The National Football League (NFL) has partnered with Zebra Technologies to deploy its system of MotionWorks RFID chips. Now that the testing phase is over, fans will soon see NFL players sport the chips on their shoulder pads.
How will this wireless technology make football better? For starters, you will be able to see for yourself how swiftly some players are able to run during this season's games with the help of Microsoft's NFL 2015 app for Windows, Surface or the Xbox One.
The NFL will reportedly let people see the data collected by the chips as instant replays, according to a report from Wired. The NFL has decided to clue in fans on the action and so they will be able to see the data stored on the embedded RFID chips as Next Generation Stats and Replays.
Even when at home, viewers will be able to check a player's vector data, which includes the distance and direction of travel along with the player's speed. The NFL 2015 app will give fans a "Next Gen Stats" option, which will display the tracking data of a player.
With the application, the NFL aims to personalize the viewing experience of fans, and also make it more interactive. The customized notifications will be novel in each game and give an added dimension for football lovers who love to assess and analyze the sport.
"We will tie Next Gen Stats into every replay that comes into the Xbox," said Todd Stevens, executive producer at Microsoft. "Replays like a one-yard touchdown run, you don't really need Next Gen Stats. But some of these plays, like a long pass play, are truly spectacular. We wanted to give them a bit of special sauce."
In the past, the NFL has deployed statistics for some broadcasts on television and for internal usage. However, this is the first instance when fans of the NFL will have access to the data in a different place.
The NFL app is set to release this month and will imbibe a notification feature for a new game day, as well as a replay functionality where one can see the same from a wide variety of angles. The NFL 2015 app will be available for Windows 10.
