Geek Locker Roundup #21
October 18th, 2024
Geek Locker
Welcome back to the Geek Locker Roundup— your bi-weekly collection of the latest sports innovation news, product releases, and design resources!
Last week was a bit too chaotic with travel and work to finalize a new article, so I pulled one from the “archives” that I wrote before moving everything into Substack. I may do this more often, even in addition to regular articles to highlight particularly relevant past work, like this deep dive into the Guardian Cap, the NFL’s concussion-reducing helmet protector that is now allowed in actual games! The product is extremely useful, but imperfect, so I wanted to figure out what makes it great, and how it can improve.
From the Archives: Upgrading the NFL "Guardian Cap"
Note: This article was initially published in August, 2022. before the move to Substack.
Next week, while I’m traveling I’ll publish a shorter article, likely about how thinking about the extremes of a problem can help shape decision making and assessment. If I have time, I may finally publish a short list of gear that I both use and fully endorse— less of a product review, but maybe somewhat of an outdoor gear gift guide that is landing far too early unless you go super hard for Halloween. Once I’m back in the US later this month, regularly scheduled programming will resume!
Stat of the Week
Last week, the greatest League of Legends player, and perhaps the greatest e-sports athlete of all time, Lee Sang-hyeok, a.k.a. “Faker” won his 100th game in the World Championship tournament. I thought this stat was noteworthy for a few reasons:
This is the 14th official World Championship for League, and is a testament to the durability of the game as a sport
Faker has nearly 40 more wins than the next closest player— an absolutely insane stat made even more impressive by the fact that he won his first world championship in 2013, over a decade ago. The longevity of his dominance is unrivaled
His total win rate across all his matches is 74%, extremely high given the fact that he’s playing the best players in the world at these tournaments, and his team of 5 players has changed rosters many times throughout the years.
Ironically, almost 7 years ago, I wrote about Faker and his team’s dynasty. I predicted then that other players and regions would come to challenge their dominance, which China has done. However, similar to sports like nordic skiing where individual nations and athletes dominate in the long-run, Fake has absolutely lived up to his hype as the “Michael Jordan of League.”
Briefly putting SKT's Dynasty in "Early-league" Perspective
This October, the unfathomable finally happened: Korea's League of Legends powerhouse SKT T1 was defeated by Samsung Galaxy in the finals at the World Championship. Wresting global dominance from the hands of SKT was an incredible feat, but it conjured more questions than it answered. For me, two major questions lingered: 1. For this young of a game, ha…
As always, I appreciate your engagement and please share with others who might be interested in reading about sports innovation. On to the news!
Company Cable
There are a lot of company updates this week, so I’ll try to keep each brief!
Sports nutrition brand Applied Nutrition is set to file for IPO on the London Stock Exchange. In its most recent fiscal year, the company achieved over $90M in revenue and ~$30M in EBITDA, making it a relatively high-margin, but currently small company.
The MLS has invested in OneFootball and established a partnership for media rights with the company. The MLS is continuing its expansion tear, and is aiming to use OneFootball to better propagate official highlights and media from the league. The league has also expanded its sports tech incubator program, and seems to be reaping the benefits of its efforts in previous years.
Charles Barkley will launch a new production company with EverWonder Studio, AND Derek Jeter is launching his own production company, Cap 2. The weekly cycle of superstar athletes launching their own production companies continues!
Hockey gear company CCM has officially ben acquired by the Swedish private equity firm Altor. Almost simultaneously, Fairfax Financial has acquired controlling stake in the parent company of CCM’s rival, Bauer. There are broad fears that these sales will drive dramatically increased costs in the hockey gear market, and I can’t say I blame people propagating that feeling. I wrote about the hockey gear market a few weeks ago, and I generally don’t believe it’s the cash/growth cow that these new investors and owners are seeking.
Allyson Felix has co-founded a women's sports management firm, Always Alpha. The firm has pretty broad goals of promoting and supporting female athletes before, during, and after professional sports careers and is owned by parent company Dolphin Entertainment.
Soccer training infrastructure company TOCA Football has raised a $100M Series F. TOCA owns soccer facilities and training infrastructure around the US and abroad, and is seeking to use the funds to expand its reach even further and support its growing operational budget. It is quite a large fundraise, so it will be interesting to see how long the runway lasts.
