Here's The NFL's Blisteringly Accurate New Way To Track Players On The Field

Under every player’s shoulder pad there’s a tiny chip transmitting his location, down to the inch. A look at the tech that could change the game.

NFL

The NFL is rolling out new on-field tracking tools that let it know where its players are, where they're going, how fast they're getting there, and which route they're taking.

That's not surprising. Major league sports aren't just a physical contest — they're a data dump. Statistics fuel bets, fantasy leagues, and armchair coaching; they inform coaching decisions and give fans the opportunity to embed themselves deep into a sport. The NFL, though, has recently introduced an unprecedented level of that data collection.

After testing it last year, as of this season, the upper decks of all 31 NFL stadiums are ringed with sensors, all pointed at the field. They're looking for sensor tags, located under each of the players' shoulder pads, that are capable of live-tracking movements on the field of play. The tracking is extraordinarily accurate — according to Zebra Technologies, which makes the tags, the margin of error is less than six inches. That's a tiny amount, especially when compared to GPS, which is usually only accurate within yards.

Here's what one of the receivers looks like in action at Santa Clara's Levi's Stadium.

Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed

The result is a lot of data. The NFL knows where every player on every team is from the moment he walks out of the locker room on game day — when wireless gate technology activates his tags in the doorway. Once he gets on the field, he's tracked for the duration of the game, the sensors measuring movement, speed, and plays. These statistics are processed by Zebra, then passed to the NFL servers before being parceled out to different broadcast networks, box score providers, and — starting with this year's regular season — Xbox One.

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