Written by Guy Aharon, CEO & Co Founder at Playermaker
The main question I have heard recently is – “so when will sport return?”, “Will the league end before the next one starts?”, “When will we go back to ordinary?…”
I am afraid that we will probably not go back to ordinary. Sorry for being dramatic -I just wanted to get your attention. We will go back to ordinary, it would just be different, a New Ordinary.
Why?
Because we are now united, fighting to flatten the curve and save millions of lives. We will win – we are in the business of winning, there is no doubt that we will also get this game finished. Research and the numbers in the eastern part of the world that have been fighting COVID for fewer more months show that it teaches us that there is a way to gain control. Yet we are expecting long months until we have a vaccine or any other reasonable and reliable solution. Let’s imagine this moment. Longline entering the stadium? Ok, so no crowd… Hugging each other after an amazing goal?… well not so sure. Drinking all from the same bottle? Celebrating in the pub? Even if athletes will be isolated, they still need to eat, drink and receive fresh supplies, visit family, celebrate wins and share the stress.
Modeling performed by Imperial College simulates a multi-surge scenario, where over a series of long months we will face ongoing infection surges that will lead back to isolations and ongoing social distancing (1). This would be our New Ordinary. Time to adapt and continue to win.
Why May an Affordable Solution Be the Key to Dominate the New Ordinary?
Performance analysis shouldn’t be a luxury. It should be a commodity available for any athlete. Health and safety shouldn’t be restricted to wide staff and expensive technologies. It should be available, portable, simple and economic. In the new ordinary, we would have to do more with less to see how we take an athlete to their maximum performance without compromising their health and achievements. We learned the power of technology and visibility. In a new ordinary, AI and virtual solutions would increase the results we have known so far. The mindset made bots friendlier than ever, online shopping for groceries is not as frightening and very efficient meetings can be held remotely with no face to face (maybe even better…). Old technology served us well in the old world. In the new ordinary we will need smarter, faster and clearer tools. Such that can be scaled for all ages, that can be used by anyone allowing each user to select what benefit he is taking. No heavy, complicated downloads and logistics. Just click and go. Simple, basic and personalized. Vinyl was great but it brought music to every home, MP3 brought it everywhere.
Being Alone With My Friends and Colleagues
My 8-year-old son asked me almost 5 weeks ago to download Zoom. I asked him how he even knew what that was and he replied that his friends, each one isolated in their homes, are meeting there to chat. Zoom for me was back then limited for cross-continent virtual face to face conferencing. Now I understand that he was the first in our family to adopt the New Ordinary. Social distancing is going to be part of our life, it will take a while to build the confidence to hang out in groups, train in crowded places and share sweat with strangers. Training alone will be a necessity – with new sources for instruction and monitoring- now motivation generators. Being more alone will become as reasonable as these strange machines we meet at the airport scanning our body that never existed before 9/11. Training solutions must allow quick and easy operation so one can use them as part of the team and also on a solo mode.
Still, socializing will be Zoom style, competition and motivation would be monitored and performed via smart apps that will show us that our friends are trying harder and will help us to push them to be more. We will need our trainer to be telemedicine capable – helping to maintain our mental and physical health while making sure we are keeping fit. Our solo mode would be mashed with many other solos composing a new group in the, you guessed right, the New Ordinary.
Indoor is the New Outdoor
Imagine yourself sitting in an open restaurant, on a nice spring day. Sunny, slightly warm, the food is delicious. A very desired scene, until the guy in the table next to you sneezes… It’s probably just an allergy, but who will take the risk? Cheque, please?… Spending time with the grain family cell, knowing each other will become part of the new ordinary – we will spend less time in the outdoors. Sports will be a good way to refresh ourselves, outdoor activities will be at risk, still popular but during another surge of the pandemic, we would need to maintain the same habits indoor as well. Playermaker works perfectly indoor and outdoor. In a conference room or over the peak of a mountain. Tracking gait, without any external requirements will keep you with the same metrics no matter where you are.
Hygiene is Not Masking and Alco-gel
Some players really hate changing shirts at the end of the game. Now they have a good reason for avoiding that. From the cleaner dressing room to a highly supervised dining system, teams will be required to adopt strict methods of keeping monitored. Using the same mattresses in yoga, sterilizing the weight-bar, using the same GPS vests will be quickly out of the New Ordinary. Playermaker footwear mounted mechanism secures no physical touch between human skin, sweat and risk.
Outsourcing Inside
The New Ordinary will not be stable to allow long term planning of manpower and positions. Many stakeholders will find themselves returning as part-time service providers. Clubs and teams may find a way to share resources and split them so to avoid the expenses and future furloughs. It will create a new economy in our ecosystem that would be necessity driven. Exporting data to external suppliers under the highest cybersecurity will be the solution. It will make such services of highly talented individuals more available for more teams. They will be able to reach, have insights and advice from the former top team’s team members. Collecting data and understanding it: an end to end solutions will be more available than ever. With experts of the top-level available to assist in generating it into clearer and immediate value.
Budgets, Doing More with Less
Budgets will be cut! That is for sure. With Playermaker we are saving money by making sure the coach knows to show the player what is not working, how to make sure he is not injured during the heat of the season (an injured player is a great loss of money and potential wins). Knowing your player faster with aggregated data, learning the data of bad selections (what to look for when you scout for new players), what is not working on the team level (between players behavior which reflects in their passing matrix over time), improve from game to game (have immediate results and don’t wait for the report that comes the day before the next game).
Take the US NCAA college system. One of the most expensive costs subjected to the coach’s discretion is the scholarship. Now, where is the coach’s most expensive spending? The players’ scholarship. Having less available benched athletes while supporting their scholarship can become more efficient now that technology can provide simple and reliable injury prevention solutions. With an average of a few tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship per player, a few hundred for a proven solution is a very good ROI.
There will be less travel – what you have on your roster is probably what you have. Recruitment will be different – you will have less time and opportunities to select players. PM will provide you with a clear benchmark that works for the coach and his vision. Scouting will be limited, fewer events, less competition, and restricted international travel will turn this world into a remote one. Having a long term foresight of your developed players: technique, tactical [skills and physical analysis will become the most important of the New Ordinary transfer market and talent identification.
Building Your Own Career
The future of the sport is technology, in the New Ordinary more than we can even imagine. Young coaches assistants, dreaming of becoming #1 one day, must skill the art of converting technology and knowledge into results. Having no technological background, control of data in your set of skills will make one less relevant in seeking their next challenge. Young professionals must lay the basis for their own future. Knowing how to use data and performance analysis will be a must requirement – you must start learning these skills today. Don’t lag behind. Playermaker will save you time, help you to stand out by bringing more value to your coach and build your own skills for your own future.
Playermaker in the New Ordinary
As a growing company, we are measured in our agility and innovation. We are keen to hear the users’ feedback and improve the day today. We haven’t waited to hear the 3rd team asking for a remote solution – we delivered. We are working around the clock in all of our locations to make sure teams that need us now – are supported with the best solutions and the greatest service. We understand the risk of unfit professionals, hear the changes in youth development, the frustration of locked down athletes and the stress of budget. Our vision is collecting this data to convert it into information and actionable insights.
Since there are no hugs in the New Ordinary we are not here to hug, but we are here to make sure that we win this and become better champions.