The 2015 NFL season officially kicks off on Thursday night which means that football fanatics everywhere can now look forward to Sundays again. This isn't the only thing that football aficionados get to look forward to, though. The Internet of Things has made its way to the NFL, and it's a gamechanger for sports statistics, coaching strategy, and of course, fantasy football.
For the first time ever, each pair of shoulder pads on the field well be equipped with RFID sensors that are about the size of quarter. The sensors will emit unique radio frequencies that are able to communicate with 20 receivers located throughout each of the 31 NFL stadiums. The data generated from these sensors will allow the NFL greatly enhance their apps on Xbox, Windows 10 and other platforms with more powerful, actionable data. The technology will pinpoint a player's position on the field, speed, distance traveled, and acceleration. That's not where it ends, though. The data will be streamlined to broadcasters, in-stadium displays, and fed to coaching staff and players.
The NFL has been piloting the technology since 2013 when 2000 players and 18 of the 31 NFL stadiums were equipped with sensors and receivers. The sensors were also deployed on the officials, yard markers, and pylons. During the 2013 season, over 17,000 plays were measured and more than 1.7 billion sets of XY player coordinates were recorded and stored during games. That's a lot of valuable strategic data.
Here at C|S|S, we've been building software that communicates with hardware and sensors for over a decade, so it's no wonder that we're so thrilled to see the IoT movement establish a presence in America's gridiron pastime.
