Technology and sport form a combination that, over time, has always shown a harmony unparalleled. Technological progress, whatever its nature, has always had an important impact on sports, leading to often unpredictable changes: after all, just think about the growing interest in data. Statistics have always been a fundamental aspect in sports: average scores and different kinds of statistics enjoy the most attention even in technological contexts, for example with digital assistants or even on sports betting sites such as Unibet Italia, where they are essential for users. The ability to consult and analyze the growing amount of statistical data provided by software or processed online is just one of the many examples that can be made of the importance of technology in sports.
It was from the world of data and statistics, as well as their scientific analysis, that the first example of a revolution in football, called the Moneyball Method, emerged. First implemented in baseball, as shown in the 2011 film of the same name starring Brad Pitt, the method involves the use of an algorithm capable of analyzing data and statistics, providing useful information, for example, to determine the profiles of functional athletes, so that a given game scheme using it relative obscurity and, as a result, a lower cost of the card. After the data-driven method proved to be a winning strategy in Stars and Stripes baseball, it appeared in Serie A after AC Milan became the new American owner: through the flag of the Rossoneri like Paolo Maldini, the strategy which were replaced by the algorithm itself.
In other situations, technology is able to bring such changes to the sport that it is necessary to take a step back: this is exactly what happened in the world of swimming, with several cases that are clearly indicative from this point of view. It can be argued that, of all sports, swimming, the leading Italian discipline, seems to leave little room for technology; there is nothing more wrong, because every aspect can be enhanced by new technical discoveries: even a simple swimsuit. In the 2000s, research into technical fabrics led to the creation of high-performance swimsuits designed specifically for competitive athletes: by covering a large surface area of the swimmer’s body and using special materials, they were able to increase buoyancy and reduce water resistance, effectively allowing unparalleled benefits for athletes. Between 2008 and 2009, thanks also to additional technological elements such as special grooves, numerous world records were set and repeatedly updated: wearing a technological swimsuit could significantly improve the performance of an athlete. After all, in 2010, the leading international swimming organizations had to decide to ban one-piece swimsuits: it is no coincidence that today men cannot compete with a covered torso, and women cannot use a back-covering swimsuit.
Among the experimental and other too revolutionary technologies, there are technological solutions that can change some aspects associated with individual sports. An example is the Hawkeye system (translated from English HawkEye) and its application in sports such as tennis or volleyball. This is a system that, with the help of images recorded by several cameras (usually at least four), is able to triangulate the position of the ball on the playing field, reconstructing its trajectory and determining whether it was valid: touching the ground within the playing field. field lines or not, extends beyond the grid and so on. In football, the same system is at the heart of goal line detection technology, a set of technologies used to determine whether a ball has crossed the goal line or not, but we can also think of a semi-automatic offside: images produced by the same device. multiple cameras are also used to reconstruct the position of players on the field at any given moment, providing an objective result when an offside rule is applied.
In short, many aspects of the sport have become the prerogative of increasingly advanced technological systems; while some human components are indispensable, it is undeniable that technology finds in sports the perfect context for its discoveries.