Solving the Biggest Problem in Sport
- Niall-Lee
- Mar 1, 2020
- 3 min read
Updated: Mar 30, 2020
Injuries. The eternal thorn in the side of all professional sports organisations, and perhaps the source of the most unnecessary loss of revenue in sports.
For decades injuries in sport have been a constant problem but were seen as largely unavoidable. New sports technology companies are seeing massive potential in injury recognition and prevention tools, begging the question:
Do injuries have to come hand in hand with sport?
With player salaries across all the major sports increasing year on year, the financial impact of injuries is more important than ever. Without change, the burden of injuries could make professional sports unprofitable.
Forbes estimated that on average in 2015, football teams across Europe’s top four leagues paid out $12.4M to injured players (Abotel, 2015).
In the NFL over $500M was spent on injured players last year (Walker, 2020).
Major League baseball teams paid out over a billion dollars in salaries to injured players in 2016. And considering that last year saw the Yankees injury reserve peak at 29 players, a MLB record (Axisa, 2019), injuries have never been a bigger issue.
Injury to a team’s star player not only weakens the team, but squanders money from the player payroll. The signing of Kevin Durant gave Brooklyn Nets fans a desperately needed confidence boost as they continued their quest for a championship. That is until he suffered a torn achilles tendon in game five of the 2019 finals and faced a year on the sidelines. Durant’s $37M guaranteed salary accounts for almost a third of the Net’s 22 man total payroll and therefore, unsurprisingly, his injury may leave Nets fans waiting a little longer for that chip (Basketball Reference, 2020). Sorry Nets fans.
The Solution:
An exciting, Australian based start-up may just have the answer for injury-ridden organisations. Catapult Sports have developed a series of wearable technologies with the goal of optimising performance and minimising injuries. By monitoring athlete workload and looking for early signs of soft tissue damage the tool allows for injuries to be recognised before major damage is done.
The proof is in the pudding. In 2012 The Toronto Raptors finished 11th in the East and suffered more injuries than any other team in the league. After only two years using Catapult injury prevention tools the Raptors finished 3rd in the East and boasted the lowest injury rate in the league (Kamenetzky, 2014).
“The ability to have all our data, information and planning tools in one platform will mean we can better understand and manage student athlete health and wellness insights.”
Kenny Boyd - Senior Associate Director for Student-Athlete Health & Wellness
The Raptor's revival was aided by the scrutinous eye of technology. Using Catapult's wearable injury detection monitors team doctors were able to detect players that were particularly susceptible to injury. The devices revealed that some players were involuntarily placing excess weight on one leg due to unknown injuries. Furthermore, coaches recognised that their training drills placed too much emphasis on forward movement, far more so than the amount of forward movement needed during games.
German tech giants SAP are looking to storm the sports technology industry. Their Injury Risk Monitor (IRM) concept analyses big data and provides a comprehensive profile on an athlete's injury potential (Charlton, 2015).
The IRM takes into consideration a players performance on fitness tests, diet, time since last injury and recovery history. A players injury likelihood can then be generated for the next game, allowing coaches to rest injury prone players and prevent long term damage.
We are undoubtedly witnessing the information age of sports. Injury prevention and detection technologies offer the opportunity for athletes to spend less time than ever on injury reserve. What's not to like, the chance to see your favourite athletes more often and better conditioned than ever?
Provided the industry continues to improve the size, accuracy, durability, and reliability of their products the influence of injury prevention technologies is sure to increase, whether we know it or not.
https://www.basketball-reference.com/contracts/BRK.html - Basketball Reference
https://www.concordmonitor.com/AP-analysis-NFL-teams-lost-over-$500M-to-injuries-in-2019-32318397 - Walker
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