In 2001, the first edition of one of the most outstanding sporting events on the international calendar was held in Madrid: the Mutual Madrid Open de Tunis. Since then, every May the city of Madrid hosts a tournament characterized by its commitment to innovation, and which in its 2018 edition hosted the first edition of the Sport, Business & Management Forum. The forum was organized by the ICBM (Center for Sports Business Management), and in this first edition, the theme chosen to articulate the different presentations that were held was to address how technology is affecting the sports industry.
As a member of the scum,
I had the opportunity to inaugurate this Forum by giving a speech in which I tried to frame the main vectors of development that technology is influencing, and through this article I intend to highlight the main ideas of said presentation.
It is true that the association between technology and sport is nothing new. Since the beginning of the last century, sport has become more technical in a double direction: the improvement of 해외스포츠중계 performance and the enrichment of the experience for the spectator. However, as in many other areas, this modernization has accelerated dramatically in recent years. To such an extent that the growth of companies dedicated to technology applied to sport has multiplied by 3 in recent years, reaching an investment figure of 1,000 million euros in sports technology in 2017. As in many other sectors of activity, it is clear that digitization is acting as a true catalyst.
What are the vectors around which all this investment
in the development of technology applied to sport is being channeled? Traditionally, the application of technology to sport has been articulated around four main pillars: the analysis and control of the game (pursuing an improvement in sports performance); audiovisual media; the search for entertainment alternatives within the stadiums; and improved interaction with fans. And while it is true that new devices and tools have been incorporated, these four vectors continue to mark the path of technological development in sport in the age of digitization.
In the field of game analysis and control,
Tracking systems for the individual performance of athletes through GPS and wearable technologies allow technical teams to instantly manage precise information about the performance of athletes, so that coaches they can use all this information in their decision making. But in addition, when this information is also made available to other players in the high-competition sports ecosystem (such as leagues and the media), other areas of use arise that are marked by the development of television broadcasts, for example.
