With the Golden State Warriors having a record setting start to their NBA season, fans have begun to draw comparisons between the Warriors and the Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen-led ’90s Bulls. Aged fans have quickly brushed off the comparison, and while the Warriors might not win six NBA Championships in eight years, there is no doubt that they are comparatively better than that gloried Bulls team.
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The undeniable fact is that every generation of athletes is better than the rest, with their ability to build off of prior generations’ knowledge and with the advent of technology that can take them to higher levels of ability. Wearables have even allowed athletes to scientifically discover their perfect workout and recovery period, so that they can perform better than the best athletes in history before them.
As fans, this can be an absolute treat to watch. Who doesn’t want to see 25 world records set in 34 swimming events, like at the 2008 Beijing Olympics? Or Stephen Curry continuously breaking the single-season record for three-pointers in the NBA?
But, in other sports, this can prove troublesome to keeping viewers entertained. Before his opening match at the Miami Open on Friday, No. 5-ranked Rafael Nadal noted a serious problem with his own sport of tennis.
“The players today are taller than before. The racquets hit the ball harder than before. Same time, it’s true that nothing changed in our sport in terms of rules, how high is the net, everything,” Nadal said to Sky Sports.
He told Sky that because of this there is less rallying, and too often points are just one serve and one shot due to more advanced rackets and stronger players, which is not interesting to watch.
“People get emotional when the points are intense, long. If every time we make that happen less often, it’s obvious our sport can be in trouble for the future,” he said.
It should be noted that Nadal himself epitomizes the bigger, stronger, more athletic tennis player of today’s generation and he does use a connected tennis racket to gain insights on his play.
Just over the weekend, one of the largest tennis brands in the world, Wilson, announced the details of their new Burn FST racket. The science behind it was dedicated towards creating a lighter and stronger racket, as they aim to keep up their competition in making advanced tennis equipment.
“Our athletes need equipment that not only meets, but exceeds, the new speed and power requirements of the modern game,” said Hans-Martin Reh, General Manager of Wilson Racquet Sports.
Even the equipment companies are noting the fast changes to tennis, and their technologic additions to the sport could lead tennis into a financially unstable future, if Nadal’s words end up being true.
At some point, the ATP World Tour may have to make some rule changes, whether that means restricting certain types of rackets, adjusting the net size or court size. Without doing this, Nadal’s fears may be realized and they might lose a considerable amount of their fan base.
Tennis is not the only sport that is taking hits from advancements in technology and athleticism. The NFL has had some trouble lately dealing with sticky receiver gloves that make catching a football seemingly quite a bit easier than with bare hands.
Even recently a group of physics students at the University of Leicester created the formula for the perfect penalty kick in soccer. If penalty kicks were quantifiable, and scored every single time, then the game of soccer would astronomically change and be less exciting.
Technology is moving at such a rapid pace that sports leagues have to be vigilant, and make sure that the sport is losing none of the appeal that it held generations before.
Right now, technology is not an immediate threat to sports as know them. But Nadal is certainly on to something that few seem to give much thought to nowadays; let alone a world-class athlete.
Tech is changing sports.
So while Nadal is certainly on the far end of the ideological spectrum that covers tech in sports, there does need to be a balance kept in mind as athletes and sports are evolving due to technological advances.