PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – APRIL 04: Kwagga Van Niekerk of UJ during the FNB Varsity Cup match between FNB CUT and FNB UJ at Tuks Stadium on April 04, 2021 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images)
Varsity Cup: Historic ‘Smart Ball’ to make its debut in playoffs
Friday evening will see the Varsity Cup reach its “business end” as the tournament reaches its playoff stage.
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – APRIL 04: Kwagga Van Niekerk of UJ during the FNB Varsity Cup match between FNB CUT and FNB UJ at Tuks Stadium on April 04, 2021 in Pretoria, South Africa. (Photo by Lee Warren/Gallo Images)
Friday evening will see the Varsity Cup reach its “business end” as the tournament reaches its playoff stage. What will accompany the occasion is the use of a historic “Smart Ball” which will be making its debut.
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Varsity Cup introduce world’s first Smart Ball
When the likes of University of Pretoria, Stellenbosch University, North West University and University of Cape Town take to the field this Friday, they will be a part of history.
Varsity Cup organisers have announced that they will be trialing out the use of the world’s first ever Smart Ball. They also confirmed that it was their collaboration with Sportable and Gilbert which made this innovation possible.
Speaking to the Varsity Cup website about the historic smart ball innovation, Dugald MacDonald, the CEO and founder of Sportable, said he hoped that it would help make life a lot easier for both the fans and the coaches, with that being one of the main objectives behind its creation.
Its purpose revealed
“We are incredibly excited about the opportunity to work with Varsity Cup and SuperSport to bring our solutions to fans and coaches in South Africa,” says Dugald Macdonald, Sportable founder and CEO.
“Varsity Cup’s reputation for pioneering new developments in the game is second to none, so we view the introduction of the Smart Ball on Friday as just the start of a long, exciting partnership.”
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The smart ball that has reportedly garnered extensive praise from the UK and the rest of Europe, consists of a device within it that enable it to track the following.
- Kicks in play
- Goal kicks
- Restart kicks
- Lineouts
- Passes
- Possession
- Territory
- Ruck speed
The smart ball also thought that it aims to keep improving over time and in future tournaments it will seek to add the following to its repertoire:
- Distance
- Speed
- Trajectory
- Hang-time
- Spin rate
- Spiral efficiency
- Reload time (time from catching to passing)
- Start/end time
- Start/end coordinates
- Angle to posts
- Kick difficulty and success
The ball will also be able to alert the referee about forward passes.
– For more information on the Gilbert x Sportable Smart Ball, visit www.sportable.com
