Geek Locker Roundup #31
February 21st, 2025
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 got a little bit more hectic than expected with work and travel, so the bocce ball analysis is getting punted to this week. However, we did dive into the modern world of trading cards and other memorabilia! Collectibles, both physical and digital, have steadily been gaining value in recent years, and it’s not entirely clear exactly why. Of course there are many factors at play, and it was fun to explore a market and hobby that I enjoy personally!
That's One "Deck" of a Deal
After a recent Atletico Madrid Game, French superstar Antoine Griezmann kicked off a relatively standard ritual my peeling off his game worn jersey to get ready to trade it. However, instead of approaching an opposing player to receive another jersey for the trade, he ran over to the stands to meet a couple fans waiting specifically for him. Griezmann h…
We also looked at correlations between overall team weight, height, age and actually winning regular season games in the NFL. With so much focus on the gigantic (now Super Bowl Champion) Eagles team leading up to the championship, it seemed time to get to the bottom of this topic. As it turns out, there is practically zero correlation between a team’s size or age and winning games!
Recess #4: It Takes Mass to Move Mass?
If you’ve watched a modern NFL game, you’ve probably asked yourself the question: “Shouldn’t a team assemble the largest group of absolutely enormous players on offense, hand the ball off, and just bulldoze the other team’s defense?” To be honest, it’s a great question, and if
Next week, we’ll be circling back to investigate the size and material in Bocce balls, and will break down the Four Nations tournament, which just wrapped up with a team Canada win last night. I had an absolute blast watching the tournament with its high intensity and political drama, but I’m not sure if it’s the most repeatable model for other sports leagues, or perhaps even the NHL moving forward!
Stat of the Week
Ultrarunner Karel Sabbe set a new fastest known time (FKT) record on the Te Araroa trail in New Zealand, which stretches from the northern sip of the North Island, down to the bottom of the South Island. The stats from the effort are quite mind-boggling, unsurprisingly. He completed the 3,054 km (1,897 Miles), and ~270,000 Ft of climbing in just under 32 days! This meant that he averaged almost exactly 60 miles of travel per day over the course of a full month, which is absolutely insane. I don’t even know if I could do that two days in a row, let alone any number after that…
I had the great fortune of visiting New Zealand recently with my family, and I can’t, lie, I’m incredibly jealous of this endeavor. Especially based on the photos and descriptions of this effort, I would much rather through-hike this trail than the Appalachian Trail or Pacific Coast Trail, which both seem particularly grueling. In reality, I likely won’t hike any of these trails in totalit, but I’d still love to go back to New Zealand!
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
Updates about major sports tech company transactions.
Lingopal.ai has raised $14M in its Series A for live broadcast translation. In general, I think this is one of the best uses for generative AI, especially for broadcast organizations and teams that don’t have the capacity to staff commentary teams in multiple languages. However, you’re never far away from a slippery slope of complete automation and removing the human from the loop with these types of products.
ScorePlay has raised $13M in a highly-publicized Series A funding round. Alexis Ohanian and Giannis Antetokounmpo both featured as investors for the company that is using AI to automatically categorize and generate highlight clips from broadcast footage.
Youth sports platform Rocket Youth has raised $100M in an unnamed funding round. Investors included Maverick Carter, who leads Lebron James’ business ventures, as more and more firms flock to youth sports as a new great market for startup investment.
Electronic Arts has agreed upon terms to acquire in-game tracking technology provider TRACAB. The terms of the deal are yet to be released, but this is a fascinating acquisition. Will EA move outside of the video game space and try to take over some live soccer-match modeling projects, or are they just interested in getting better movement data from athletes? I personally hope it’s the former!
Cartan Capital is raising its second sports tech venture fund with the goal of reaching $40M. The fund will be led by ex-pro tennis player Cici Bells and focus on sports and health technology.
Donald Trump Jr. has invested in the Enhanced Games through his firm 1789 Capital. I, probably like most people, have extremely conflicted feelings about the Enhanced Games. On one hand, they seem to be taking the scientific health study aspects very seriously, but it still feels a bit off in ways I can’t fully articulate yet.
The MLB is further investing in its partnership with Sportradar by extending their collaboration and investing in the company. Sportradar will not only continue serving as the main data distributor for the MLB, but will also grant them increased access to scouting and video analysis tools and libraries.
Crypto company Tether has acquired a minority stake in Juventes FC. Crypto- and NFT-based companies have been encroaching on the world of pro sports for years now, so it will be interested to see if this partnership yields any new developments for this advance.
New Releases
New sports products and major features that are hitting the market.
Beats released their athletic-focused Powerbeats Pro 2 to high acclaim. Reviews for the new headphones that include Apple’s latest processing chips and even an optical heartrate sensor have all been positive. It’s exciting to see new entrants in the workout headphone space!
Nike is teaming up with SKIMS to launch an entirely "new" activewear brand creatively named NikeSKIMS. This collaboration is likely going to be a smash success, but also runs somewhat in contrast to what the new Nike CEO has described as their return to their core values in sport. I can’t blame someone when a lucrative product line is on the table though.
A new sports nutrition brand has entered the fray, as Gelteq launced SportsGel. The company created their initial product for drug and medicine delivery through their proprietary gel, but is rapidly expanding beyond the medical field, perhaps in part because they went public on NASDAQ late in 2024 and need to start delivering.
Fanatics and Nike are updating their MLB uniforms for the 2025 season by going back to the old versions. Baseball fans rejoice. Hopefully there won’t be any issues with see-through and easily ripping baseball uniforms this year…
Some News
Select news stories from across the sports and design world.
Ahead of a somewhat tepid All-Star weekend, the NBA revealed viewership is down 5% year over year. I am sure the general discourse around the All-Star game did little to help boost ratings, but I don’t think NBA fans should start seriously worrying, yet…
The potential new team names and logos for the Utah Hockey Club have been revealed. In theory, all the votes have now been tallied for the new name, so it will be fun to see when they actually reveal it!
The White House rescinded guidance that NIL payments for players must follow Title IX guidelines. I am sure that this will spark debate and potentially suits over the future of NIL payment distributions for many major universities. In the meantime, it continues to spiral of embroiling the NCAA in even more controversy as it becomes more like a pro league.
The Cleveland Browns published a plan for funding a new stadium, which involves $1.2B in public funds. It will be interesting to see how this plays out given that the City of Cleveland still has a pending lawsuit against the Browns’ owners so that they don’t move the team out of Cleveland.
Rowing and ski erg company Concept2 is converting the company ownership into a Perpetual Purpose Trust. Of course, Concept2 is a much smaller company, but they are following in the footsteps of Patagonia and others to make sure their company runs “for good, for good.”
Noah Lyles is set to race NFL wide receiver Tyreek Hill early this summer. The exact race parameters are still to be determined, but if I had to guess, I would imagine it will be a pretty big blowout by Lyles.
Grab Bag
Interesting or useful sports innovation and product design resources, ranging from books and websites to individual graphics.
The Denver Gazette published an article about the growth of "uphilling" ("skinning") at ski resorts. Resort-based skiing experiences are becoming more expensive and more crowded by the season, and for anyone looking to change things up and enjoy resorts in a new way, I highly recommend you give skinning a try. It’s easy to rent gear from most local shops!
The 5-year-old Garmin Edge 830 topped the list of best bike computers on Bike Radar. As someone who owns an Edge 530 from 2019, I agree wholeheartedly with this assessment— they are great bike computers.