Rory McIlroy, NBC Launch GolfNow Compete App to Track Scores, Organize Competitions
By Joe Lemire
NBC Sports Next, the media company’s innovation arm, has released its new GolfNow Compete app with the backing of former world No. 1 player Rory McIlroy. GolfNow Compete tracks scores and organizes both small group competitions and larger virtual tournaments.
While GolfNow is a leading online book app for tee times, Compete aims to enrich the on-course experience. It tracks detailed shot data, and golfers can use their smartphone GPS to get yardages. It also tabulates scoring for a wide variety of games, including Stableford and Nassau, while offering the ability to make virtual wagers.
“That’s the beauty of this game of golf,” McIlroy said during a virtual media session on Wednesday. “It doesn’t matter what age you are. It doesn’t matter your skill level. Anyone can have a good competitive run with any other golfer, regardless of skill level.”
The goal, he added, is to make the sport more fun and accessible through creative games. By automatically compiling leaderboards, GolfNow Compete seeks to enhance, not disrupt, the experience.
“One of the things that I was pretty strong about at the start was, we’re trying to get people away from their phones on the golf course,” McIlroy said. “So it is trying to make this app a companion and not something that takes away from the round of golf.”
NBC Sports Next previously merged GolfNow with TeeOff and acquired RevTechPlus to help clubs improve their revenue generation. It began partnering with McIlroy in 2019 on the launch of GolfPass, a direct-to-consumer subscription offering, which later became part of Peacock.
Barracuda Championship Becomes First PGA Tour Event to Accept Cryptocurrency
By Andrew Cohen
Tickets to this summer’s Barracuda Championship can be bought using cryptocurrency, making it the first PGA Tour event to accept crypto as a payment option. The tournament will be held July 14-17 at Tahoe Mountain Club in California. Fans and sponsors interested in paying with crypto should email [email protected] with “crypto” included in their email’s subject line.
Daily grounds tickets sold on the event’s website cost between $35-$50 USD. Fans can pay for tickets with more than 300 cryptocurrencies, including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Dogecoin. An exclusive VIP experience to the Barracuda Championship can only be bought using crypto. The VIP package will include private hospitality and team participation in the tournament’s Pro-Am. The event will also accept crypto as payment for sponsorship packages.
MLB’s Oakland A’s, the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks and NHL’s San Jose Sharks are among the pro teams to accept cryptocurrency for tickets and merchandise. The Washington Nationals also planned to accept the TerraUSD cryptocurrency at its ballpark next MLB season as part of a sponsorship signed in February, but that now seems unlikely after Terra’s stablecoin recently collapsed in value.
Muhammad Ali Comes to the Metaverse With New Boxing Simulation Game
By Joe Lemire
Muhammad Ali Enterprises has sanctioned a new simulation boxing game that will be played in the metaverse.
Powered by Altered State Machine, a Web3-based artificial intelligence company, and Non-Fungible Labs, a creative design firm, the game will be called “Muhammad Ali — The Next Legends.” Players will need to collect two NFTs, representing physical and mental abilities, to create a boxer whom they can train and compete with to become The Next Legend.
Authentic Brands Group owns Muhammad Ali Enterprises in conjunction with Lonnie Ali, a trustee of the Muhammad Ali Family Trust.
NY Hospital for Special Surgery to Offer Free Injury Prevention Tools, Training App to High Schools
By Andrew Cohen
New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery, the top-ranked orthopedic hospital in the U.S., will provide free injury prevention tools and a training app to 50 high schools as part of its new Move Better Play Better initiative. Applications for the program are open to schools in the U.S. that don’t have a full-time athletic trainer.
In addition to HSS’s new injury prevention training app for coaches, selected schools will access risk factor screenings for student-athletes throughout the 2022-23 school year. Educational workshops for parents, coaches and gym teachers—as well as on-site and virtual support visits from HSS staff—will also be provided. The initiative is part of the HSS Sports Medicine Institute’s Youth Sports Safety Program that was formed in 2016.