Youth sports management company LeagueApps has secured new funding from Accel-KKR and Arctos. LeagueApps makes scheduling and managing youth sports leagues easier, but apart from its usefulness and resolving of a clear need, it makes me concerned that so much money is continuing to flow into youth sports.
New Releases
New Releases shows off new products and features that are hitting the market.
Shimano plans to deploy an AI-based smart gear shifter for bicycles. On one hand, it would be extremely nice to have a bike that always shifts exactly when I want it to without any intervention. On the other hand, I think there may be a lot of time spent battling the system until it is extremely refined down the road…
Pixellot has released the newest version of its AI-powered sports camera, the Air NXT. The wireless camera itself is nothing too special, but the whole platform of connected analytics, broadcasting, and scouting tools behind the camera make it extremely intriguing for amateur sports.
Unrivaled sports has launched Football Youth, a national endeavor to get kids involved in flag football events. The effort features both camps and tournaments held around the country, and as noted above, it feels like the cracks are starting to show on the dam holding back the flood of major investment and cost increases in youth sports… possibly for the worse.
TopGolf and Callaway have launched a new website for beginner and entry-level golfers. I think this is a great idea for both parties— if TopGolf is a way to attract new players, they’ll be looking for an affordable starting place with an actual set of clubs. It seems like an easy way to convert top-of-funnel opportunities into actual hardware sales!
Salomon has released a shoe designed specifically for running on gravel. It’s clear they were inspired by the world of cycling, where gravel-specific bikes are becoming increasingly popular. I also think this independently fills a good niche for a lot of runners who mainly run on dirt roads/gravel trails and don’t need deep trail running lugs— and they look awesome.
New sneaker company Mount to Coast has launched its first utlramarathon-focused road shoe. This is a niche that I have not seen approached by other companies. Ultramarathon trail shoes are pretty common nowadays, and it will be interesting to see if the overall market of road-based ultramarathons expands in the years to come.
SOAR and Norda have collaborated on the release of a new set of cold-weather running apparel. Admittedly, this is the first time I’ve heard of each of these brands, so the collaboration has already been successful in increasing visibility on their products! The gear itself looks like extremely high-quality (but expensive) wool apparel, which I always love.
Genius Sports has launched an advertising and marketing platform specifically for sports called FANHub. Anecdotally, Genius Sports seems to be popping up a lot on these roundups— the company clearly has strong momentum with broadcasters and advertisers in the sports world.
Some News
Some News shares select news stories from across the sports and design world.
Rumblings are emerging that the Texas Rangers could launch their own broadcast network. I would not be surprised if many other professional sports teams follow suit— and some are already out ahead like the Chicago-based teams. Will it lead to more stove-piped national viewing experiences for fans? Maybe!
QVC is entering the sports streaming fray by becoming the official broadcast partner of USA Pickleball. Honestly, I think this is a great beachhead market for QVC in the world of sports. The demographics for Pickleball and their shopping content must overlap substantially, and why not hitch your wagon to a sport that is still expanding quickly?
Jurgen Klopp has emerged from his temporary retirement to become the global “Head of Soccer” at Red Bull. Klopp will assist in directing all of Red Bull’s soccer-related teams and development endeavors, and interestingly, he has an exit clause that would allow him to become the German national team coach ahead of the 2026 world cup if the job becomes available!
Golf swing and ball tracking company Trackman had 32 Million users' data leak online. This story is both a bummer and a good reminder that professional sports teams and athletes are placing a lot of responsibility on the digital tech companies they employ for cloud-based analytics. Maybe professional sports teams will eventually have their own cyber warfare divisions to learn about opponents’ activities and performance.
Yahoo Sports is teaming up with the Athletic to provide comprehensive women's sports coverage. The goal of the partnership is to provide a single, larger central hub for women’s sports news, maybe with the goal of becoming the default news source in the space to outcompete ESPN and other major players! I am curious to see how long this partnership lasts, given how popular the Athletic’s coverage is on its own.
Grab Bag
Grab Bag features interesting or useful sports innovation and product design resources, ranging from books and websites to individual graphics.
Inc.com provided a behind-the-scenes look at the track startup Athlos. The company is looking to get a foothold by hosting annual women’s only track competitions, and with big backers like Alexis Ohanian, that may only be the starting place.
Pro Football Focus (PFF) gave a behind-the-scenes look at some of their predictive NFL metrics, specifically target share expectation. It’s very interesting to get a peek behind the curtain at some of their next-level stats, and inspires thoughts about other impactful metrics!