NFL Players Get Shoulder Pad RFIDs

When it comes to the world of sports, you know for sure that winning plays a very important role, although it is not everything despite what many people think. The pressure to win has led some athletes to take short cuts – such as drugs and match fixing, while those who prefer the old school route would settle for hard work, plenty of training, psychology conditioning, and a little bit of luck when the situation to create history comes knocking on their doors. Technology, too, has helped athletes improve their game. Case in point – 17 NFL stadiums will make use of receivers as well as RFID tags integrated within the player’s shoulder pads in order to track one’s movement.

This is made possible thanks to Zebra Technologies’ location system, where such a configuration offers real-time position data for individual players, offering precise information on details such as acceleration, speed, routes and distance. This will be part of the next generation statistics for fans, and it makes sure that trading cards with statistics printed on them will not be all that useful these days, unless you are a collector.

Referees, too, will be making use of such tags as well, since it will also let the masses check out just how much ground coverage a referee does with each game.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: nfl, rfid