Technology in Sports

Overview

People have been engaging in sports for thousands of years. However, unlike the high-tech, billion-dollar, industrialized sports of today, the first sports were almost certainly very simple. Even early humans may have competed to run the fastest or jump the highest. Sports may have been a way to have fun, prove physical dominance, or practice for hunting or warfare. Simple games may have involved basic activities such as swimming or throwing rocks or sticks. Because these games required no equipment or used only basic items picked up from the natural environment, little clear evidence of sporting activity exists in early humans’ archaeological record.

Ancient civilizations in China and Egypt, among others, have yielded some examples of purposefully crafted, dedicated sporting equipment. Most common among these items are balls, ranging in size and material. Archaeologists believe different balls may have factored into games involving throwing, kicking, or striking with sticks, much like the ball sports of modern times.

Game equipment was likely the first step in the development of sports technology. Over time and between cultures, even the simple technology of the ball became varied and specialized. People made balls in the way that best suited the resources they had available and the games they intended to play. Some balls were large animal-skin spheres suited for games like modern soccer. Others were smaller rubber balls that allowed athletes to play tennis-like games, or games such as lacrosse that required players to catch and throw balls with hand-held nets.

Modern specialized balls such as footballs and baseballs developed over periods of experimentation and regulation. For example, prior to the 1850s, baseballs were made of hard cores covered with string, then coated in leather. They might have varied in size and weight. By 1872, the popularization of baseball in the United States and elsewhere led to more specific guidelines as to the size, shape, and construction of baseballs. That would allow all baseball players to be evaluated and compared more fairly.

The evolution of ball sports largely ran parallel to the creation of sticks, bats, and clubs that could be used to hit the balls. The first such implements were most likely natural tree branches that were snatched from the ground before an impromptu game. Early golfers in the 1500s generally whittled clubs out of pieces of wood. Only about three hundred years later were golf clubs mass-produced and subjected to specific requirements and regulations. Similarly, baseball bats were handmade and largely unregulated until the 1860s. In the coming decades, sports organizers set out the acceptable materials and official dimensions for a regulation bat.

In some cultures, sports became so important that people set up special facilities for them. In ancient and early modern Mesoamerica, many cultures engaged in a ball game rooted in the legends and mythologies of the region. Many cities included specially designed ball courts and other architecture meant for hosting and controlling these games. Historians believe the games—which may have been used as a means of divination or even determined which competitors would be chosen for human sacrifices—drew many spectators and much speculation.

Other important strides in sports technology involved developments in protective clothing and other safety equipment for athletes. The first sports were likely quite dangerous yet offered few protections to participants. In the ancient Olympic Games, many athletes performed naked. However, later athletes and organizers saw the value in protecting athletes’ health and well-being. Some of the earliest protective equipment involved forms of padding. The padding was meant to deflect the force of errant balls, pucks, or other sport projectiles. It could also help athletes avoid injuries from falls or collisions.

Some of the most famous protective padding developed around the sport of ice hockey, where it helped to protect athletes from the dangerous game as well as keep them warm in frigid temperatures. Early football players used minimal protective equipment until the toll of injuries, particularly to the head, became more evident. At that time, leather and then hard plastic helmets became the accepted norm and helped protect thousands of players from cranial trauma.

Other wearable sports equipment was meant not primarily for safety, but to boost athletic performance. In the 1920s, sportswear designers popularized spiked shoe soles, which would give runners and other field athletes increased traction. Later, designers would create increasingly well-engineered shoes customized for different sports. Basketball shoes, for instance, are designed to support the feet of fast-moving athletes and grip the hard surfaces of gym floors and outdoor parks to increase stability.

In many cases, revolutionary materials boost athletic performance. For example, the invention of nylon in the 1950s and Lycra in the 1980s forever changed swimsuit design thanks to their waterproofness and tight-fitting qualities. Similarly, traditional clothing absorbs sweat. New technologies in the 2000s have produced clothing materials that help sweat evaporate, a natural cooling process that can make athletes feel (and look) better during grueling events.

Not all forms of sports technology focus on the competitions themselves. Many instead seek to help athletes in their training and preparation. Simple equipment of the past, such as braces and belts, have helped athletes avoid injury during weight training. Modern training technology largely relies on digital devices that monitor or even seek to improve athletic performance.

Devices and even specialized apparel of the twenty-first century monitors an athlete’s vital signs during training. It can measure the breathing and heart rate of an athlete to ensure they are within healthy limits. It can even evaluate the athlete’s posture and motions to help find optimal ways of moving. Many popular digital devices can tally the distance a person covers, or footsteps a person takes, during a given period. This can help athletes and other active people reach fitness goals and analyze their progress. More advanced devices analyze an athlete’s brainwaves to determine how that individual reacts to different stimuli.

Technology may also deal with the medical science of sports. Breakthroughs in healthcare technology can help injured athletes recover more quickly and completely than past medical procedures. Other technologies may analyze athletes’ performance to identify ways to guard against potential injuries before they occur. Major advances have also occurred in technologies that allow athletes with disabilities to compete. Runners may find great success even if one or both of their legs are missing, thanks to high-tech racing prosthetics. Athletes with disabilities may use specially designed wheelchairs for racing. These innovations have allowed many more people to participate in athletics than in previous generations.

