Technology's Effect on Sport Coaching

Technology has made major changes in virtually every part of our lives. In the world of sports, technology has affected just about every aspect of viewing, playing, coaching, refereeing, and working within sports.

Scouting talent has, since the beginning of time, been based on guts, feelings and instincts. Now, through technological precision, scouts have an entire sheet of information on how fast an athlete can run, how high they can jump and how accurate their passing is.

With the rise in wearable technologies, athlete monitoring systems measuring and tracking athletic progress in real time, athletes and coaches can see not only how, but how well their athletes are performing at every point in a workout and or competition. Like a machine, athletes are able to look at a dashboard that shows how their engine is running, and coaches are like their mechanics, fine tuning the engine to perform at its best.

With added technology comes added communication. This includes social media communication with teams or players with their fans, safety communication between players and doctors via wearable technology, and players and coaches via earpiece technology.

Coaches are better able to communicate with everyone in their team at a moment’s notice which can aid in a variety of different ways from training to practices to meetings to games.

Has all these advancements in sporting technology resulted in greater athletes in todays era? With better communication comes more accurate expectations, faster results, safer decision making, and winning outcomes.

The introduction of Virtual reality, with gamification, avatars, and holograms, can help the coaches visualize future scenarios using software such as Pro Real World. This is an approach that is already being used in sports.

AI algorithms can also suggest lines of inquiry based on an analysis of previously recorded conversations or those of other coachees, suitably anonymized.

What can we expect technology to add to sport coaching in the coming years?

Who knows.

Conor Corry

Information Systems

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