As college football takes off in full this week, my colleague Ben Portnoy chronicles the career and ESPN “College GameDay” hijinks of Lee Corso, who will work his last show on Saturday. You can read the full story from this week’s magazine here. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- ATP, PIF launch updated Tennis IQ analytics platform
- Athlete’s Voice: former Olympian Justin Gatlin
- LIV Golf adds official global ticketing partner
ATP, PIF launch updated Tennis IQ analytics platform for players, coaches
The ATP Tour has launched an updated version of its Tennis IQ analytics platform, branded “Tennis IQ powered by PIF,” that promises tennis players/coaches broader access to match insights and the integration of advanced video tools and wearable data.
The upgrade, which builds on a digital product initially created in 2023, will be freely accessible to players across the ATP Tour and ATP Challenger Tour -- a number of athletes the tour calls “up to 2,000″ -- with the cost covered by the ATP and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, a prominent tour sponsor (financial terms were not disclosed). Tennis-focused analytics firm TennisViz is also a technical partner on Tennis IQ.
The upgrades were formally announced at a launch event in N.Y. Friday morning attended by ATP Tour and PIF representatives, as well as veteran tennis coach/ESPN analyst Darren Cahill.
“Ultimately, this is trying to embrace the sport of tennis, our future with PIF, and technology and data,” said ATP Chief Sporting Officer Ross Hutchins (who departs that role to become the ITF’s CEO in late October). “We see [tech and data investment] across many other sports, we admire it across many other sports. We’ve embraced this over the past couple of years and now this is taking it to another level.”
While most platform upgrades are live, Hutchins said the integration of wearable data is likely to come by the end of the year. Approved wearable vendors for players to use in-match include Catapult and StatSPORTS. Match analytics and video from every player will be accessible to competitors, but the wearable data will be private for each user.
“I did joke about taking away my advantage as coach of a top player,” Cahill said, referencing a trend within tennis of high-earning players paying for expensive third-party analytics services. “But it is [good for the sport], because now everybody has access to the information that I’ve had access to for the last 15 years.”
Cahill added that video features like automatically tagged clips and filterable search functionality -- which the ATP trialed at its year-end finals and Next Gen Finals last year -- is the most immediately valuable upgrade to the platform, while most tennis players are still becoming familiar with the utility of biometric data.
“[Athletes] can hear the words,” he said. “But the video for us is instant feedback for everything the coach is saying.”
PIF’s involvement expands the sovereign wealth fund’s existing -- and growing -- relationship with the ATP. Before this deal, PIF was already the presenting sponsor of the ATP’s player rankings and Next Gen finals -- and an event sponsor of Masters 1000 tournaments in Indian Wells, Miami, Madrid and Beijing, as well as the tour’s year-end finals in Italy.
Athlete’s Voice: Olympian Justin Gatlin on his work with The Zone and life after professional track
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You can’t have a discussion about sports technology today without including athletes in that conversation. Their partnerships, investments and endorsements help fuel the space – they have emerged as major stakeholders in the sports tech ecosystem. The Athlete’s Voice series highlights the athletes leading the way and the projects and products they’re putting their influence behind.
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Justin Gatlin blazed tracks at the highest level for more than two decades. He’s a five-time Olympic medalist, a haul that includes a gold in the 100-meter dash during the 2004 Athens Games. In total, he claimed nine gold medals across the Olympics and world championships.
Gatlin retired in 2022 and has found a new role in the sports tech space: he was named a strategic adviser last month for mental health platform The Zone, which offers mental health and wellness support to athletes through a collection of programming and modules.
The startup works with more than 200 teams across all levels of college athletics, along with some collegiate conferences and youth sports.
On connecting with The Zone and its founders, Erik Poldroo and Ivan Tchatchouwo, through a mutual friend ...
“He said, ‘I think you’d be great for this program.’ So I did a little more research on it, and I actually liked it a lot because I think mental health, especially in the sports and athletic space, is the next frontier.
“Athletes are becoming stronger. They’re becoming faster. Obviously, recovery helps them stay in the game of play longer, helps extend their career. But going through the research of what The Zone represents and what it brings, it kind of tapped me on the shoulder to realize that I operated around a lot of athletes, and I saw a lot of athletes who had performance anxiety. Athletes who did very well at practice but couldn’t really cross over into the game of play.
“And that could be a whole array of things. It could be the fact that you’re not controlling your environment like you do at practice, or the fact of stage fright and competing in front of a certain amount of people, or even from a professional level, if I don’t get this job done, that means a reduction instead of a bonus. So I think it’s a really taboo and hush-hush area. And I think what The Zone brings to the table, it helps uncover that, but in a way to where athletes have a tool.”
On how The Zone could’ve supported him during his running career ...
“From a collegiate aspect for me, my first year, I was constantly the bridesmaid to my teammate. To give you perspective -- how you do in other sports like basketball, football, baseball, it’s very team-oriented. And you’re working with your team to better each other so you can go out there and win together. But you also have to remember, in track and field, the people you’re training with, it’s almost like those are the people you’re going to compete against. I’m training with other 100-meter runners who are trying to beat me to be able to get that one gold. And that goes from a collegiate aspect to the professional realm as well. So you’re always in that state of alertness.”
On his post-retirement life ...
“Right now, I’m learning to slow down because being a professional athlete, especially in the track world, it was always like go, go, go, attack, attack, attack. ... One thing for me was taking the time to calm myself down and know exactly where I am as a person and a human being, and that’s what I love about the retirement aspect of things. Now I can slow it down a little bit. I don’t have to feel like I’m in a rush all the time, and I get to enjoy my sons, who are growing up -- I’ve got a 15-year-old and a 4-year-old -- and tackling other things that I have a passion for, which is going out and doing speaking engagements, speaking to certain type of audiences, and also aligning myself with companies like Erik and Ivan’s with The Zone.”
On the tech that boosted his career ...
“I think for me, Normatec, the cryochambers, the Whoop -- those are the things that we used that helped me understand where my athleticism was at and gauge it, especially from recovery level. When I was still competing, recovery was that thing that was going to make sure you stayed in the game. ... I think now the name of the game is mental. Because a lot of athletes are always searching for how to be able to be better physically. No one coaches you and teaches you how to compete. They just teach you the nuances of your sport: how to shoot a correct jumper, how to be able to hit a home run. But no one teaches you how to be able to mentally be in the game, and what it looks like to be in the game at a high level.”
LIV Golf adds official global ticketing partner
LIV Golf has added its first ticketing partner through a deal with Fever, which it describes as a discovery platform for culture and entertainment. Fever, which is also putting its logo on Sergio Garcia’s Fireballs GC team, is becoming LIV’s global ticketing and demand generation partner.
Fever also has partnerships with Real Madrid, FC Barcelona and the X Games. LIV says its deal with Fever is a multiyear pact for both the league and Fireballs partnership. Its logo will be on the sleeve of players’ shirts. LIV did not disclose any financials.
LIV CEO Scott O’Neil has strong ties to ticketing. Nearly a decade ago while he was CEO of the 76ers, the team became the first major U.S. sports team to sign a jersey patch deal, with StubHub. LIV’s new president, Chris Heck, also was the 76ers’ chief sales and marketing officer at the time of that deal.
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