Perhaps the most advanced aspect of modern sports technology does not involve the athletes at all. Rather, it involves how sporting contests are recorded, viewed, analyzed, marketed, and broadcast to viewers around the world. Sports in the twenty-first century is a global industry, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and attracting often-passionate attention from millions of fans. Sports organizers have invested huge amounts of time, money, and invention into capturing major sports events in highly detailed video footage.

This filmed footage can allow fans in attendance to watch, via large screens, fine details of a game that may otherwise be obscured. Footage may be broadcast to at-home viewers around the world nearly instantaneously, giving them the sense of attending the event in person and in real time. The use of drones, high-definition photography, and streaming online platforms can provide fans with only the highest quality of visual information, as well as statistics, interviews, analysis, and much more.

In addition, footage may prove valuable to the athletes and organizers themselves. For example, hotly contested races may end with runners seemingly next to one another, making it nearly impossible to fairly call a winner by conventional means. Studying video or photographs of the finish can allow judges to determine whether one athlete had won, even by a fraction of an inch. Similarly, athletes such as martial artists often study tapes of their own performances or those of upcoming rivals to identify potential strengths and weaknesses, helping to guide and refine their training and preparation.

Similar communications technologies have changed the sporting experience in many other ways. For example, organizers can employ advanced meteorological reports to determine what weather to prepare for or prepare for possible weather-related delays. Athletes may use social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to reach old and new fans and showcase their ideas, goals, and accomplishments. Fans may also benefit from many digital services, such as online ticket purchasing apps that allow sports spectators to pick their own seats at a stadium instantly, avoiding long ticket lines or ticket scalpers who attempt to resell tickets for elevated prices.

Applications

Technology in sports is more advanced than ever, and likely more advanced than prior generations of athletes could have imagined. It encompasses nearly every aspect of sports, from training to practice to informal games to international competitions. Technology has impacted equipment, clothing, and all manner of devices used in sports contests. This technology has deep historical roots and developed over centuries alongside huge strides in modern science. It also reflects the enduring love of many people for sports, and the emphasis many cultures place on athletes and their achievements.

Athletes, experts, and fans largely embrace new sporting technology for the tremendous benefits it may offer players and their games. Top-level innovations in equipment can increase player performance and make games more exciting. Safety equipment can help to protect athletes in even the most dangerous of sports and avoid the risk of short- and long-term physical, mental, and emotional damage. Technology employed in training can perfect athletes’ preparations for their chosen sport and keep them from wasting time or risking injury with the wrong workouts.

Many aspects of sports technology may make athletic contests fairer. It may help to determine the results of ambiguous moments in a game or even the conclusion of an entire event. For example, sports events filmed from many perspectives can help to determine the true winner of a neck-to-neck race. Replays can determine whether a harmful move was an accident or an intentional foul. Another aspect of fairness relates to the experiences of athletes with disabilities and other differences. Thanks to adaptive technology, these athletes may be able to overcome their personal challenges and participate in events with great success.

Technology has also been hugely impactful on spreading the popularity of sports. At one time, sporting events were limited to people who could be physically present. In modern times, a sports fan may follow game results on the other side of the world with a delay of milliseconds. The accessibility of sport footage and related information has helped to create highly passionate communities of sports fans. It has also vastly increased the profits of many athletes and sports leagues. An athlete in the spotlight could become a multimillionaire overnight thanks to technological exposure.

Issues

Technology has been applied to sports since ancient times, and this practice has shown no sign of stopping. Rather, it seems to be increasing. In the future, technology may play an even greater role in preparing athletes for their chosen sports and heightening their performance to maximum levels. For example, new devices may analyze athlete’s brainwaves to determine how and when reflexes kick in, and how to increase the speed of thought processing and reaction time.

While many hail this as a major human accomplishment, others have cast doubt on the practice. Critics of technology in sports have suggested that focusing on science can reduce the focus on athleticism. A sub-par athlete may be heightened to superhuman levels thanks to the application of technology. This skews the balance of judgment and clouds the ability to assess athletes in a fair and standardized way. Technology may also afford arguably unfair advantages to those athletes in developed nations with greater access to high-tech assistance.

Many sporting organizations work to monitor new technologies and determine which are, or are not, acceptable. Experts must draw fine distinctions between tools, adaptations, and supplements that support natural athletic ability versus those that provide synthetic boosts to performance. Sometimes, abrupt changes in regulations may mean that athletes in one event have advantages or disadvantages compared to athletes in a prior event, making it difficult to judge which athlete is truly the best.

This controversy often arises in the realm of chemical use by athletes. In the twenty-first century, athletes may have access to thousands of supplements meant to help them in their fitness goals, such as losing weight, building muscle, increasing endurance, or lessening recovery periods between workouts. Many basic supplements are widely accepted and used, such as protein powder. Others use much more advanced chemistry meant to change an athlete in more profound ways. Many of these substances, such as steroids, have been declared unacceptable by sporting organizations for giving some athletes an unnatural, and unfair, advantage over others. Some performance-enhancing substances have even proven to be potentially hazardous to those who take them.

About the Author

Mark Dziak is a Pennsylvania-based writer. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in English from King’s College in Wilkes-Barre, PA, in 2003, and completed a secondary education program there in 2011. He has worked at Northeast Editing, Inc., since 2004. As a content developer, he has researched and written hundreds of educational articles, test items, and other resources on a wide variety of social science topics. In his spare time, Dziak has also published numerous works of nonfiction and fiction.

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