In a wearables landscape still very much dominated by Fitbit and Apple, other brands are navigating strategic partnerships with college athletic programs to get their tech in front of consumers.
IMG, a global management company that oversees global sports events, media and athlete public relations, has chosen lesser-known VERT wearable technology as its title sponsor for the 2016 VERT Challenge — a collegiate women’s volleyball showcase involving IMG partner schools.
SGB is seeing an emerging trend in the wearable technology space, and overall performance data industry, where more companies are seeking to team with school athletic programs to demo their equipment on a team performance scale. These collaborations are equally as beneficial for the athletic programs and student athletes, which may not have the budget for high-ticket wearable accessories.
Even outside of athletics, fitness tracker companies are becoming a component of good ol’ P.E.
Photo courtesy Adidas
In January 2016, Oral Roberts University required incoming freshmen to wear Fitbits as part of its refreshed fitness initiative. Then later in April, Adidas allowed preordering of its K-12 heart rate monitoring fitness tracker the Zone, which it developed with startup Interactive Health Technologies and successfully tested during 2015.
In the case of VERT, the 2016 VERT Challenge will be hosted by the University of Oregon from August 26-27 at the Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, OR, and will be broadcast on the Pac-12 Network. This is the second of the four-year rivalry challenge among the University of Oregon, University of Florida, University of Nebraska and University of Texas. The volleyball showcase will travel to Florida in 2017 and finish in Nebraska for the 2018 season.
“Last year, VERT became the first wearable technology to broadcast wearable data in real time during a NCAA broadcast television event,” said Martin Matak, founder and president, VERT. “We are excited to continue enhancing the fan experience at this event using our VERTcast technology.”
As part of the agreement, VERT will provide wearable technology demonstrations and on-site promotions for fans in attendance. VERT recently received national media attention as the official wearable technology of the USA Volleyball team, which used the technology over the past two years in preparation for the Olympic games to monitor practice and workload analysis for injury prevention.
The VERT wearable jump rate monitor is a non-invasive, inertial measurement unit (IMU), which pairs with an iOS app that can be monitored by coaches during use and instantly provides measurements including jump count and jump height.
Photo courtesy University of Oregon Volleyball
