Rugby fans watching on television will soon be able to see how a player’s heart rate changes as they stand over a match-defining kick or feel the force of a scrum.
TNT Sports is in discussions with World Rugby, Prem Rugby and player groups including the Rugby Players Association over putting heart-rate monitors on participants in televised matches.
It would allow the broadcaster to show a player’s heartbeats per minute, although the information would not be broadcast live, but soon after matches.
There are clear issues around players being comfortable releasing their personal health data, and the wearable technology not intruding on their performance or becoming too cumbersome or dangerous to wear while playing a contact sport.
However, TNT is confident it can make it work, having already used player microphones during their broadcasts. Ellis Genge, the Bristol Bears and England prop, is known to be a fan of wearable technology innovations.
“We absolutely want to bring that into our production,” Scott Young, the executive vice-president of Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns TNT Sports, said.
“The insight into the human endurance and the athleticism of professional rugby players is not really seen on television, it’s more seen when you’re there in the grandstands. TV can make that less impactful.
Marcus Smith strikes the winning drop-kick in the Six Nations victory over Ireland at Twickenham last year — and TV viewers could soon be shown how players’ heart-rates change in such high-pressure moments
DAVID FITZGERALD/SPORTSFILE
“If you could bring in the biometrics of a player, that’s really important. This is their personal data, so you have to be really careful working with the players, not just the clubs, being comfortable sharing that personal data. It also can’t have any impact, what they are wearing, with their ability to compete.
“Very few normal human beings can relate to some of the data that comes out. Heart-rate is something we can all relate to. That data has got to sit you back in your chair and make you go: ‘That is superhuman.’ If we are just putting out data that people don’t understand, or that doesn’t matter, we have missed an opportunity.”
World Rugby would need to approve any changes to a player’s kit, but Prem Rugby is supportive of this move. TNT, which broadcasts the Prem and has the rights to the Autumn Nations Series of Test matches in November, already use this kind of technology in their cycling coverage.
“The amount of data we can get off the cyclists, we know exactly how to set that up and how to make it successful, and how to make cyclists understand that we’re not infringing on their personal rights,” Young added.