VAR, Humbug!

In June, when IPSOS polled football fans on VAR’s impact on The Premier League, the results weren’t exactly glowing

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Para and Parity: It’s Technically Interesting

As the Olympic excitement shifts to the Paralympics, the hope is that Paris will continue to deliver an amazing competition.

The Olympics are fun but the Paralympics are important. People with disabilities comprise 15% of the world’s population; how society treats them is heavily influenced by how they are portrayed in the media. These games are a significant part of that.

Able-bodied or disabled, the path to a Games is hard, but the lack of parity goes far beyond the physical for para-athletes. It was with this in mind that we decided to create an Adaptive Sports Technology category for The 2025 Sports Technology Awards.

We owe a huge debt to Stef Reid – the celebrated Paralympian, broadcaster, motivational speaker and executive coach – for directing us in how to properly develop this category. Stef recommended the term ‘adaptive sport’ as she felt we should celebrate creativity that eliminate barriers to participate, instead of focusing on elite-level disability.

In the way that science and technology is finding solutions to issues for mainstream athletes, more is needed for their para counterparts. They have myriad specific issues which could be solved – sometimes very easily – with clever tech.

Not least among these is independence and dignity. For example, until Samsung devised the Spanish blind swimming team’s ‘buzzing cap’, telling them when to tumble turn, the preferred method of communication was to tap participants with a stick. Similarly in cricket, a sport outside the Paralympics, blind players had the issue not just of hitting the ball but finding it afterwards. This has been solved magnificently with a sonic ball and tracker.

These are just a few examples of small breakthroughs making a big difference, but much more of this type of innovative tech is needed.

Cost, which is a consideration throughout sports, is even greater for anyone with a disability. For example, while an able-bodied person can go jogging with just a pair of shoes, someone who uses a racing wheelchair is looking at an investment of US$3,750 US$6,250. If you need a running leg, you are looking at US$6,250 to US$32,000.

It is for this reason we will be asking judges to consider impact versus cost when evaluating entries in this new category. Clearly, lower priced adaptive equipment is necessary not just for the elite but for all disabled sportspeople. As in any able-bodied discipline, para-sport needs a robust population of recreational athletes as a pipeline for talent.

The needs of para-athletes should be a source of inspiration to clever minds who like problem-solving. We look forward to celebrating Paralympic success later this month – and then we look forward to celebrating the solutions that supported the heroes of these Games next Spring.

Olympics and Technology

It’s All Kicking Off…

Last Friday and this coming Friday have something in common: the phrase ‘kicking off’. 

Anyone living under a rock – or in China – will have missed one of the most widespread tech outages of all time on Friday 19th July. Far more positively, the Paris 2024 Olympics, aka The Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, kicks off at the end of this week. 

Since Beijing 2008 – the last Games to happen pre-Apple iPad – each Olympics has sought to be the most tech-forward major sporting event… since the last one. This is admirable and worthy but ultimately each major event is more tech-forward than its predecessor. It’s the nature of technology. It moves quickly.

Given last Friday’s salutary lesson in having a robust Plan B in place, the good folk at COJOP (Paris Olympic Organizing Committee) – and, at this point, LAOOC (Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee) – will no doubt be amping up focus on risk mitigation as we speak. As we all found out last week, technology is all very useful and exciting… until it isn’t.  

Having worked in crisis PR for many years, I can safely say the more the crisis is deemed to be the fault of a third party, the more wiggle room you have before people blame you. In this instance, for example,  airlines affected have a grace period in which it is accepted they aren’t the perpetrators of hell-hole airports, missed flights and lost luggage. That said, the bigger the brand, the smaller the window of empathy.  

The IOC has created sport’s biggest brand, essentially based on being the biggest show in town for four weeks every two years. That is a huge, wonderful achievement but one that carries big risks, made even more threatening given how much we all rely on technology. 

Previously, technology in Olympic and Paralympic history was largely perceived as being about performance – stat-citing on Speedo’s LZR Racer, debating ‘blade running’ and seeing how the running shoe arms race is playing out is part of being a sports fan. Now that remote production, ticketing, match officiating, doping processes and more are all innately powered by technology, heaven help the Organizing Committee if they aren’t ready for all the fails that could face them. 

The Olympics and Paralympics are magnificent and create life-long memories for those of us who adore sport, so here’s hoping that the next four weeks are remembered for kicking on, not off.

Athlete Data Ownership – The Jury’s Still Out

news, opinion insights sports technology ATHLETE DATA OWNERSHIP – THE JURY’S STILL OUT

The first of The STA Group’s Great Debate lunches took place in September at the Kia Oval, with 100 delegates from a wide range of sporting bodies present. Here, our MC John Inverdale, summarizes his take on the debate.

This was the first in a series of events focussing on current and, more crucially, future issues that will dominate the sporting landscape.

The issue of ownership of individual athlete data provoked a lively debate – with strong opinions voiced on both sides of the proposition.

How much of what athletes do on the field of play, and away from it in terms of training and/or medical issues, should be in the public domain?  And given the fact that it is ‘their’ data, is it not morally unacceptable for them to not benefit from it financially?

With all sport becoming more tech-centric and data-driven, this debate will be at the heart of all individual, team, sponsorship and media contract negotiations in the coming years. For two hours, the conversation switched this way and that – the main area of agreement being the logistical impracticality of having a pan-sport agreement on athlete data.  Some sports are already ahead of the game – cricket being one – while others have yet to even consider the topic.  

A vote before the debate showed the room split in the subject.  The vote at the end showed the room equally split, even though several people had switched sides!

Therein lies the conundrum.  A reasonable approach from all sides – governing bodies, media outlets, athletes and agents – will be essential to ensure this doesn’t become a hugely divisive subject in the years to come.

Hopefully that is not too much to hope for…..

John Inverdale

A full report of both arguments and discussion points will be sent to members of our LinkedIn group next week. To be sure to receive your copy follow us here.