Smart mattress maker Sleep Number has announced a new partnership with the NFLPA after securing a deal with the NFL earlier this year.
The company said this expansion in football comes after more than 1,600 NFL players over the past few months opted to redeem offers for a Sleep Number 360 mattress with SleepIQ technology. SleepIQ automatically adjusts a bed’s firmness and tracks metrics to inform users of how well they’re sleeping.
As part of these partnerships, Sleep Number will share aggregate biometric data with the league and players’ association so all three parties can work together to advance player health and wellness.
Sleep Number has long pitched its SleepIQ tech as a way for the NFL to better understand the specific sleep needs of professional football players. The company already coaches teams on how better sleep quality can enhance training, recovery, and performance. Sleep Number will continue to work with the NFLPA, teams and head athletic trainers as players begin to integrate sleep insights into their training and performance regimens. With aggregate data, they’ll be able to provide more granular insights, such as a break down of sleep and performance by position.
“We are able to directly impact the game on and off the field,” said Kevin Brown, Sleep Number’s chief marketing officer, in a statement.
Sleep Number also works with ProFootballFocus, which grades and ranks each player through analytics and stats, to draw correlations between players performance on the field and the way they’re sleeping.
Users can connect third-party devices to the platform, such as Fitbit and Apple Watch, to fuel insights about how their day- and night-time activities affect one another. Sleep Number doesn’t yet partner with Whoop, which also tracks sleep, though Whoop has close ties with the NFLPA.
Gina Scott, vice president of partner services at the NFLPA, said the partnership is a testament to how much the players’ association values quality sleep in relation to performance and recovery.
“The Sleep Number 360 smart bed provides the players highly accurate biometric data and we are excited about the future possibilities to use this aggregated data to improve player performance on and off the field,” she said.
Sleep Number first unveiled the 360 mattress at CES last year. In addition to improving football performance, the company said its technology can help analyze things such as irregular breathing or heart beat patterns.
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