For years now, Humans have always found ways to use technology to make Life easier, and over the past years we have seen that Innovation trickle into Sports.
Now if you ask the average Man on the Street on how Technology can be used In Sports, the person might talk about the use of Cameras and Video Recorders to help bring the action to those who are not near the field of Play.
The person might also talk about how Social Media has enabled us to get different forms of Live commentary during games.
Football Media Giant Goal.Com makes use of different content like Gifs and Animation to spice up Sport content on their Social Media pages.
What most people are not aware of is that there a lot of technological gadgets which are already being used across different sports that help reduce the time Sportsmen takes in overcoming their flaws.
Today I will be talking about Golfication X, a sports wearable which helps Golf players greatly improve their Swings and overall play.
It makes use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) to monitor game play and give feedback. It has different tools like GPS Rangefinder, Shot Tracker, Swing Analyzer. These combine to give the player precise insights on their Game play.
The Tracker has a unique user experience as it is built to function without taps, manual input or even a smartphone. It enables the player to use it without any form of encumberance.
Kudos to the UX designers of the tracker, a lot of design thinking obviously went into the creation of the product.
Golfication X also comes with a mobile app that enables users to review game analytics, this app is already being used by over 7000 golfers worldwide, to me that's a major validation. To be honest i never knew that there that amount of Golfers in the world.
I guess that it is because the sport is not popular in my own part of the world. However after watching Tiger Woods in my younger days, I rigged up a Golf Course in a Field near my home In Lagos Nigeria.
I convinced my friends to play, we made use of sticks and those hard balls found in the neck or Roll-on's. It was crude but we enjoyed it, and you had to be careful and protect your eyes because the field was sandy.
Talking about technology there are a school of thought that believe that it is doing sports more harm than good. Some believe that it is making sports boring and predictive.
The last World Cup saw people complain about the use of VAR (Video Assistant Referee) to decide controversial on-field decisions. It made referees who used them Scape Goats, a particular referee was tracked to Instagram and angry fans left a lot of curses on his wall
Believe it or not, I believe that technology has a huge role to play, a scorum user @fairlktheweather made a post two days ago where he asked if analytics was ruining the game of Baseball, making it boring.
He also stated claims by some people, that the predictability of the game has made it unappealing to the younger generation. Below is my reply to his post in quotes :
Hello @fairIktheweather
It is not only in baseball that analytics has been accused of ruining the game. In the just concluded World Cup, people complained about the use of VAR(Video Assistant Referee), they claimed it ruined the flow of the game and they argued that it should be discontinued.
However just like VAR, I believe that analytics has its purpose in Baseball. We are living in a world where technology is growing rapidly and it will be Important for use to use it to our advantage.
As regards to the dying passion in the game. The league really need to sit and consider ways to get the attention of the Younger generation.
Without Innovation a product will become irrelevant. Sports is a business, a Product.
Another Scorum user @mikkey made this comment :
This is a fantastic article and topic, and I enjoyed it from start to finish.
I think the argument is silly, and Werth is just upset that he couldn't continue to perform up to the need of the Nationals (or any team). He sounds like someone complaining about computers being used in the workplace taking the jobs of people who aren't needed anymore.
The game of baseball is evolving, and like you said, teams have more information at their disposal, and if they believe Werth won't help them win ball games, then they need to part ways.
I think analytics are great for the game of baseball. It opens up new opportunities for jobs and creates deeper discussions than who can hit the most home runs. I do not watch many games these days because of how busy I am, but I don't think analytics have anything to do with a decline in attendance.
With that said , I believe that technology has a huge role in Sports. It has Improved every area of our lives and I don't think sports should be an exception. So I look forward to seeing more products like Golfication X.
Thanks For Reading
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