Every Step Recorded: Sports Technology, Athlete Data, and the Body as a Data Source
By Casey Scott McKay ·
An athlete at the top of any professional sport is measured continuously — position, acceleration, heart rate, sleep, recovery, sometimes blood chemistry — by devices they did not choose under terms they did not negotiate. This article explains who holds that data, who may commercialise it, and why the answer comes from a collective bargaining agreement rather than from privacy law. It covers biometric privacy statutes and their written consent requirements, health data that falls outside the ordinary medical privacy framework, and the genetic testing prohibitions that apply squarely to a sport obsessed with talent identification. It works through the commercial layer: official league data supplied to sportsbooks, tracking data licensed to broadcasters, and the collectively bargained revenue splits that follow. It closes with the vendor terms, the college and youth sport gap, and the digital replica problem now arriving.
IP and Technology > Privacy Data Security | Article | Published 11 February 2024 - Updated 2 December 2024 | Casey Scott McKay - marksy.us
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A professional footballer wears a tracking vest in every training session and most matches. It records position at ten times per second, from which the system derives distance, sprint count, acceleration and deceleration load, and a dozen composite metrics of fatigue. A heart rate strap adds cardiac data. A sleep monitor records overnight recovery at home. Some clubs add blood testing, saliva testing for hormonal markers, and force plate measurements of neuromuscular readiness. Some add continuous glucose monitoring.
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