HSS clinicians serve as team doctors for the New York Mets, Giants, Knicks and Liberty, and it opened the Brooklyn Nets’ HSS Training Center in 2016. The hospital collaborates with camera-based training and biomechanics analysis systems such as Proteus Motion and Dari Motion. HSS also previously helped design injury risk-reducing footwear in partnership with Sports Engineering, Inc.
MLB has struck a deal with the co-creators of WARdle, the daily MLB player guessing game, to rebrand the online game as MLB Pickle. As part of the new sponsorship and rebrand, MLB Pickle will now be hosted on the free MLB Play mobile app.
WARdle, a nameplay on baseball’s Wins Above Replacement sabermetric, was originally created by young fans Jeremy Frank and Zach Ellis. Frank is a data science major at Purdue University and R&D Intern for the Houston Astros, while Ellis is a computer science graduate from Utah State University. WARdle (now MLB Pickle) gives fans nine chances to identify a player based on figuring out their team, league or division, batting and throwing handedness, native country, age and position.
MLB now joins the NHL as professional leagues to embrace their own spin-off versions of Wordle, the popular social word game acquired by The New York Times for a low seven-figure sum in January. The NHL’s Wordle-inspired Stanley Cupple game was developed by SharpLink Gaming and launched on the league’s site earlier this month. MLB Pickle joins other free-to-play games such as Beat the Streak, Quick Pick and Diamond Derby on the MLB Play app.
PlaySight’s Camera Technology Continues to Ascend, Will Be Utilized at Top Atlanta Tennis Facility
By Tom Friend
The burgeoning Druid Hills tennis center in Atlanta is the latest to implement PlaySight Interactive’s connected-camera technology to boost its coaching and player development.
PlaySight, a subsidiary of Connexa Sports Technologies, Inc., is already deploying its AI video capabilities to almost 100 NCAA tennis programs and is partners with both the Intercollegiate Tennis Association and the USTA’s National Campus.
The Tennis Center at the Druid Hills Golf Club is considered one of the premier tennis facilities in the Georgia region, with seven sub-irrigated clay courts and four hard courts. PlaySight’s AI camera technology will be installed on all 11 courts and utilized for multi-angle coaching, live-streaming and video analysis.
“Our teaching staff [is] thrilled about the cameras and can’t wait to use them,’’ Raphael Rodrigues, tennis director at the Druid Hills Golf Club, said in a statement. “I think PlaySight will give us a competitive advantage where, besides just working on player mechanics, coaches and players can also look at match analysis, including shot selection, court positioning and overall strategy.’’
PlaySight’s video and streaming technology is also used in the NBA, MLB, NHL and at well-known facilities such as IMG Academy, Ripken Baseball and LakePoint Sports.
Ohio State to Study Youth Football Head Impacts With Smart Mouthguards
By Andrew Cohen
Ohio State University’s School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences will lead a study on head impacts in youth tackle football in partnership with sensor technology company Athlete Intelligence. Ohio youth football players ages eight to 12 years old will wear the company’s sensor-embedded Vector Mouthguards to collect data on linear and rotational head accelerations from practices and games.
OSU’s Dr. Jaclyn Caccese will lead the study, which is expected to include between 50 and 80 youth players. The smart mouthguards transfer data in real-time via a small receiver on the field’s sideline. The data can be viewed by coaches via Athlete Intelligence’s web platform that shares data on a head impact’s average g-force, total impacts, and hits to the crown of the head, while providing detailed reports on individual players and position groups.
“Typically, when we work with our research partners, the interest is primarily in the impact waveform data and peak acceleration exports,” Andrew Golden, director of business operations for Athlete Intelligence, said in a statement.
Athlete Intelligence is based in Kirkland, WA, and also develops an impact sensor that attaches to football helmets. The company has more than 25 football teams under contract across the youth, high school and college levels. The NFL has worked with Align Technology and Biocore to create an impact-sensing mouthguard worn by players on 10 NFL and four college teams last season to study concussions.
MLB Increases Focus on Mental Health, Collaborates with Digital Platform Unmind to Support Minor Leaguers
By Tom Friend
Major League Baseball, in an effort to support mental health within its farm systems, has enlisted the cultural-change platform Unmind to “create a psychologically safe’’ environment for minor league players, staff and umpires.
