I am honored to write the first outside edition of the Tony Tiberia sponsored blog.
I am a big sports fan. I admit it. I am unashamed of it. I like to watch it. I like to talk about it and I like to think and write about it.
So I was thinking, for a blog, why not write about sports and technology.
There is a lot going on in sports. Barry Bonds hit his record 756th home run, David Beckham has played his first few minutes of soccer in the US, football (both college and pro) are about to start, and the insufferably long golf season finished its final major.
Golf embraces technology, or so you would think. Every year a new $500 driver is out on the market and promises you will hit your ball longer and straighter. The players hit the ball longer than ever before.
But the players still have to keep their own and their playing partners scorecard even though each group has a PGA Tour official with them.
At this weekend's PGA Championships, Sergio Garcia got disqualified because his playing partner, Boo Weekley, kept an incorrect scorecard and Garcia signed it.
There is a guy at the event walking around with a sign with both players score on it. Every person on TV and at the event knows the players score. The players scores get updated real-time on PGATour.com.
Technology, use it.
So I watched a few minutes of David Beckham's much advertised US soccer career. In soccer, they play games in stadiums that cost 100s of millions of dollars to build with state-of-the art scoreboards. These scoreboards come with things we call “clocks”.
You may have heard of them. They've been around since 4000 BC.
The official time clock in a soccer game is kept by the head referee. The fans, the players, the coaches, the people watching at home, have no idea the exact time left in the game. At the World Cup finals, 2 billion people don't know the exact time left in the game.....1 guy does.
Technology, use it.
Barry Bonds broke baseball's most hallowed record under the suspicion of steroid use. I'll come back to steroids later.
On a nightly basis I watch baseball highlights where a fielder makes a disputed diving catch, a hitter hits a controversial home run or a ball goes inside or outside the foul pole for a home run or a strike.
By the way, if a ball hits the foul pole its a fair ball. Call it the fair pole!!!
I digress. We have these things at baseball games called television cameras. They take pictures. This camera and picture thing has been around since the 19th century. After the play is over, review it.
Technology, use it.
Now to steroids. I am not going to refer to our 7th grade social studies class on due process regarding Barry Bonds being innocent until proven guilty.
If your head pushes the notch on your adjustable baseball hat 6 spots, you may be using steroids.
Look at Barry Bonds 10 years ago and look at him today.
Football is starting. Clearly football is far more casual about its players using steroids than other sports. Last year, San Diego Chargers Linebacker Shaun Merriman was suspended 4 games for using steroids and was a finalist for NFL Defensive Player of the Year.
This casualness has to effect younger players, I would suspect, all the way down to the junior high school level. If you are a border line NFL player, you are probably going to use steroids. There is too much money out there.
If you are a college kid wanting to be drafted in the NFL and there is any doubt in you “making it” you are going to use. If you are a high school kid and the difference between Middle Tennessee State and Tennessee is steroids, you are going to use.....and so on.
Long story short, if you are in an industry where athletic performance and pay are related, steroids will soon be found.
Technology.....this time, don't use it.
Steve
