GPS Technology in Sports

4 minute read · Issue Number 69 · May 21st, 2021

May 21, 2021

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Global positioning system — also known as “Gee-pee-ess” — is an accurate worldwide navigation system based on signals from satellites.

A what?!

It’s the technology behind the maps you use while traveling to get to the nearest McDonald’s when you’re hungry.

Today, we’ll learn more about it and its relationship with sports.

Ready? Set. Go!

Global Positioning System (GPS) in Sports

This ‘fairly’ new technology (43 years old) has been increasing in popularity amongst coaches, training staff, and scientists in professional sports for the last ten years.

The main reason?

GPS technology collects TONS of statistics.

These wearables can track almost anything. Distance covered, number of steps, player-load, ball possession, speed, velocity, pace, and so much more.

GPS trackers help soccer teams train smarter - Global Sport Matters — Source

Today, wearable GPS technology gets ‘layered’ with more technologies like accelerometers, magnetometers, and heart rate monitors to record day-to-day outputs from training and competition.

Most GPS tech in sports is developing field sports like football, cricket, hockey, rugby, and soccer.

The benefits?

Clubs can match their outputs to their financial expense on players and protect their investment by improving injury prevention and detection.
Coaches can detect fatigue, identify intensity periods, and detect different activity profiles through reliable reports of movement, velocity, and distance traveled.
Athletes can more accurately distribute and optimize their training outcomes.
Staff members can better organize activity, recovery, training timetables, and log physical activity more efficiently.

The leading companies delivering GPS technology in sports are Catapult, StatSport, Playertek, and GPEXE.

See it in action:

While GPS tech has provided the data to measure, track, and optimize performance, I believe we’re still in the early days of it. Soon, we’ll see tons of new and exciting discoveries in the health and wellness space through layering GPS with other emerging technologies.

Furthermore, the future of GPS analysis will involve even smaller devices, longer battery life, and integration of other sensors to quantify athletes' effort more effectively.

🎙 Halftime Snack of the Week

Digitizing the Athlete-Booking Industry

Daniel is the CEO and co-founder of Engage — a company digitizing booking athletes and talent for events.

They currently work with over 2000 athletes, speakers, and agents, including Terrell Owens, David Ortiz, and Bo Jackson.

In our conversation, we talked about athletes and agents, the booking industry, the challenges of coordinating events, and so much more.

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