The sports world has always been at the leading edge of technological progress. Athletes dominate the list of most-followed celebrities across social platforms. Teams and players have used everything from video games to fitness trackers to AI in order to get an edge over their competition. Nothing has shaped the future of TV more than the bidding wars over live events like the Super Bowl or the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. You’ve seen Microsoft’s Surface tablets thrown all over NFL sidelines, VR cameras promising a courtside view of the NBA Finals, and shoes that make marathon runners even faster somehow. From VAR and robotic umpires to hyperrealistic Formula One simulators and league-affiliated esports, the future of sports is as much a story about technology as it is about wins and losses. It’s taking place across sports, across the globe, and at record-breaking speed.
This Its Nice That writeup dives into the animations made by design agency Kreatives to explain how adaptations, rules, equipment, and classifications differ between Paralympic sports and their traditional counterparts.
Kreatives co-founder Franzi Sessler says “We wanted to move away from the typical explainer video style and tell the story from the athlete’s perspective.” You can check them out on the official Paralympic social accounts.
I’ve been following LuckyMong for a while now because of their incredible (and incredibly fast) illustrations of NBA players. Now, like much of the world, the artist has turned their attention to the Olympics in Paris with very fun images of just how tall Victor Wembanyama is, and South Korean pistol shooter Kim Ye-ji looking like a Metal Gear Solid character.
Moments after winning gold in the women’s team gymnastics final, Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee were thinking ahead... about what TikTok video they should make.
“I wanna do the one that says, ‘Imagine what you would do if you didn’t win,’” Lee says, referencing a viral sound bite from a Kanye West award show speech. They made the TikTok, obviously.
This viral photo of Brazilian surfer Gabriel Medina’s mid-air celebration from the 2024 Paris Olympics was suspected by some to be AI or Photoshop.
But it’s just an excellently timed pic by photographer Jérôme Brouillet, and The Guardian has some background on how he anticipated the moment and nabbed it.
The Financial Times takes a look at the latest generation of shoes with carbon-fiber plates that have helped deliver an uptick in record-smashing long-distance performances ever since the Nike Vaporfly was released in 2017. Other brands are now catching up with their own shoe tech:
Nike and Adidas are not the only brands with super shoes. Asics, New Balance, On, Puma, Saucony and Under Armour have all developed competitive models with carbon fibre and springlike foam cushioning.
The piece includes CT scans and independent analysis of the latest Nike and Adidas models worn by many of the top Olympians in Paris.
Canadian officials now say that in addition to the drone practice spying incident earlier this week, “additional information has come to our attention regarding previous drone use against opponents, predating the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.”
In light of these new revelations, Canada Soccer has made the decision to suspend Women’s National Soccer Team Head Coach, Bev Priestman for the remainder of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and until the completion of our recently announced independent external review.
According to a release by French prosecutors, Joseph Lombardi, the “unaccredited analyst” with Canada’s Olympic women’s soccer team, accepted a suspended eight month imprisonment sentence after admitting to spying on New Zealand’s team to learn its tactics.
The sport’s governing body has opened proceedings against Canada Soccer, while New Zealand has asked that no points be awarded to Canada if it wins today.
No, this isn’t another cardboard bed situation — the reasons for blocking the app make sense and mirror similar actions that Grindr took during the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022, after it was used to out a number of athletes during the previous Rio Games.
“For the first time, U.S. subscribers can stream MLB Network 24/7 including select out-of-market games,” writes MLB. It’s $5.99 a month — or $6.99 to bundle live audio for every MLB team.
For football, NFL Plus costs $6.99 a month. Basketball is $14.99 a season for NBA League Pass, though the 2025-2026 season will now come to Amazon Prime Video as well.
Really.
NZOC:
On July 22, a drone was flown over the New Zealand women’s football team training session in St Etienne.
Team support members immediately reported the incident to police, leading to the drone operator, who has been identified as a support staff member of the wider Canadian Women’s football team, to be detained.
Samsung gave 17,000 of its Galaxy Z Flip 6 phones to athletes and others around the Olympic and Paralympic games, and here’s one more unboxing.
The phone itself isn’t more impressive than anyone else’s, but British rower Imogen Grant chose a tough upgrade path — the phone she’s replacing was another freebie from Samsung that she picked up at the Tokyo Olympics.
Olympians unboxing folding phones is my new favorite video genre. Watch members of New Zealand’s swimming team unbox their new Galaxy Z Flip 6 phones — in gold, naturally — which were supplied by Olympic sponsor Samsung. Not only is it delightful when they discover the screen is on “both sides,” the guys and I agree that it’s time for a foldable iPhone, too.
NBCUniversal owner Comcast announced tweaks it’s adding for the Paris Olympics on X1, like a customizable home screen and an “enhanced” 4K feed for the USA Network’s 24/7 broadcast sent over cable to X1 boxes.
...enhanced 4K brings together 4K video delivered over Comcast’s network at its highest bitrate, Dolby Vision® for life-like picture quality, Dolby Atmos immersive audio, and ultra-low latency
A support page explains, “Enhanced 4K will be available on XG1v4 (low latency feed) and Hi-Fi on Xi6 (30 Mbps and low latency).”
Disclosure: Comcast, which owns NBCUniversal, is also an investor in Vox Media, The Verge’s parent company.
The Lotus Evija X, a prototype version of Lotus’ $2.3 million electric hypercar, almost immediately slammed into the haybales on the side of the track during its first official public appearance at Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday, Autoblog reports.
The crash owed to “asymmetric grip caused by overcorrection during the rapid acceleration at the start line,” Lotus told Road & Track, adding damage was “minimal.” Here’s a clip from Sky Sports.
As explained by Front Office Sports, the NBA is waiting to see if TNT parent Warner Bros. Discovery will try to match any part of the reported $76 billion in offers from NBC, ESPN, and Amazon.
WBD’s (not-HBO) Max could try to match Prime Video, but with a smaller audience than Amazon’s service, matching might not be enough.
By all reports, Apple and Warner Bros.’ F1 wasn’t cheap to produce, but you can definitely see director Joseph Kosinski putting that budget to work in the film’s new teaser trailer. The movie’s out internationally on June 25th, 2025, June 27th in the US, and will hit Apple TV Plus some time afterwards.
E-bikes open up cycling sports to more people, and not just the cheaters.
The Enhanced Games, a Saturday Night Live skit come to life, is trying to raise before the first competition. I’m very curious to see who invests!
Tech reporter Janko Roettgers shared screenshots of the in-the-works live sports streaming app from Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Fox in his Lowpass newsletter. Some features spotted by Roettgers include a DVR capability to record live events, multiview for watching multiple streams at once, and a tab dedicated to live programming.
