Concerns about data privacy and clunky wearable technology have held up MLS’s biometric intentions. But with the MLS collective bargaining agreement expiring after this season, Commissioner Don Garber and his fellow league organizers, will have an opportunity to change that. Data from wearables could be used to fuel insights and content across the league.
“If it was up to me, I’d be chipping the players and trying to collect as much data about their movement, about their biometrics so we can make our broadcasts more interesting and ultimately grow our audience,” Garber said. “What could be more exciting than Landon Donovan stepping over a penalty kick and seeing his heart rate?”
The current MLS CBA, inked in February 2015 and expiring in January, states that while the league or teams may require a player to wear “any physiological monitoring device” in connection with training, that player is not required to wear such a device in a game if the player believes using it will impede his performance. SportTechie spoke to several Portland Timbers players last week at a training session ahead of the team’s home-arena season opener and discovered a mix of opinions about wearable technology and the intrusive nature of the hardware.
“A lot of guys actually hate it, to be honest, because it’s very compressing. It’s not very comfortable,” said Zarek Valentin, a 27-year-old Timbers defender from Pennsylvania. “For me, I love it because a lot of times I will ask for the data that shows the distance covered and sprints and stuff because I directly correlate that to how I felt during the game.”
Diego Valeri, one of the star midfielders on the Portland roster, mostly shrugged off the question about how useful he finds wearables data. “Oh the trainer knows more about it,” he said. “They get some data about how many times we accelerate, how hard that is, the heart rate. It’s really hard to put it in stats, but it helps a little bit.”
Most MLS players today wear Catapult GPS and heart-rate-monitoring systems, which hug their chests like sports bras. The data collected is shared with coaching and technical staffs at each respective club to inform training strategies. Some athletes, such as Valentin, seek out data about their performance, while others do not.
Tracking non-intrusively, however, is possible. MLS could seek to mirror tracking systems already implemented across other major U.S. sports leagues. The NBA relies on optical tracking technology provided by Second Spectrum, while the NFL powers its Next-Gen Stats with tiny chips embedded in players’ shoulder pads. Similar tracking systems are planned for the NHL. Next season, sensors will be embedded in NHL player shoulder pads and game pucks, and the league is evaluating optical tracking platforms. MLS Deputy Commissioner Mark Abbott suggested that perhaps, one day, chips could be incorporated into player jerseys.
“As the technology gets better, it’s going to be less of an issue,” he said.
Another challenge, and one that both Garber and Abbott agree represents a bigger concern than hardware, surrounds privacy. The CBA states that the MLS and/or team medical staff may conduct physiological testing through the pre-season and season and, at other times, in connection with training. Such tests may include, “without limitation,” metrics such as heart rate, body fat, VO2 max, omega wave, and urine hydration levels. However, the league and teams are not allowed to share the results of such testing with coaching staffs, technical directors, and other personnel. They’re also barred from public dissemination of such data, unless consented to by the players’ union.
The NFL has been among the most liberal in sharing wearables data. Earlier this year, the NFL released stats showing that Dallas Cowboys running back Ezekiel Elliott hit a top speed of 21.27 miles per hour during a 44-yard run in which he outpaced two defenders. The NFL unlocked much of that data last season when it gave all 32 of its teams access to league-wide numbers for the first time (previously teams could also access wearables data about their own players).
The current CBAs that govern the five biggest U.S. professional leagues barely touch on biometrics. The NFL’s CBA allows the league to require players to wear on-field sensors, though the league must seek the NFL Players Association’s consent before using those for health or medical purposes. The only CBA that specifically mentions wearables is the NBA’s. In 2017, the NBA and National Basketball Players Association negotiated a new collective bargaining agreement that added a provision for tracking devices. The league’s CBA now includes a number of rules intended to protect athletes from the ill effects of wearables, such as banning the use of athlete biometric data in contract negotiations and ensuring wearables usage remains voluntary.
Concerns about how this technology could be taken out of context and used in such a way that it impedes on an athlete’s career and encroaches on their privacy, remain primary drivers of the unions that are protecting those athletes.
“The wearable tech industry is booming. It brings innumerable potential benefits as well as significant data privacy and security risks,” said Joseph Lazzarotti, a Principal at Jackson Lewis P.C., in a recent article in the National Law Review.
But, with those concerns aside, Garber and Abbott are bullish on the possibility of player tracking coming to soccer in the U.S.
“I think there’s a revolution coming for all sports with wearables,” said Abbott. “I don’t know what the time frame is, but I think player-tracking technology is something that’s going to be coming [to the MLS]. Not just for us but for all leagues. And we’re really excited about that.”