New Florence. New Renaissance.

Baseball - with a big, fat asterisk

Baseball is back. With a 101 page operations manual for the COVID-19 season.

The LA Times says

The 60-game regular season, during which players will receive full prorated salaries, is scheduled to start July 23 or 24 and end in late September before a standard postseason is played. The usual six divisions will remain intact and interleague play will be limited to the corresponding geographical division in the other league (i.e. NL West vs. AL West). So, yes, that means the Dodgers will face the Houston Astros.

The New York Times says

Coronavirus testing every other day for players and coaches. Wet rags for pitchers’ pockets to prevent them from licking their fingers. Masks in the dugout and bullpen for any non-players. And no public transportation to the stadium, communal food spreads, saunas, fighting, spitting, smokeless tobacco or sunflower seeds.

Here are just a few of the many guidance images from the manual. You can download the whole doc here - registration required.

Photo Credit below = MLB

 

NASCAR's re-opening protocols

NASCAR is racing at Darlington, SC today, but under dramatically different protocols thanks to COVID-19 safety considerations.

Here are some of the changes:

• No fans in the stands
• Roughly 900 people have been approved to be inside the gates, all considered essential, most from the 40 racing teams. In their version of WFH, several team members are helping remotely
• The Fox Sports broadcast booth team of Mike Joy and Jeff Gordon is calling the race from the studios in another state - in Charlotte, NC. Fox Sports has half as many people as usual at the track and fewer cameras, but they are using a high-speed drone capable of reaching 90 mph to fill in the gaps.
• Every one entering has had temperate checks upon entering the stadium. They also have had health questionnaires filled out ahead.
• All are wearing masks at all times when not wearing a helmet that covers their faces.
• With no fans at the track and infields sitting empty, teams and haulers are being widely spread apart
• Teams have brought their own portable toilets
• Don't expect to see celebratory high-fives or hugs from the pit crew

 

Robot Olympics?

With a vertical leap of 10 feet, a robot performs a gymnastics routine no human could ever replicate. This robot does not feel pain, and it is easily repaired after a fall, so it takes risks no human would take. In the next event, a martial arts competition, we will watch two humanoid robots fight to the death — if you can call it that.

Welcome to the 2026 Robot Olympics. There is no event planned like the one we’ve described here, but we believe this kind of event is on its way.

Back in 1990, a Robot Olympics was held in Glasgow, Scotland, and it included simple demonstrations like obstacle avoidance and pole balancing.

Robots will be featured heavily at Tokyo’s Olympics next year, including as equipment carriers and mascots, but they will not be competing.

With robots like Boston Dynamics’ Atlas already performing gymnastic feats most humans can’t imitate, it seems likely we’ll start having major competitions where these robots compete for medals and countries show off advanced robots they’ve designed.

Inverse

 

 

 

Hawk-eye and Daytona 500

For two decades, Hawk-eye has been a digital referee in cricket, tennis, soccer, rugby, Irish hurling, badminton, the new XFL and other sports.

It is also having an impact on NASCAR, and the race today in Daytona to detect if any of the teams have been "creative". Eight projectors display patterns on each car, and 17 cameras track the patterns for about half a minute. That allows creation of a 3D model of the car, comparison to its CAD model and highlighting of areas which fail the .150-inch tolerance on metal and .200-inch tolerance on glass surfaces.

Saudi Arabia as sports haven?

On Jan. 5 the Saudi port of Jeddah echoed with the roar of hundreds of cars, motorcycles, and trucks in the Dakar Rally, a grueling two-week trek through the mountains and deserts of the kingdom—the first time the event is being held in the Middle East. That came just four weeks after the “Clash on the Dunes,” a heavyweight boxing title bout near the ancestral home of the Saudi ­ruling family, which was billed as a worthy successor to Muhammad Ali’s “Rumble in the Jungle” and “Thrilla in Manila.” And on Feb. 29, 14 thoroughbreds will take to a dirt track in Riyadh for the inaugural Saudi Cup, the world’s richest horse race, with $20 million up for grabs.

The run of big-ticket events marks a sharp turnaround for the kingdom, which barely registers on the global sporting map. It’s part of a push by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the 34-year-old de facto ruler, to modernize the economy and reduce the influence of puritanical Islam.

Bloomberg

New Technology in the new XFL

The XFL kicks off today at 2pm eastern on ABC with several new rules. The video below explains some of the wrinkles. Besides details of the rules, schedules, rosters, the mobile app also has stadium information, and the ability to buy and manage digital gameday tickets.

The league also several new tech innovations

Replay reviews

“[Hawk-Eye] allows us to have independence from the broadcast networks. We don’t have to rely solely on them for the timing of the angles,” Dean Blandino, the XFL’s head of officiating, said Tuesday. “We can bring in multiple camera feeds immediately. At the end of a play we can look to six, eight, 10 different angles and pick the right angle to make a decision and not have to wait for the network to show it. We feel like it will make our process very efficient.”

