Following partnerships with USA Triathlon and Legacy Motor Club, Rob Schaefer reports on Nix Biosensors’ latest deal, with the Chicago Fire FC of MLS.
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- Chicago Fire FC teams with Nix Biosensors
- Innova Solutions inks deals with Charlotte sports teams
- Breaking down Formula E’s Mexico City race viewership
Fire team with Nix Biosensors for sweat monitoring
Nix Biosensors has a new partnership with the Fire that will see the Fire adopt Nix’s sweat monitoring technology into the club’s training and matchday regimens, starting with the 2025 MLS season.
Nix’s solution collects data on athletes’ sweat composition using a reusable, sensor-embedded pod affixed with an adhesive patch, then disseminates that data to a digital platform called Nix Pro. Used by more than 50 organizations, including pro/collegiate sports properties like LSU Football, Legacy Motor Club and the Falcons, the general goal is to identify the rate at which different athletes lose electrolytes through sweat (which varies by person) and inform hydration strategies that keep them at an optimal balance.
The Fire began working with the tech in practice last week by equipping 20 players with Nix patches. Fire Dir of Performance Darcy Norman told SBJ their plan is to spot monitor players in various weather conditions to “get a complete profile” of each, then build out hydration/electrolyte strategies from there. The Fire is also working to get the patches approved for players to wear during games.
“Preparation is the critical piece to any sporting event,” Norman said. “Obviously, cramping and muscle issues are a big part of the sport, a lot of them being preventable with good training, periodization, planning and then nutrition and fueling and hydration.”
The Fire is Nix’s first MLS client, but not their first in soccer, as the company works with clubs in the NWSL and Premier League, according to Nix CEO Meridith Cass. Cass called soccer one of the “highest-need” sport use-cases Nix has observed, along with football and hockey.
Norman, who has held high-ranking, performance-focused positions with the U.S. Soccer Federation, Kitman Labs, AS Roma and Exos, pointed out that many athletes are sent mixed messages when it comes to hydration -- mainly, that more water is better, no matter the circumstances.
“People can drink so much water that there’s been recorded deaths due to over-hydration, or hyponatremia -- where basically you drink so much water you flush out your electrolytes, which are the key components in running your electrical system in your body, your nerves,” he said. “There is a fine balance of that concentration for your system to work optimally, both getting the water in the muscle for good saturation and then good electrolyte balance so your system is operating.”
Nix’s tech, Norman added, cuts down a hydration monitoring process that has traditionally been very manual, including regularly weighing players and closely tracking fluid intake. “You’re able to get so much granular information, and much easier, to help dial in your process,” he said of Nix.
Innova Solutions enters sports sponsorship with Charlotte teams
Information technology and AI company Innova Solutions is “moving into sports sponsorship for the first time” with a new agreement to back the Carolina Panthers and Charlotte FC, according to Erik Spanberg of the CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL. The Atlanta-based company has two offices in North Carolina in Charlotte and Raleigh. Financial terms were not disclosed, but the sponsorships of both teams “are for multiple years.” Innova spokesperson Elizabeth Miles said that the AI company and Tepper Sports “already had established a relationship” as the Panthers were an Innova client. The two sides have teamed up on a cloud-accessible football analytics program that “emphasizes using data and statistics to assess on-field performance.” Spanberg notes the new sponsorship includes “naming rights for Innova on the 400 level of luxury suites at Bank of America Stadium,” which will be called the Innova Solutions Suite Level. Other sponsorship elements include “in-stadium advertising for all Panthers home games and Charlotte FC matches” and “ads on the Panthers mobile app.” Innova’s sponsorship started with a “soft launch” in June, when the technology company was the presenting sponsor for a football chalk talk organized by the Panthers for season-ticket buyers (CHARLOTTE BUSINESS JOURNAL, 7/29).
Formula E touts huge viewership from Mexico City race, but context needed for full picture
Formula E shocked the racing world this year by saying it attracted 11 million U.S. viewers for a race. But while the event did get impressive figures, the rub is a matter of apple-to-orange comparisons and having an ideal lead-in broadcast.
This past weekend in London, the all-electric racing series wrapped up its 11th season, with Nissan driver Oliver Rowland winning the drivers’ championship and Porsche winning the manufacturers’ title.
During the campaign, Formula E touted its growth with the performance of the race at Mexico City in January. In early February, the series put out a press release saying the Mexico City E-Prix earned a “cumulative audience” of 10.5 million, which it said had surpassed “all but one F1 race for a U.S. broadcast audience in the last two seasons” and was “80% larger than the 2024 [F1] Las Vegas GP.”
Formula E is majority owned by Liberty Global, which has common ownership with Liberty Media in media tycoon John Malone but is technically a different publicly traded company. Formula E has its U.S. media rights with CBS and Roku.
On an Instagram post following the January race, Formula E created a graphic that said Mexico City had “record U.S. viewership [of] 10.5M on CBS alone.” The series put out a further release in June saying that additional analysis had taken the viewership to 11 million, a figure so large it raised eyebrows in the racing world about whether Formula E had been experiencing huge growth or if the figure was exaggerated. For example, NASCAR’s Daytona 500 hasn’t reached 10 million viewers since 2017, and this year’s seven-game NBA Finals between the Thunder and Pacers averaged 10.3 million viewers, when using the metric called average minute audience.
But while the Formula E figures are legitimate, the series is citing a different metric called reach, which counts anyone who watched a show for at least one minute, and the race had one of the most ideal lead-ins possible in an NFL playoff game. The Bills-Broncos game that preceded the race had a whopping 31.1 million average minute audience viewers. The Formula E race actually took place the day before, and the CBS broadcast was thus tape delayed.
While the reach of the Formula E race was 11 million, the average minute audience figure was 2.771 million viewers, according to SBJ’s information –- a still significant and impressive number for a challenger-brand motorsports series. Average minute audience is the metric more commonly used in ratings reporting in America.
Asked about using the 11 million reach figure instead of the 2.8 million average audience metric, Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds told SBJ the reach figure, or what it calls cumulative audience, is the main way the London-based property has been measuring growth in recent years. Dodds said Formula E is using the same metrics as F1, and that it gets its Nielsen data through being a customer of Kantar. Dodds was appointed CEO a little over two years ago, to help the property stave off stagnation at a time when F1 was ascending.
Dodds shared an anecdote of a run-in he had in an airport after the Mexico City race that he said underscored the exposure Formula E had received that weekend. When he landed in the U.S. after the race, Dodds says he was asked by airport staff what he was there for and when he said he was taking part in a motorsports event, “They said, ‘Well not Formula E?’ And I went, ‘Uh, yeah.’ And that’s not a normal question I get asked by airport security. And he said, ‘I was watching on CBS last night after the NFL game; it was amazing.’ So the TV numbers have been really strong.”
Dodds said Formula E will be releasing full-season figures in the coming weeks, but “they will be in excess of half a billion cumulative average for TV” globally. “Going well, very strong, but we still have lots of headroom for growth. My ambition for 2030 is to be upwards of 800 million cumulative average TV viewers so we still have a long ways to go.”
More headlines from SBJ
- N.Y. shooter targeted NFL, but went to wrong office
- Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee is the latest unique setting for MLB to play a regular-season game
- Ethan Casson joins Mavericks team president as CEO Rick Welts focus on arena, mixed-use district
- Disney closes upfront with nearly $4B in sports advertising commitments
- AUSL wraps season on ESPN well above ’24 numbers
- Sporting KC’s new year-round entertainment plaza to open in time for FIFA World Cup 2026