Rugby League: GPS Tags for Players

Bradford Bulls players are going to lead the way in Super League by wearing GPS tags during matches that will relay real-time information about their movement and heart rate to coaches. The data could be used to help make substitutions during a match, as well as analysing player fitness and performance afterwards.

Bradford coach Steve McNamara (right) has embraced technology

Apparently the idea came from Aussie Rules Football, and if anything, it is surprising that this has not arrived sooner. One would imagine that many sports will follow suit now that the equipment is so unobtrusive. Expect to see American sports sides, who are never shy of using technology, following this trend, as well as top European football teams and the more advanced Olympic programmes.

Billy Beane (left) is known for his pioneering use of statistics

Assuming sports' governing bodies approve the technology, it makes one wonder where it will go next. How long before coaches in all major sports are reading detailed real-time biological data about their players, not only during matches, but also in training? The potential applications for the sports programmes that can afford it are huge, especially when one bears in mind the large amounts of data already analysed by high-tech organisations such as AC Milan or the RFU. The statistics-obsessed world of baseball has already shown other sports the immense possibilities of proactively using data, most famously in the case of Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane, whose ability to use "Sabermetrics" to make unusual but highly successful decisions based on statistics have made him a legend (and subject of a famous book - "Moneyball", the film adaptation of which seems to have stalled).

It seems that despite the fuss over cricket's referral system, and the lack of goal-line technology in football, as far as technology in sport goes, we have only just seen the beginning.