The University of Michigan football team took the field last Saturday accompanied by Michael Jordan, the team’s honorary captain for the season opener, in uniforms bearing his signature Jumpman logo. Such pageantry is the fruit of a new apparel contract, worth about $170 million, between the university and Nike.
But one significant aspect of the deal, among the richest in college sports, was not apparent to spectators. A clause in the contract could, in the future, allow Nike to harvest personal data from Michigan athletes through the use of wearable technology like heart-rate monitors, GPS trackers and other devices that log myriad biological activities.