Jacob Whittingham

Professor Padgett
UWRT 1102
March 10, 2015
Annotated Bibliography
Topic: Technology in Sports
Inquiry: Is technology having a positive or negative affect on sports?
Thesis: Changes in technology are an overall good thing for sports

By Luna Shyr, for National Geographic News. "NFL Looks to Helmet Technology to Combat
Concussions." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.
As we all know, football is Americas leading sport today. With millions of people
watching the Super Bowl every year, football is continuing to grow exponentially. Technology is
changing the safety of the sport and advancements in football helmets are sparking the
conversation of lessening concussion numbers each year. Many retired NFL players experience
excruciating pain each day because of concussions and there have been a few cases of suicide as
well. This article explains a new helmet that will include air pockets inside the helmet that will
help to resist the impact of the head to head collisions that happen in the NFL. This new
technology will help to lessen the concussion numbers and hopefully keep NFL players safe.
There are a few noted players that are using this helmet right now but it has not made its way
fully into the league. This article also touches on studies being done outside of Knoxville,
Tennessee that test the helmets using dummies and sending objects at the head of the dummies at
a high velocity. It goes on to explain that there are sensors that are put in these helmets that read
the acceleration and G forces of the impact.
"The NBA's New Technology Will Change the Way We Watch Sports." N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Mar.
2015.

Jacob Whittingham
Professor Padgett
UWRT 1102
March 10, 2015
Not all technology in sports is affecting safety, this article is a perfect example of how
technology can affect the overall in-game action. This article pertains to the NBA and the new
ground breaking motion-capture technology called SportVU. This technology is intended to
capture new statistics in basketball that no one has ever explored. It notes that this will explore
the littlest data such as teams passing patterns and how if you shut down one connection between
two players that the passing could be interrupted and stopped. This data will be collected using
six different cameras that will capture player movement as well as movement of the ball every 25
seconds. This totals over 4 million data points each game which obviously makes for a lot of data
to be observed. The new technology will change the way coaches and players prepare and
practice for games. If this technology is successful, coaches will be able to analyze each players
every move within each game, making the preparation for stopping individual players much
easier. I chose this article because it dips into aspects of sports that nobody has ever talked about
before. It really explains the next level technology that we may be seeing on an everyday basis in
maybe ten years or so.
Sewell, Tes. "X Games." X Games. ESPN, 27 Jan. 2012. Web. 10 Mar. 2015
This article explains the new safety precautions that are being taken in the X Games. The
X Games are considered extreme sports and the athletes that participate take part in very
dangerous actions that sometimes can lead to injury or even death. There are instances every year
where the participants will fall from trying to land a huge jump and end up badly injured. This
article explains a product called the Bagjump that is used for athletes safety. It is a large air filled

Jacob Whittingham
Professor Padgett
UWRT 1102
March 10, 2015
landing area that prevents the athletes from injury when they fall. This new product will really
change the sport for the better without any negative consequences.
Wehrwein, Peter. "Play Ball: Will New Rules for Bats Make Baseball Safer? - Harvard Health
Blog." Harvard Health Blog RSS. N.p., 31 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Mar. 2015.
Im sure we have all seen that eye opening injury on television that you have to look
away for. This article explains the new technology of baseball bats that are going to prevent
pitchers being hit in the head by baseballs being hit back at them. In professional baseball, wood
bats have always been used but starting about thirty years ago metal bats were brought into
college baseball as well as youth leagues. Over time, new technology came out for ways to make
these bats better and eventually there was a trampoline effect that the bats gave that caused the
velocity of the ball off the bat to be much greater than ever before. The author speaks on how
these bats are changing to where there is no longer that trampoline effect that is causing head
injuries in the sport.
"How Social Media Can Impact the Sports World." :: TTU Outpost. N.p., 15 Aug. 2013. Web. 17
Mar. 2015.
Social Media is a big aspect of todays sporting world. Almost every athlete has a Twitter
or Instagram and their personal lives are out in the open for us to view. This article argues
whether or not social media is a positive or negative thing for sports today. Everything can be
followed and so sometimes a player may post something on a social media site that causes harm
to their team and reflects poorly on the coaching staff. The author highlights the fact that because

Jacob Whittingham
Professor Padgett
UWRT 1102
March 10, 2015
of this, coaches are often times forced to monitor what their players are doing and saying on
social media. This article talked about how Heisman trophy winner Johnny Manziel made
remarks about being at fraternity parties at rival schools and caused disturbance to the team and
his school was eventually investigated because of it. Social media will continue to play an active
role in athletes lives and hopefully it will play a positive role is sports altogether.