Broadcast technologies

Four players per team will be miced up during the game (most likely the QBs and then a skill player and the defensive play callers) and also Fox will have full access to coaching communications.

One rule difference compared to the NFL is that on kickoffs the players are not allowed to move until the ball is caught by the receiving team. That opens up the opportunity to have a handheld (Rangefinder Camera) on the field when the ball is kicked and then have the cameraman leave the field while the ball is in the air.

The ball

The points of each football are wrapped with ‘X’ marks in white and the team’s primary color. This design allows receivers to track the ball easily.

Patent-pending, “X-Pebble” grip technology will help players control the ball with a feel that enables a tight spin on throws, and also allows ball carriers to enhance their ball security.

 

Tech firsts at the Super Bowl

Steaming in 4K. Fox Sports "will produce all its coverage of Super Bowl LIV (Feb. 2, in Miami) in 1080p HDR (high dynamic range), while also offering an upconverted UHD (ultra-high-definition) stream to viewers."

5G coverage. For the first time in Super Bowl history, the stadium and much of the city around it — including the airport and downtown Miami — have been outfitted with 5G Technology

Protection from elements. Unlike the last Super Bowl in the city when rain ruined the experience, this time, a 14-acre canopy, weighing more than 17,000 tons, will provide shade over the stadium seating while leaving the area above the playing field open. The canopy is an engineering feat designed to survive hurricanes that are common in S. Florida.

Here is drone footage of the stadium

 

 

The Clydesdales - not just for the Super Bowl

The Budweiser Clydesdales commercials are usually a hit even in the line up which wows every Super Bowl. MarketingDive is keeping track of all the ads likely to be on the game on Sunday and not sure if the Clydesdales will feature this year.

 

However, my town has no reason to whine. Last week, in the run up to our annual Gasparilla Pirate invasion, the horses graced several events courtesy of https://pepindistributing.com/world-famous-budweiser-clydesdales-to-appear-in-tampa-for-gasparilla-pirate-fest/ which also provided some fun facts about the horses

 

“Canadians of Scottish descent brought the first Clydesdales to America in the mid-1800’s. Today, the giant draft horses are used primarily for breeding and show.

Horses chosen for the Budweiser Clydesdale hitch must be at least three years of age, stand approximately 18 hands – or six feet – at the shoulder, weigh an average of 2,000 pounds, must be bay in color, have four white legs, and a blaze of white on the face and black mane and tail.  A gentle temperament is very important as hitch horses meet millions of people each year.

A single Clydesdale hitch horse will consume as much as 20-25 quarts of feed, 40-50 pounds of hay and 30 gallons of water per day. Each hitch travels with a Dalmatian.  In the early days of brewing, Dalmatians were bred and trained to protect the horses and guard the wagon when the driver went inside to make deliveries.”

BTW, this Budweiser Clydesdale commercial was one of the highest rated ever

 

 

 

 

 

Sent from my iPad

The Nike Vaporfly

Similar to other elite racing shoes, the Vaporfly is impossibly lightweight. But unlike the shoes made by competing brands like Adidas or Saucony, the Vaporfly’s midsole contains a thick layer of super squishy foam, which Nike calls ZoomX, and a carbon fiber plate.

Biomechanics experts say the idea behind the carbon fiber plate is to mimic the spring amputee runners get from the blades of their prosthetics. The spring allows athletes to exert less energy to run the same speed. The concept has been around for a little more than a decade, but Nike is the first manufacturer to successfully employ a carbon fiber plate in a shoe.

This marginal boost in efficiency may be hard to notice in a 100-meter dash, but Nike says that it can improve a runner’s time by up to 4.2%. In distances as long as the marathon that’s significant—it would shave almost nine minutes off of a 3:30:00 marathoner’s personal best.

“The interesting thing is for the elite runners it translates to less than 1% per percent of economy, but for the back of the pack person they actually get more out of it.”

Wall Street Journal

 

 

 

 

More exciting hockey broadcasts

Using a chip-based system, the league tracks the puck and players on the ice in a more seamless and comprehensive way than ever before. Marrying the new tracking information with its existing in-house Hockey Information Tracking System (HITS), which tallies all the essentials to properly log and score a hockey game (time-on-ice, face-offs won/lost, shots on goal, missed shots, shot types, penalties, etc.), the league and stats and broadcast-graphics partner SMT are simplifying the packaging and visualization of data in producing on-screen visuals that are both compelling to the viewer and easy to integrate for the producer.

Broadcasters dropped in IDs (or pointers) that followed players, trails of players or the puck, and advanced performance analytics at or close to real time. Even NBC Sports Digital streamed out an alternative version of its broadcast dedicated to showcasing this rich data.

SMT