jokes aside, the trend towards big data has made its way to another stats-friendly domain: sports. The National Football League announced today that it is teaming up with Zebra Technology to deploy in-game player tracking chips in 17 stadiums for the 2014 season, effectively generating a myriad of proprietary new statistics in real time.
Two RFID chips will be place on each player’s shoulder pads and will provide various data, including positioning velocity, acceleration, distance run, and impact measurements, to Zebra’s real-time location system (RTLS). This move could transform the way teams and fans evaluate the personal performance of every NFL player, potentially changing the way America watches its favorite sport.
