Happy post-Super Bowl Monday to all who celebrate, whether you’re blurry-eyed in your office or if you called in *sniffles and coughs* a little sick.
Let’s get started with some of the latest tech news from around our industry. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- NFL’s latest innovation challenge focuses on facemasks
- Famous Group adds mixed-reality element to Super Bowl broadcast
- Collectors hires NFL VP Josh Rabenovets as CMO
NFL’s latest crowdsourced innovation challenge focuses on facemasks
The NFL’s newest innovation competition will seek ideas to improve the protectiveness of facemasks. Commissioner Roger Goodell announced the mission of the annual HealthTech Challenge with $100,000 of available funding from the stage of the Super Bowl LX Innovation Summit presented by YouTube.
While the protective material and designs of the padding and shells of helmets have accelerated dramatically in recently years, changes to the facemask have been “negligible,” said NFL EVP Jeff Miller, who oversees player health and safety.
The charge of this contest is a direct result of on-field data from the 2025 season indicating that 44% of in-game concussions included a direct blow to the facemask, an increase from 29% a decade ago.
“These are showing up as a percentage of all concussions with greater and greater frequency,” Miller told SBJ. “As a result, we thought that it’s time for us to focus on this aspect of helmet innovation. We knew we would get to this day, and we think that we can make a lot of improvements.”
The scope of possible new ideas is wide and can relate to:
- The material of the facemask
- Its shape
- How it connects to the rest of the helmet
- The spacing between the face and facemask, or even
- How the chin strap holds the helmet in place
“You could see a different looking overall structure depending on the capabilities and the shape of the submission of the facemask,” Miller said. “I would hope that we would see all those things.”
Innovations can be either universal -- i.e. compatible with all helmets -- or for a specific brand or model. Miller noted that the Riddell Axiom is the only helmet to rethink how the facemask attaches to the shell and show an appreciable benefit to the player.
The HealthTech Challenges are run collaboratively between the NFL and the NFLPA, with the league’s Football Research Inc., which uses the Biocore lab under Jeff Crandall, and the union’s partner, Duke Biomedical Engineering, run by Dr. Barry Myers.
Crowdsourcing innovation has been effective for the league across a number of fronts such as the Big Data Bowl analytics contests, computer vision challenges with AWS to several avenues of health and safety around helmets and playing field surfaces. Miller noted that the rate of change for helmet design is nine times greater than it used to be; the top-performing helmets in safety testing from years ago are no longer protective enough to be allowed on the field.
“Running these challenges has led to new materials, has led to an entirely new helmet company -- when Vicis won this years ago -- and has led to structures that have been licensed or purchased by some of the helmet companies so that they’ve advanced their helmets over the years,” Miller said. “So we’ve had a great deal of success with this, and it’s fair to say that we’re really optimistic that we’re going to see something interesting come from this in the next few months.”
Famous Group adds mixed-reality element to Super Bowl broadcast
Working its 21st Super Bowl as an NFL partner, tech-focused production company The Famous Group created a unique mixed-reality animation that was used on both the NBC broadcast of the big game and in-venue videoboards at Levi’s Stadium in S.F.
An abridged version of the spot (linked below) aired on NBC between Green Day’s pregame concert and the start of the game Sunday evening, with the full version playing on the in-venue videoboards. In hat tips to the Super Bowl’s 60th anniversary and the city in which Super Bowl LX was played, the segment depicted 3D renderings of the Golden Gate bridge and Lombardi Trophy on the field of Levi’s Stadium, which was surrounded by cascading fog and Super Bowl-themed confetti. The package was also soundtracked by clips from NBC’s past Super Bowl broadcasts.
“What you’ll see is really a peek into something that I don’t think we have done before, or anyone else has done [before],” said TFG’s Creative Director Hemu Karadkar.
TFG has produced such video elements before, including for last year’s Super Bowl at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. But this year’s effort notably appeared on the national broadcast and included new layers of innovation.
For one, hawk-eyed observers will notice virtual fog collect in the shape of “LX” behind the Lombardi Trophy as the camera zooms out to a wide view of the stadium. TFG uses Epic Games’ Unreal Engine for most of its 3D visuals but executed this element with help from visual effects firm JangaFX.
TFG also for the first time in this project engineered its “virtual camera” mixed-reality production system to simulate the sweeping vantage point of a SkyCam. TFG’s virtual camera system consists of specialty cameras mounted in fixed positions around the venue -- this activation required four -- but TFG’s VP/Advanced Technology Erik Beaumont said the company was able to emulate a moving camera for this activation using some “clever math.”
“One of the biggest asks that we come across -- whether it’s [internal] or from clients -- is, ‘Can I use a SkyCam with this system?’” Beaumont said of the virtual camera system, which has been used by the NFL’s Ravens (including a permanent installation of the cameras which earned a finalist spot in in the Best Technology Collaboration category of the SBA: Tech) and NBA’s Bucks, among other clients. “That’s the limitation of virtual cameras is -- you can’t. But what we’re showcasing here at Super Bowl is we’ve figured out a way to do this in certain circumstances.”
TFG will also deploy the selfie cam product within its Vixi Suite of fan engagement tools during halftime of the game.
Collectors hires NFL VP Josh Rabenovets as CMO
Collectors, a technology-focused provider of grading and marketplace services in the collectibles industry, has hired NFL VP/Global Fan Engagement & DTC Product Marketing Josh Rabenovets as its next Chief Marketing Officer.
Rabenovets -- who has been with the NFL since 2020 and also made stops with EA Sports, ESPN and Pepsi -- will oversee Collectors’ 80-plus-person marketing and communications staff, managing about a half-dozen direct reports and reporting to Collectors CEO Nat Turner.
Rabenovets started at Collectors this week and will soon relocate from N.Y. to Orange County to work out of the company’s Santa Ana, Calif., headquarters. A proud archivist of old ticket stubs who now helps his three children collect Pokémon/sports cards, Rabenovets said his passion for collectibles, the industry’s increasing global growth, and Collectors’ leading position all intrigued him about the new opportunity.
“It reminds me a lot of where gaming was about 10, 15 years ago -- a very niche thing that became very expansive across all types of different demographics and geographic boundaries,” Rabenovets told SBJ. “I see a very similar pattern in the collectibles space. It’s been around for a very long time but obviously it’s becoming more ingrained in culture.”
Rabenovets added that his focus with Collectors will be on communicating the company’s value to end users (i.e., collectors, dealers and card-store owners) and reaching new audiences. “There’s obviously core collectors today, but there’s many folks curious [about] the category, but they don’t really know where to go next,” he said. “How can we address them in a bespoke manner based on their maturity curve?”
True Search assisted Collectors in the search that led to Rabenovets’ hire.
More headlines from SBJ
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- Athletes First reps most coaches in NFL coaching carousel
- Adam Silver, Washington Gov. meet to discuss Seattle NBA team
- Pro Sports Assembly survey shows gaps in industry’s approach to public policy management
- Skubal’s arbitration win boosts players ahead of MLB CBA showdown
- Talent Pool: Latest agency signings