The sports playbook. The lifeblood of many teams. The blueprint to success. Learn your routes. Understand the defense. Know the playbook inside and out.
The plays within a sports playbook binder have changed over the decades, but one thing hadn’t: the binder itself. Because of the fluid nature of a playbook, the binder was the best method to contain and easily update a team’s plays. But as technology advanced, and as the game plans teams developed became more intricate, the drawbacks of binders became evident. Updating a playbook required replacing pages—not easy if a coach is on one side of the country and an injured player is on the other side. Want to see the play in action? You need to coordinate your playbook with video media, which can be an inefficient process at best. And binders aren’t exactly the most secure way to hold valuable game plans—stories of lost playbooks seem comical to everyone except the affected team.
Teams and their video managers are discovering a better way to collect, sort, and deliver the information their coaches and players require. The binder will soon go the way of the four corners offense and the wishbone. Here are some ways video managers are digitizing a sports playbook:
Turning to the Tablet
In place of the binder, more teams are adopting tablet-based solutions to store and manage their playbooks. With this approach, plays are uploaded onto an iPad or similar device, but the uploading is automatic—there is no need for a tablet to be plugged into another computer or even be at the stadium for it to receive updates. This strategy is eco-friendly and less bulky; players may forget to bring their playbooks but likely won’t forget their iPads. And tablets are simply more secure; a hacker might be able to get past password protection, but the average fan won’t. Furthermore, if a tablet is lost or stolen, the playbook content can be wiped remotely—this is a helpful option, too, if a player is cut or traded.
Anywhere Access
As already mentioned, updating a playbook takes some degree of manual effort: printing out pages, replacing those pages, remembering to bring the playbook to the stadium to make the update, and so on. Tablet-based solutions simplify this process; a change is made at the team’s headquarters or on the road, and it’s pushed to every iPad that should get the update. Furthermore, a continual Wi-Fi or 4G connection isn’t necessary to access sports playbook content, yet updates can occur even if the tablet is sleeping. Players can turn on their iPads on an airplane and study a playbook that was automatically updated before they boarded.
Video and audio
Seeing the X’s and O’s of a play is one thing. Watching the play in action is another. Teams are using modern technology to combine the two. For example, if a basketball team is adding a new wrinkle to its offense, video of how other teams run the set can accompany diagrams and instructions of the play. Still photos may also be included, and coaches can add audio to better explain a play as well.
Interactive Playbooks
Instead of simply studying diagrams on pages in a binder, today’s tablet-based platforms are truly making the sports playbook an interactive experience. Players and coaches can leave comments, questions, or feedback on a play by typing a message, by recording audio, or even by drawing suggestions on the actual diagram. Plays can be designed as video graphics so that players can watch the X’s and O’s move on their screens. Every time a play is run during a game, the corresponding video footage can automatically upload into the playbook. The sky is the limit on what teams can accomplish when they ditch binders in favor of tablets.
What issues have you experienced with playbooks in binders?
