Nike’s latest soccer cleat is its most data-driven shoe yet

In soccer, like most other sports, footwear plays a major role in helping athletes perform at their best. Your shoes say a lot about who you are as a player, and you need them almost as much as you need the ball to play. This week, soccer pros all over the world will test-drive Nike’s latest flagship football boot, known as the Magista 2. Unlike the original, released in 2014, Nike says its new model is fully driven by two years of research. Over that span, the sportswear giant relied on collecting athlete data and 3D-printed prototypes to build the design that hits stores tomorrow.

It’s 30 percent lighter than before, for one, thanks to a new soleplate that Nike overhauled using a proprietary tool called Finite Element Analysis. The FEA system tests traction patterns to build an optimal base for the foot, allowing designers to configure key elements like placement of the studs. What made this scientific testing easier to turn into tangible form was 3D printing technology, says Nathan VanHook, senior design director of Nike Football. A prototyping process that in the past would have taken weeks, or even months, can now be done in a matter of hours.

By relying on 3D-printed plate models for FEA traction, VanHook says his team was able to receive instant feedback from different variation studs. These are sent through a robotic simulator to see which work best for rotation, acceleration and deceleration, until designers and engineers eventually land on the sweet spot. This data helps create a shoe that’s supposed to perform well on any given day, regardless of the condition of the field — immaculate, rough, wet, dry or somewhere in between

The Magista 2’s insole next to a few 3D-printed sample plates.

VanHook, who designed one of the most coveted Air Yeezys during Kanye West’s Nike partnership, says what he appreciates the most about 3D printing is the freedom it provides to experiment. “You see things right away,” he explains. “We can take the lever and say, ‘Let’s see what the most extreme [thing to do] is,’ and are able to prototype and iterate super fast.” Put simply, VanHook says, 3D printing has sped up Nike’s innovation process tenfold. He says there’s no reason to wait to cut metal tooling or mold something anymore, noting that the key is to go from the sketch to the actual making as quickly as possible.

As far as design goes, the Magista 2 is arguably Nike’s most eye-popping soccer shoe to date. And that’s coming from a brand known for its flashy designs on the pitch, including Cristiano Ronaldo’s CR7 Mercurials, as well as the HyperVenom and Tiempo lines. Most of them feature colorful, highlighter-like tones that are hard to miss even for fans without 20/20 vision. The Magista 2’s “heat-map” design is intended to mimic the hot spots where most players are bound to interact with the ball. So, in this case, red reveals areas of the foot with high sensitivity to touch.

For example, if you’ve ever played soccer you know how effective it is to kick the ball with the inside of your foot. It provides both power and accuracy. Sure, you don’t need a shoe to remind you of that, but it doesn’t hurt to have that mapped on your feet for aesthetic purposes. The interesting part about this design is that it was originally used on every prototype of the Magista 2 for data-collection, but Nike ultimately decided to turn it into an actual product. “It was pretty amazing when we first started seeing all the data come in and we painted it up,” says VanHook. “It’s the simplest idea, but it’s really complex how the data came through.”

Nathan VanHook with the Nike Magista 2.

To develop Magista 2, VanHook and the design team needed some in-house assistance. They worked with people from the Nike Sport Research Lab every step of the way, from R&D to prototyping, to the influence of the final design. NSRL is basically an underground bunker, located inside the most restrictive building at Nike’s World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon. The $40 million facility, built in 1980, is so secretive that even Nike employees who work in other buildings need to go through a screening process to receive a guest pass. It’s an important part of everything Nike does for soccer, basketball, football, running and basically every other sport for which it makes products.

Nike is often coy about what goes on at its high-tech lab, but in a sneak peak it posted online in 2014, it describes it generally as a place to “quantify athletes’ movements, the environments they play in and they products they use.” For this particular project, NSRL provided VanHook the necessary information to create an upper that’s designed to offer a better grip on the ball, improved traction and, as mentioned earlier, a lighter-weight design than the first Magista.

Similar to what Adidas did with its AlphaBounce running shoe, Nike researchers used motion capture to study how different areas of the foot control the ball. Again, this is what’s mirrored on the Magista 2’s upper design, which is made out of Nike’s trademark FlyKnit material.

NSRL isn’t just for testing products, however. It’s also a facility where athletes go to be evaluated frame by frame, sometimes for their personal gain and other times to help Nike with things like footwear research. The soccer lab has over 20 cameras capable of capturing footage at up to 10,000 frames per second, which is a crucial factor when every little detail counts. The 3D motion capture system is akin to what’s used for animation films, but Nike’s purpose is to recreate performance and model the foot and ball to see how they interact with each other in various scenarios.

“We deal with a lot of the nerdy stuff in here,” says Mike Amos, senior researcher at the Nike Sport Research Lab, “and we have some excellent designers that can help visualize that [data].” Despite all that research, VanHook says there were some tedious challenges during the design process. He points to the cuff around the ankle on the Magista 2, explaining how challenging it was to make anatomical shape that offered support and comfort simultaneously. To do so, VanHook says he had to work closely with the knit team, and they eventually went through more than 120 panels of fabric and yarn before getting to the ideal shape.

A themed Magista 2 will be worn by the USA women’s national team at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

So, how does all of this translate when you’re wearing and playing in the Magista 2? The best way to describe the experience is that it feels like you’re wearing a thick sock. Which is exactly what Nike had in mind. That said, it did take 15 to 20 minutes of running around to feel comfortable. At first I thought I needed to go a size up, but the shoe eventually adjusted to my foot. After all, comfort is the least you can expect from a $300 pair of cleats, or $175 for the indoor version.

