In Issue 18 of Contagious Magazine’s Alive Inside, Emily Hare wrote a really interesting article about what Guinness (the famous Irish brewing company) is doing these days to enhance it’s brand image. According to Red Urban (one of Guinness’ global agencies) Guinness is becoming the sponsor that will revolutionarize the way viewers are experiencing rugby with the use of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) Technology.
Originally the use of RFID in game play idea started out at Red Urban as a way to increase awareness of rugby among young guys, however by now the concept has developed into something so fundamental that it could change the way people view rugby games. So what does RFID do for rugby and its viewers? First let’s start with how RFID works and what it’s useful for. RFID is a wireless tracking technology that consists of two components: the RFID tag and the RFID reader. The idea behind RFID is to be able to attach a tag to an object and be able to read it’s content or become aware of its presence wirelessly. So far the technology is mostly used by companies such as Wal-Mart to inventorying products efficiently by having a truck drive past a reading station and picking up the RFID tag signals, instead of manually counting items. The technology’s true genius as far as retailers are concerned is the lack of need to provide batteries with the tags since the readers are capable of passing on enough energy wirelessly to get a response from the previously powerless devices.
When it comes to Guinness and rugby however the RFID tags and readers used are way more sophisticated. The end result is a handful of tags on every player and one in the ball, plus a grid of readers placed throughout the field perimeter. The end result is game play tracking capabilities that were previously unavailable even to coaches, but now thanks go Guinness, Red Urban, and Nuremberg’s Farunhofer Institute (inventors of the MP3 media format) data streams containing information about the position and velocity of the various tags will soon become available to any media outlet. So essentially anyone who wants to analyze and represent extracts of the data may do so by subscribing to the feed which is provided by Guinness.
As far as viewers of the game are considered the use of RFID technology in rugby games means that gameplay and replays can be annotated with ball and player speed, and various hard to call situations which are even hard to observe with the video referee will now become easier to analyze and judge fairly. In addition gameplay can be abstracted and tactical situations and strategy analyzed in greater detail.
Assuming that accuracy and reliabilitywon’t be a serious hurdleduring the implementation phase (i.e. equipment failing or not working on rainy or cold days) the RFID technology is sure to become a valuable user experience enhancing technology and a great analysys tool for coaches.
