How the NFL—not the NSA—is impacting data gathering well beyond the gridiron

Update: The NFL returns for its 2019-2020 season this week. And as fans watch all the action as closely as possible, the teams themselves want to do so, too. Back in 2015, Ars got a firsthand look at the work of Zebra Technologies, an enterprise data company that had just started working on more granular player tracking. Ahead of this season, the NFL and Zebra Technologies agreed to extend their partnership through 2021 as nearly a third of the league now utilizes Zebra-gathered data even during practice. So to celebrate kickoff (and allow Ars staff to have some downtime this Labor Day Weekend), we're resurfacing this behind-the-scenes look at what Zebra was doing in San Francisco. This story first appeared on September 13, 2015, and it appears unchanged below.

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—As guards were going so far as to check inside NFL fans' wallets as part of routine security measures before a recent preseason game at Levi's Stadium, a different form of surveillance was taking place on the inside of the San Francisco 49ers' one-year-old, $1.3 billion home here in Silicon Valley.

We're not talking about facial recognition devices, police body cams, or other security measures likely zeroing in on fans. Instead, employees from San Jose-based Zebra Technologies had recently finished scanning the NFL uniforms of the 49ers and of their opponents—the Dallas Cowboys. All of a sudden, an on-the-field de facto surveillance society was instantly created when Zebra techies activated nickel-sized Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID) chips that were fastened inside players' shoulder pads. Every movement of every player now could be monitored within an accuracy level of all but a few inches.

On its surface, this seems pretty innocuous. Cameras already track things like total player movement in sports, allowing teams to better recognize tendencies or gauge the physical toll on players. RFID chips, however, can provide more accurate, more granular information along these lines. The NFL's new real-time player tracking data—including things such as player speed and team formations—undoubtedly promises to reformat the game in terms of fan participation, team practicing methods, and potentially game-time strategy.

There's a larger story playing itself out as well. The league's RFID initiative may push far beyond the gridiron.

That's because this so-called geo-fencing technology has a geekier side, and it will likely recast things like fantasy football, the Microsoft's Xbox One experience, and perhaps even the Madden NFL video game produced by Electronic Arts. What's more, the technology potentially opens up new proposition gambling bets in Las Vegas sports books or other gambling venues. But its most unexpected impact will have nothing to do with sports at all. Fortune 500 companies are watching the NFL closely, examining how they might incorporate the RFID chip to monitor every move of their onsite employees from the construction site, the office, and beyond.

Game day

Starting this week, this is the first NFL season in which all NFL stadiums are outfitted with cigar-box-sized receivers across the venue to triangulate the players' movements. These devices can track the players from up to 1,000 feet away, and at Levi's Stadium, there are 20 of these receivers. Players and the field officials are tracked at least 15 times a second. The technology can even tell which way a player is facing in real time.

For now, the ball isn't being tracked like it was in World Cup soccer matches last year. The NFL test-tracked the pigskin in last year's Pro Bowl (the NFL equivalent of an all-star game), but American football isn't like soccer. If the ball crosses the goal line in soccer, it's a goal. In the NFL, action is dead and spotted wherever the ball is being carried when the ball carrier's knee hits the ground when tackled. So while the NFL has instant replay to help officials, it isn't about to automate or dehumanize the game's officiating any further.

"We're not looking to replace officials with robots," Matt Swensson, the NFL's senior director of emerging technology, told Ars.

According to Zebra, here's the data being tracked in real time:

• Player participation.
• Player groupings.
• Play formation and route running.
• Player speed.
• Player separation from another player.
• Yards player ran in a game, yards run before and after catch, yards run by quarter. Virtually an unlimited variety of relevant distance data in real time.

And here are all the technical specifications (PDF) of Zebra's player tracking system and servers.

"Basically, we can take all of the specifics that are tracked in a game and automate them," Jill Stelfox, a Zebra general manager, told Ars. So in total, 2 to 3 gigs of data are generated per game under the current operation. However, the NFL for the moment is keeping most of the data under lock and key—and won't even disperse it among the league's own teams.

"Right now were still working through the proper distribution model of the data. Were not just handing it over to the clubs to go through," the NFL's Swensson said.

Why keep everything centrally? It's a combination of preparedness and competition. If the data is provided in real time to coaches during a game, that could influence the outcome, Swensson said. Coming up with the appropriate distribution channels and security measures for such a setup will require time and energy, and the NFL isn't ready to go to that stage yet.

"Ultimately, we want the game to be fair and balanced," Swensson said.

NFL teams can take advantage of this surveillance during practice. Only three teams currently do, according to Zebra's Stelfox: the 49ers, Detroit Lions, and New Orleans Saints.

Sean Payton, the Saints' head coach, said it only makes sense to surveil practices via RFID.

"For us it is distance, workload, travel, all of those things. Zebra has been great to work with. We think it is helpful for us to monitor workload," Payton said on the Saints' website. He said he is able "to look for the exceptions when you are studying numbers. You are able to study and see maybe something that is unusual that stands out." For example, Stelfox told us a story about Zebra's technology discovering that running back Reggie Bush, now of the 49ers, was running about 7 to 8 miles per practice.

"Why practice at that level? You can burn out," Stelfox said.

Stelfox showed Ars some of the real-time data generated during last year's Super Bowl on condition that it not be published. Looking through information collected, you could easily determine that when a certain player lined up in a certain spot, he was almost guaranteed to get the ball. So while top-level game film and old-school coaching could catch that, so does the Zebra technology—and it does so instantly.

"It's super valuable data," Stelfox said.

For now, fans watching on television will be some of the primary beneficiaries of the NFL's great data experiment. Broadcasters can instantly get a limited amount of real-time data to provide viewers—like how far and how fast a player ran and the route taken.

But by making even this tiny of a fraction of data public, there are grand implications.

Listing image by Zebra Technologies

Game-related gaming

Primarily, this effect will most quickly be felt digitally—things like Xbox One, wagering, and even fantasy football. The NFL app on Microsoft's Xbox One, for example, will immediately take advantage of what Zebra and the NFL are calling the Next Gen Stats program.

As Polygon describes the app on the Xbox One:

The app will pair replays with virtual overlays that allow users of the NFL app to see exactly how a play went down, from the snap to the whistle. All 22 players on the field are represented with icons indicating their position, and lines show the paths of key participants in the play. The replay plays in a small window in the upper right corner of the screen, and the virtual diagram of the play animates along with the video.

The app will rank players in a so-called "Afterburner" category that details the fastest players of the week. There's also going to be a "Scrambler" category that tracks how many yards quarterbacks run around before throwing passes. Users of the NFL app will get to vote, for example, on who they think will be the fastest player of the week. And Xbox One users can then win prizes. This year, the top weekly pickers can win memorabilia and possibly a trip to the Super Bowl—the NFL's championship game.

The NFL's RFID influence won't necessarily end there. Going forward, Electronic Arts, which produces the popular Madden NFL video game, is mulling whether Zebra's data would be useful for future iterations of the video game. For example, the game's infamous player ratings could have even better data to grow from. Brad Hildebrand, an EA spokesman, told Ars in an e-mail that "we're always interested in advances like this and will definitely be keeping our eyes on it moving forward."

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