Technology in Sports Essay Example for Free

Technology in Sports Essay Technology in sports has been a calling topic for sometime. When will the technology get us at our least expected moment? With the resources we have today supporting each and every game why can’t the process be sped up. Technology in sports is essential to the day and age of performance for athletes. With it making the game easier to play for some individuals with disabilities is huge help. With making the People perform as well as others. Without technology in sports, the games wouldn’t be enjoyed as well as they are. Technology in most professional sports has been using instant replay to assist the referees and umpires. Football has been using instant replay for any certain occasion and basketball referees use the instant replays to make sure the time is right for each game. Disputed plays in professional sports have made fans go insane for yeas. Now with the technology, different sports are engaging in the instant replay such as soccer with the goal line technology. When getting the wrong decision by the referees they need something to determine the right factor. Some people have there other side to instant replay; HD replay serves as a judge to the most of the sports referees such as baseball and basketball. With more television coverage to capture more images to overturn a certain play, people will be enjoying more of the game rather than arguing with each other. Now with YouTube and other video websites, it makes it easier for fans to criticize the league or umpires, an embarrassing fact. â€Å"Bad Calls don’t blow games, only bad plays† (Sharp 2009) coming from Drew Sharp a sports writer for the USA Today. He is saying that pointing the finger at someone else not on the playing field will not help out any of the sports. The public harping on the referees to make better calls is just at its own judgment for the leagues. â€Å"Ask any coach and he’ll tell you–never put yourself at the mercy of an official’s error† (Sharp 2009). Replays blow a lot of games and makes life or death for any sports team (Sharp 2009). Sports technology is getting factored into so many different sports and one of the biggest sporting events every two years is the Olympics. Advances in the each one of the sports that is held in the Olympics, like how the tennis racket is constructed or in 2016 when golf will debut in the Olympics they will either have to decide if the USGA or R and A will be determining the clubs allowed to be used or what type of golf balls will be used, each golf brand has over twenty different specs for each ball or club, some legal and some not. This could be a cause for some athletes to get a head of the other competitors. The Olympic committee is investigating on weather to allow the technological advances that the modern amateur player is getting (Tenaska 2013). When the new athletes are coming from the bottom with the highest technological advanced gear and not being able to use it in the Olympics, such as a new bike frame will be 25% percent lighter than the older one. How will the Olympic committee determine it? (Tenaska 2013) Testing in sports has always been looked at for statistics and features not seen by the average person. Putting athletes on a computer and showing their results on a computer screen rather than a field changes a lot of perspectives toward an individual. The IT process of technology with sports determines the tests and the essential element of resources demanded for the technology to rise. Computer technology has dealt with change for any sport that’s looking for a technological advance. With out computers the sports industry would have a hard time developing new ideas and equipment to make the sport either easier or harder to play. (IT Sports Journal) With involving computers in technology, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers are picking up on the technology end. They are not taking break on or off the practice field. The organization purchased iPads to use instead of their standard playbook. They no longer to need luge around a paper binder or DVDs to practice or home since the iPad has all of the software on it. While the NFL still has restrictions on how tablets can be use, these devices are changing the way the pro teams practice and communicate. General Manager Mark Dominik says â€Å"It was a smashing success for our players. They Loved it,† â€Å"We’re going green† While the technology is evolving for professional sports team. The Bucs and Ravens are the only teams with this technology in the NFL to have these capabilities with computer tablets. The coaches from the Bucs say they believe it has helped their study habits for learning plays, plus the overall motivation shown just by giving them a little of technology (Couwels 2011). The Australian race has always a top-performing nation around the world. Despite having a smaller population, Australians love to be outdoors and can be set up to be great athletes and dominate their favorite sports. The coaches trained Australian athletes in the later part of the 20th century, now athletes can be put on a computer and given an analysis to show how well they are performing. With technology advancing, the coach’s job is getting very easy as in goes on. Besides giving the mental game back to the athlete the coaching is just by analyzing stats. Each study is designed to look at different aspects of the athlete and give them feedback on how well they are performing. (James) Through out the history of sports technology it has been an aspect to the athletes. A few historical events in sports history have made the outcomes of todays sports a lot easier to judge and easier to participate in. In 1888 the first photo finish was introduced and changed the judging of the finish line in a race or any sporting event dealing with time (Boston Globe 2013). Electric Scoring in 1936 was an automated officiating for fencing judges and detecting the most accurate touches by a split second (Boston Globe 2013). A huge interesting fact was in 1957 a Michigan physics professor developed touch pads for swimming used for times and lapping. The most accurate technology ever to be put in swimming and still used today (Boston Globe 2013). These types of technology have been an impact on everyone in the sports world. Including more and more technological advances to be determined by the future of our society. Athletes today are getting the full research and statistics for their lives as high performing athlete. With eating better and the right workouts they’re getting stronger and performing at a higher rate of fire. The gear the athlete’s use is constantly getting better and the old records that were set back in the day is getting broken. Cycling, tennis and swimming are a top three where technology is advancing. Cycling, includes lighter bikes and easier to get up tougher terrain in the mountains that professional bikers are competing on. Swimmers are using computer forensics and getting better feedback on how they are performing in the pool. Tennis is the biggest aspect of technology advancing with the racket or the ball getting lighter to get it moving at higher speeds. The average for the tennis ball speed at the ATP is over 120 mph (Bulchadani 2011). This comes from a long way from the early days with out research or technology to make tennis more fun to watch and perform at a higher level. (Bulchadani 2011) In the 1970’s wood bats were getting out dated, and the baseball world wanted more action out of it. Showing how technology was advancing and more people were interested in the research of the baseball bat. The aluminum baseball bat averaged 3. 85 mph faster. The study was conducted from six highly skilled college baseball players. They hit more than a dozen batting practice sessions. Each individual hit five balls and switched bats. The average ball speed for line drives was 56. 6 mph. (Russell 2006) Each player collected 30 line drives and the line average line drive speed for wood bat was 88. 7 and the aluminum bat was 92. 5 mph. (Russell 2006) The performance metric from the each of these tests was shown that it is a four mph difference between the bats. A study was done in 1989 with a stationary test (no swing) and it showed that wood and aluminum bats were the same, but did not bring into the effect of the velocity of the hitter swinging the bat (Russell 2006). With the results generated from these two studies it shows that metal bats do out perform wood bats. Though with the controversy the Major League Baseball has kept the wood bats in order to keep the safety protocol. With injuries and players breaking records to easily they will protect the game for a long period of time (Russell 2006) (Crisco-Greenwald Batting Cage study 2002). Sports technology shows that we are in another world for sports revolution, not just on professional athletes and trainers but on the technology used in equipment, facilities, judging and recording devices (Smith 2012). The new technology includes golf balls and clubs, soccer balls, shoes, racecars and many more. Technology also uses a different in approach of training, tests that determine muscle fibers and the strengths and weaknesses of the body all put on one little computer screen. The diet of an athlete is carefully examined and the nature of the game is still kept in tact. Giving thanks to technology more and more people are enabled to play many sports than ever before. Technology involves a lot of research and time. With out sports technology some sports may have never been evolved such as golf with the evolving clubs and baseball with the research of metal bats. With the resources given to use we should se more technological advances in this day and age. Sports Technology has been constantly getting better and knowing the differences between each sport and how they perform will distinguish the manner it will be investigated in. The technology advanced into research will become a higher part of the resources used to make sports better.