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Payton Dymek

Growing up, I was a regular attendee to the Arizona State University vs. Stanford volleyball matches. I vividly remember my first couple of times going, noticing that the girls would wear a black vest that resembled a sports bra on top of their jerseys during warm-ups and cool-downs. At the time, I didn’t understand the intersection of technology and sport; however, now it’s important to see that athletics would not be where it is today without data collected from these devices.

Catapult has been coined as “the most high-tech bra you’ve ever seen,” acting as a GPS monitoring system that tracks athletes during training or games, working to capture and analyze every aspect of performance, but it is simple to understand when you break down the technology. The tracking is done through a small unit inside the vest or pouch (depending on what you’re wearing), which collects data on total distance, high-speed distance, maximum velocity and a host of more advanced performance metrics. Nearly every major league and team around the world uses the Catapult system to its advantage.

With clients ranging from Notre Dame to Manchester United, Catapult’s client base is immense.

In the sport of football specifically, Catapult helps teams quantify training, mitigate injury risk and support return-to-play programs through performance benchmarking. Its sensors collect movement-specific data, allowing teams to analyze both individual players and the team as a whole. Specific features include positional analysis, contact load and total load. All of these tidbits of information provide training staff with cutting-edge information on their team’s physical performance.

However, even with the influx of information provided by Catapult, intention is crucial. As Notre Dame sports performance director John Wale told Pete Sampson of The Athletic in a 2023 article regarding the Irish’s use of sports technology, “It’s not necessarily who’s collecting the most things, or who is equipping their staff with the most technology or their different tools. It’s really who can maximize what they are getting from each one of those things.”

It’s important to note Notre Dame doesn’t just limit its use of Catapult technology to football. The technology has also become a key component in training methodologies behind nearly every other sport on campus including soccer, lacrosse and volleyball.

Perhaps Catapult’s most important metrics is its PlayerLoad measurement. Rather than simply tracking how far or fast an athlete moves, PlayerLoad uses accelerometer data to quantify the overall physical workload an athlete undertakes. The metric can be measured instantaneously by dividing the change of acceleration by a scaling factor. The PlayerLoad stat allows coaches to determine when athletes have pushed harder and need a break or can dial up the intensity. Catapult provides teams with objective data to inform these decisions.

With Catapult technology now being used in over 128 countries across over 40 sports and 5500 elite teams globally, it’s inevitable that not only has technology truly shaped athletic performance analysis, but it will continue to grow. As this growth occurs, it will be important to question to what extent analysts use data to empower athletes and support training before the human unpredictability, which makes sports such a spectacle, is taken away.

Chris Dailey's Response

Ah, AI in sports. It has always been inevitable, right? There’s always a genius out there creating some new gadget that an analytics department will purchase to provide its program with cutting-edge technology.

On the surface, I’m all for it. In fact, devices such as Catapult have done wonders for sports teams around the world in providing information on miles logged, heart rate, PlayerLoad and so much more.

So why am I kind of against it?

Maybe it’s because I’m old school. I was raised under the instruction to “act like you’ve done it before” whenever I scored a goal or made a basket. Sports, to me, have always been about grit, toughness and playing your heart out. The more obsessed we become about numbers, the more the very essence of sports is lost.

As a coach, I’d take the player willing to make a slide tackle in the mud over the one who checks every statistical box. That’s not to say Catapult and similar technologies don’t have tremendous value. If data can prevent an injury or help an athlete understand their body, then teams should be all over it. But, allowing the data to dictate every little decision is a major problem.

The true beauty of sports lies in rolling up the sleeves and giving everything you have. Not jargon about “PlayerLoad” and “Performance Metric.” Use the numbers. Learn from them. Just don’t let them replace the grit that makes sports the universal connector.

But hey, maybe I’m just old school.