With Magista 2, one of the features Nike is focusing on is ball grip, but I didn’t notice much of a difference right away compared to other soccer shoes I own — including the previous-gen Magista. Maybe that’s something you’ll notice with more wear and tear, as I only tested them for about two hours. At the end of the day, the Magista 2 isn’t going to turn you into Cristiano Ronaldo, Neymar or Messi. But it is designed to improve your performance in training and during games. If nothing else, though, it’s always nice to have the best-looking cleats on your rec team.

Comcast’s Rio portal is a good way to keep up with the Olympics

The Olympics are starting in a little over a month and Comcast has devised a way to watch pretty much every minute of them. Xfinity X1 customers — roughly half of Comcast’s user base — will have access to a special “Front Row to Rio” portal through which they’ll be able to watch live content from both NBC-affiliated networks and internet streams. But that’s just the start.

The Road to Rio homepage is accessible through the main menu that X1 customers already use. You can find live events to watch directly from there or you can search by athlete, sport and nation. What’s more, you’ll be able to add these people, teams and countries to a favorites list so you can more easily keep track of them — not unlike a browser bookmark. Conversely, if you’re just casually following the games and want to see nothing but the highlights, the platform will push “Must See Moments” notifications throughout the day whenever a marquee event is happening. You’ll have to opt in for this feature, either through the NBC Sports App or through the Rio portal.

Comcast isn’t just providing an easier way to find the events you want to follow — it’s also giving viewers slews of information about what is happening onscreen. Comcast’s development team combed through millions of pieces of data about the games and their participants and integrated it into the broadcast. Users can instantly pull up leaderboards, gold medal counts, athlete trivia and a host of other informational tidbits. These will display on screen next to the broadcast. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just push that stuff to your mobile device so you don’t have to split the screen, but that’s how it is.

So, say you’re watching Gabby Douglas performing her floor routine. With X1, you’ll be able to pull up a submenu with details about her and links to video clips of her past performances. Or if you’re not feeling the floor routine, you can switch over to the live stream of another gymnastics event — like the balance beam or uneven bars. These live streams come through the NBC Sports app so they won’t be as polished and produced as what the network proper carries, but it’s still better than not seeing them at all. And, if you miss an event entirely, don’t freak out. Every episode of the NBC and Telemundo Primetime Shows will be available on Xfinity On Demand the next day.

With Telemundo and NBC working hand-in-hand on these broadcasts, Comcast customers will have some flexibility in which language they hear when they watch. That is, NBC’s English broadcast will be mirrored on Telemundo in Spanish throughout the games. What’s more, viewers can use the voice search function on the Xfinity remote in either language (or a mix of them, a Comcast rep told me). And for blind and visually impaired subscribers, Xfinity is providing live video description for every episode of the primetime show.

NFL preps footballs with data-tracking chips

Think that it’s too easy for NFL players to kick extra points and field goals? The league is hoping that technology will up the skill level… not to mention the thrills. The NFL tells the Toronto Sun that it plans to conduct a study where footballs will have chips inside to track their flights between the goal posts. If too many successful field goals come from wildly off-center kicks, the league may narrow the uprights to make it more challenging. The tests would be limited to the preseason (ESPN sources also mention Thursday-night regular games), but they could start as soon as 2017.

This isn’t the first time the NFL has used smart sports equipment — it gave players stat-tracking shoulder pads back in 2014. However, this upcoming test may well have a farther-reaching effect. ESPN’s contacts hear that the NFL has briefed all its teams on plans to use the chips, and it suggests that the league might use augmented footballs to better detect downs and touchdowns. As such, the NFL’s test run could lead to a significant change in the style of play, with fewer field goal attempts and more accurate play calls.

Source: Toronto Sun, ESPN

NBC lays out its streaming plans for Rio 2016

NBC dropped a few more details on its streaming plans for the Summer Olympics, but it’s important to first note what won’t be streaming live: the Opening Ceremony. The broadcaster revealed that both TV and online will be on one hour broadcast delay (more on the west coast), and justified the decision by saying it wouldn’t need to cut any countries out of the intro to fit commercials. As far as the actual sports, they will all be ready for viewing live, on TV or online. If you don’t have cable TV you can expect 30 minutes of streaming access on your first visit before being prompted to login, and after that five minutes without logging in (maybe try clearing those cookies).

Every second of sports is supposed to be streamed, either as it’s broadcast on any of NBC’s channels (including the NBC one and, for the first time, the primetime recap show.) With the streams, viewers can tune into any of the gymnastics apparatus, track & field events, or tennis courts. All streaming with commentary will be closed captioned, another first, and all the event streams will have data overlays for desktops, phones and tablets. Of course, there will also be video on-demand and highlights (no word on any delay before they’re available) available online.

There are also some shows made just for streaming, including the NFL Red Zone Channel-like Gold Zone stream that jumps around to show the most exciting live action as it happens, wherever it happens. There’s a digital news desk that will update with highlights, the Daily Dismount that recaps gymnastics action and Ever Wonder focusing on non-sports related curiosities of the Games.

2016 is also the first Games NBC will stream to connected TV platforms, including Amazon Fire, Apple TV, Chromecast, Roku, and Win10, with more to be announced later. Beyond the NBC Sports app with all the streaming, there’s a new NBC Olympics: Rio News & Results app for iOS and Android. Constantly updated with scores, highlights and info it’s intended as a second-screen app for viewers. We don’t have any new info about the VR or Ultra HD broadcast plans for Rio 2016 just yet, but keep an eye out, we’ll probably have more info to share as the Games draw closed.

Source: Philly.com, NBC Sports