New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton, who is a spokesman for Zebra Technologies' tracking system, talks with Marques Colston, then a Saints wide receiver and now a sports tech investor. (Photo by Cliff McBride/Getty Images)
NEW YORK — An emerging issue in the roiling player privacy debate is that not all athlete tracking data is collected the same way. From wearables to cameras, there’s an endless array of information being generated: internal versus external, personal versus positional, biometrics versus biomechanics.
While the collective bargaining agreements across professional sports leagues are skewing toward a precedent of voluntary participation with regard to wearable technology, MLB’s Statcast, the NFL’s Zebra Technologies and the NBA’s Second Spectrum systems all use some combination of optical, radar or radio tracking.