Articles
Sample Articles from Bob Wallace.
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Tackling Tech: Can Tech Lift an Upstart Football League?
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- Published on 14 December 2017
With money comes access to tech that can help grow a sports league. Working on a low budget, however, brings financial challenges. Can current staples - the web and apps - help build a league from near scratch?
That's the question for the National Arena League (NAL), which aims to field seven teams for its upcoming second season this spring. The NAL, not to be confused with the Arena Football League (AFL), is literally banking on ticket and merchandise sales, sponsors and a cut of concessions to advance in 2018
Tackling Tech: NFL Teams Embrace Zebra to Elevate Practices, Performance
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- Published on 07 December 2017
When most folks think of player location data collected by the NFL, they likely think of the Next-Gen Stats undertaking for live games. But in the shadow of this high-profile, multi-year league initiative, a growing cadre of clubs are using the same data in systems to optimize practices.
Zebra began putting its tags in NFL players shoulder pads four years ago to track players during games for the primary purpose of gathering data to drive the next generation of stats for NFL fans at home and in the stands.
Tackling Tech: Changing The Pitch to Sports Tech Startups
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- Published on 30 November 2017
When you here a company is planning to shut down a service it offers, you almost automatically think bad news. But upon further review it's often the case that one offering is being closed down so others can grow.
That's the case with pioneering sports tech hub The Pitch which has decided to close down its coworking space for sports tech wannabes next year amid a glut in supply of the high overhead, low profit margin asset.
Tackling Tech: Arena Football League Plans OTT Service
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- Published on 23 November 2017
After 30 years of trying new and different things on the field, in the stands, and occasionally on TV, the Arena Football League (AFL), is going all in on pay live game streaming after a successful trial run of an OTT product and enabling technologies last season.
In just a few weeks the AFL will begin offering fans games for $5.99 a month or $29.99 for the entire season. A partial free option is for fans to watch a weekly game carried by CBS Sports Network as part of a multi-year deal set to expire next year.
Tackling Tech: NFL Teams Address Fatigue Factor
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- Published on 16 November 2017
Sleep has been called the final frontier of sports science. Part of this space has already been explored by a Canadian firm that's using a U.S. Army-developed model and individual data to determine how fatigue affects the performance of elite athletes.
Vancouver-based Fatigue Science has been at it for over a decade, using an algorithm created by the Army and has been working with about a dozen NFL clubs, including the Seattle Seahawks, Houston Texans and Oakland Raiders. Its other pro sports clients include the Dallas Mavericks, Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Penguins, for a total count of 83 sports teams in 10 countries.
Tackling Tech: Colston Moves from NFL Stardom to Driving Athlete Analytics for All
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- Published on 09 November 2017
In his 10-season NFL career as a target for Hall of Fame-bound QB Drew Brees, Saints Star Marques Colston got up close and personal with sports technology, but with annual offseason visits to the operating room for injury repair.
Now, the NFL alum-turned-sports-tech-expert-and-entrepreneur is working to take the (price) pain out of athlete performance management through an upstart that's created an app, wearable and subscription service. The package has been created to bring vital data to the masses, not just elite athletes in the top four U.S. pro sports as many breakthroughs do today.