With a market size value projected to near $1.1 billion in 2020 and continuing to grow at a projected CAGR of 31.2% from now to 2025, it is no secret that the sports analytics market is booming. And as with every booming market, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Frankly, some of the big-name tech conglomerates were not as early to the party as they might have wished as small, private businesses hold most of the IP in the sector. Now, we are starting to see those same big-name companies try to strategically in a way to allow them to profit from the rapidly growing market. A prime example of this trend lies in Intel. Upon analysis of the sector, they have clearly been trying desperately to get their cleats on the turf for a while, filing five applications dating back to late 2015. However, they have continued to strike out with none of these five applications being granted patents.
That is until earlier this week when Intel was granted a patent for a swing tracking technology that uses inertial sensors to capture analytics of a user's swing. To those of you familiar with the sector and past insights written, this technology may sound quite similar to that of the fifth-largest assignee in the space, Blast Motion. Although, upon analysis of the patent, it becomes clear that while the technology sounds similar, the applications are not. The claims of Intel's most recent patent relate specifically to a cricket bat. This along with slight variations in the measurements taken that would give their invention an advantage in cricket over Blast Motion's tech may have been key to finally gaining a patent in the sector. To learn more about the specifics of Intel's most recent patent, analyze its claims with Patent Matrix®
While this move is definitely interesting on Intel's part, it may portray an emerging trend in the sector. As big-name tech companies begin to realize just how late they are to the game for analytical innovation applying to popular world-wide sports such as soccer, basketball, and baseball, they might just start focusing their attention on smaller more local sports that have not yet been through the so-called analytics revolution. While it is too early to say this for certain, the patent data is starting to predict a movement in this direction. Keep up with this trend and many others in the Sports Analytics Sector by following the Magic Number® Sports Analytics Patent Forecast®
