Sure, dressing the stars has always been a big business, but equipping sports studs with satellite technology is a relatively new concept. A decade ago, this corner of the sports-tech industry was tiny, with the entire market for “wearable computing systems” worth around $170 million in 2005, according to a study by the Venture Development Corporation. Gadgets for pro sports made up a slim portion of that, though they’re expected to become a significant portion of the wearables industry, which has since ballooned to $20 billion and is projected to reach $70 billion by 2025. All of this, of course, is to help sports teams gain an advantage — however small — over their opponents.

Many of these GPS devices rest between players’ shoulders in a sleeveless bib or pocket and transmit live data about their location and speed. Embedded inertial sensors, with gizmos like gyroscopes, track a player’s orientation, while magnetometers measure their direction. On top of this are heart-rate straps and accelerometers — all of which deliver sports scientists fancy bioanalytics to expose injury risks and pinpoint weaknesses in a specific play. For example, some sensors can show if a lineman blocks better to his right or whether a wide receiver should ease off before tearing a ligament. And while the who’s who of this burgeoning industry are all names you’d expect — Nike, Adidas, Google, etc. — the surprising leader of the pro wearables market is Catapult Sports, a small Australian company that, until recently, operated mostly anonymously.

Read the article “Tech-Centric Football” on ozy.com.