Starting in June, Unmind’s digital wellbeing resources will be made available to MiLB organizations, including access to employee assistance programs and behavioral health professionals. Another digital benefit is self-guided tools for the approximate 7,000 minor league players and 1,300 corporate employees, designed to reduce the stigmas around seeking psychological help.
“Extending…support to our minor league players is vital,’’ Jon Coyles, MLB VP of drug, health and safety programs, said in a statement. “We want to support them not just as athletes but also as people and colleagues.’’
Mythical Games to Launch Blockchain-Based Game With the NFL and NFLPA
By Andrew Cohen
The NFL and NFLPA are partnering with Mythical Games to develop NFL Rivals, a blockchain-based fantasy game that will launch for web and mobile in early 2023. Fans will be able to own and trade NFT collectibles of players and use them to build lineups to compete in fantasy matchups against other users.
OneTeam Partners facilitated the deal on behalf of the NFLPA, which marks the NFL’s first blockchain-enabled video game. A “Rarity League” collection of 3D NFTs for all 32 NFL franchises will be released ahead of the game’s launch. Owners of those NFTs include access to special events and in-game rewards.
“NFTs with utility can add value to players in-game, and we can’t wait to bring these concepts to NFL Rivals to evolve the team management genre by adding the advantages of play-and-own games, offering the community new ways to engage with their favorite teams and players both in and outside this virtual world,” Mythical Games chief creative officer Jamie Jackson said in a statement.
Mythical Games will host the mobile and web-based NFL Rivals on its Mythical Platform, which gaming publishers use to integrate blockchain-based play-to-earn features into their games. NFL Rivals will compliment another NFT-based fantasy football game that the NFLPA will launch with DraftKings ahead of the 2022 season. Skillz will additionally debut a separate mobile NFL game later this year, while the league’s first licensed virtual reality game built by StatusPro will launch on PlayStation VR and Meta Quest in the fall.
Study Finds that Motion Captures for Pitching Biomechanics Are Similar
By Joe Lemire
The American Sports Medicine Institute studied the efficacy of marker-based and marker-less motion capture systems on pitching motions and concluded that both “describe similar biomechanical patterns,” although the systems are better when comparing data collected by the same system than between systems.
The paper is notable given the increasing adoption of marker-less systems, with the American Baseball Biomechanics Society estimating that 70%—21 of 30—MLB clubs now use them. KinaTrax, Simi Motion and Hawk-Eye are the leading enterprise vendors for in-game motion capture, while DARI Motion is one of the other options for off-field settings. Previous research comparing the systems studied less dynamic athletic motions.
ASMI research director Glenn Fleisig was among the co-authors of the new research, which was published in the Sports Biomechanics journal. A cohort of 30 pitchers ranging from youth to professional threw 275 fastballs that were simultaneously assessed at 240 hertz by both Motion Analysis Corporation’s 12-camera, marker-based system and DARI Motion’s nine-camera marker-less solution.
The magnitude of certain metrics—such as the angle of shoulder external rotation—differed between motion capture options but were consistent in evaluating the motions of the same pitcher. The authors noted pitchers would need to establish separate baselines on each system and that, “while there were differences between the data from the two systems, we cannot say the data from one system was more accurate than the other.”
Indianapolis 500 to Provide Seven Distinct Live Angles of Sunday’s Race Through Verizon 5G Technology
By Tom Friend
In what amounts to a 5G Megacast, fans attending this Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 have the ability to watch the race from seven alternative angles through Verizon’s 5G Ultra Wideband technology at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
Meanwhile, viewers at home—through an augmented reality portal called Verizon 5G Ultra Pass—can gain access into the driver pit at the speedway.
A crowd of 300,000 is expected for Sunday’s race, and the seven, live, high-definition camera angles will be available to fans with a 5G capable device—meaning in-venue attendees should have superior viewing options than those watching the NBC telecast.
“With 5G’s Ultra Wideband’s massive capacity, low latency and super-fast speeds, we’re giving racing fans new immersive experiences that will let them personalize how they’re watching the race whether they’re at the track or at home,’’ Srini Kalapala, senior VP of Verizon technology and product development said in a statement. “Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband has the area covered so attendees can stream, tweet and share their experiences quickly and reliably.’’
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