Geek Locker Newsletter January 2024 | 2/2
The inaugural 2nd Geek Locker newsletter!
Welcome back to the Geek Locker newsletter! This bi-weekly newsletter highlights the latest and greatest (and periodically the oldest boldest) in sports innovation and product design in four sections: Geek Locker, New Releases, Grab Bag, and Some News. The newsletter aims to provide readers with one interesting news story, one useful resource, and one new product to share with friends and colleagues, either at whatever fun parties you go to or the metaphorical water cooler.
Geek Locker
Last week, I wrote about the future of outdoor gear product ecosystems, and how individual brands could soon take steps to keep customers consistently purchasing their own products. Unique consistent aesthetic, broad product coverage, seamless integration, and secondary benefits (e.g. loyalty and rewards programs) all play a big role in creating a viable product ecosystem, but some of these areas are particularly challenging for gear companies to really get a hold on. You typically see tech companies like Apple or Google trying to focus on these areas in order to lock customers on their platforms, but I think we’ll start to see similar trends for all types of outdoor gear— for skiing, cycling, trail running, fly fishing, camping, and beyond.
To sneak peek what’s to come— on the back of Patrick Mahomes’ exploding helmet, next week I’m going to write about how sports equipment is not optimized for every environment.
New Releases
New Releases highlights new companies, products, and features that have hit the market (at least new in that they released somewhat recently and I didn’t know about them previously).
New Companies
The MLS Innovation Lab launched by admitting six companies to its incubator. The wide range of companies include Camb.ai which autogenerates sports commentary in different languages, something that could be a big hit not only in for sports broadcasts but also other TV shows and video games. Other leagues like the NBA have previously started their own startup incubators, maybe an indication that they are hungry for new ideas on how to engage audiences, or may be interested in morphing their own business models over time.
One Way Sports relaunched in 2021 (so I’m only a few years behind), and made huge updates to their colorful, modular ski poles. The fully-customizable approach is one that I think a lot of other brands will copy, especially for products that lend themselves to more modular assembly and customer-specific sizing like ski poles.
New Products
Skraper revealed its brand new e-bike attachment product that it co-developed with Red Bull Advanced Technology. Their product replaces the traditional rear brake disc to drive power directly to the wheel rear of any compatible bicycle. It’s a completely new take on how to convert a traditional bike into an e-bike, and the quick-release mechanisms that connect the battery and motor to the bike are packaged in a compact, sleek product.
Konvoy, a gaming-focused venture capital company from Denver, released a new podcast called “Game Changers.” The Konvoy team interview folks from all over the gaming sphere, ranging from the creator of Guitar Hero to a veteran from Wizards of the Coast (the company that makes Magic: The Gathering). There aren’t a ton of episodes released so far, but I’m excited to keep listening to them in the future!
Perch launched a new product called Evaluate aimed at providing insight into athlete explosiveness and fatigue over time using computer vision systems mounted the weight rack to track athlete jump motions. Perch’s AI-based barbell tracking products have been extremely widely adopted by top collegiate athletic programs, particularly high-caliber football teams seeking to track athlete explosivity.
Some News
Some News shares select news stories from across the sports and design world.
The USFL and XFL merged into the UFL. If this acronym soup doesn’t mean anything to you, you’re probably not the only one— two smaller professional football leagues merged to become the United Football League. It’s the latest attempt to create a “minor” league for the NFL, really the only major sport in the US without one. Previous attempts have all failed, so it will be interesting to see if this merger cracks the code for success.
In 2023, the NFL broadcast 93 of the 100 most-viewed live programs in the US. This continues the trend of the NFL’s television dominance and is pretty mind-blowing when you think about the amount of live events each year. 2024 may see a slight pause in the NFL’s TV dominance due to a tight presidential campaign and the summer Olympics, but the game and its Sunday-centric viewing really is made for television.
Corona Cero, a non-alcoholic lager, is the official beer sponsor of the 2024 Olympics, marking the first time that a NA drink will take center stage at the games. The move is consistent with broader market trends driving consumers towards non-alcoholic beverages. If you are curious about this space, I just updated my non-alcoholic beer rankings.
The DOJ joined an ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA banning players from transferring schools more than once. I recently predicted that the NCAA would enter a new era and begin shedding sports from its national governance, and while I don’t think this news really accelerates or changes my prediction, it does represent a general scrutiny of the NCAA by both the federal and state governments, and government scrutiny is generally bad if you want to keep things the way they are.
Rumors are circulating that Apple will acquire Peloton. I may be proven extremely wrong, but I do not see this acquisition happening at any point in the near future. Ironically, I could see Meta acquiring Peloton, but Peloton has a tough pitch to make to get acquired. The company has no significant IP to my knowledge, and re-inflating its shrinking customer base is no small task.
Netflix struck a $5 billion deal with the WWE to live broadcast WWE’s RAW event for just 10 years. It’s a jaw-dropping amount of money that shows how much momentum there is behind bringing live TV to streaming services at a premium price. For reference, Disney purchased Star Wars and Marvel each for ~$4B, which may now both look like incredible deals. For Star Wars especially, the implication that a subset of WWE’s live shows are worth more than the entire Star Wars IP is pretty mind-boggling.
Grab Bag
Grab Bag features interesting or useful sports innovation and product design resources, ranging from books and websites to individual graphics.
Swiss design firm Erfindergeist designed new stowaway seats aimed at increasing space availability for bikes on trains. This article gives a great overview of their product, including some images and renders, all of which show off a great feel for user-centric design.
Working backwards from a “Press Release" is a popular product design tool that is often credited to becoming a concept at Amazon. It is extremely useful for designing products with well-defined target customers, and this LinkedIn newsletter does a great job of providing a framework for starting such a practice.
Soccer Bible reviewed 30 years of Ajax’s Adidas-designed jerseys, which is a fun retrospective in both popular design trends, but also material and manufacturing advancements over time. All the jerseys have great style, but you can tell the newer ones superior lightweight manufacturing.
My Analog Journal (MAJ) Youtube Channel: If you are looking for more variety from your background LoFi music while working or need some extremely specific music for a party, this is a great place to start. Each artist mixes for about an hour in a huge variety of genres, one of my favorite being Japanese Reggae Pop. Plus, the whole sound stage and all its equipment are incredibly aesthetic.
CU Boulder opened a sponsored gaming lab, which I’ve mainly highlighted here as a recent alum from the school who is jealous that this exists now. One of my regrets in life is not watching the 2020 League of Legends World Championship at Fiske Planetarium when given the chance (though in my defense it started around midnight).
Have a great weekend and see you again in the middle of an extra long February!