Denmark's SELECT and Germany's KINEXON have jointly developed the intelligent football SELECT Brillant Super iBall - a football with an integrated tracking sensor, which will improve the football experience for everyone, since completely new data from football matches will be available. SELECT Brillant Super iBall combines SELECT's deep knowledge of footballs with KINEXON's expertise in electronics, tracking and analysis. SELECT and KINEXON's iBall is the first football with an integrated sensor that has been approved by FIFA Quality Pro. This means that SELECT Brillant Super iBall is approved for use in the very best soccer leagues.
The new SELECT Brillant Super iBall will have its world premiere when it is played for the first time in the play-off matches of the Portuguese football league Liga Portugal. Liga Portugal is a professional football league that has existed for 40 years and along the way has produced some of the best football players and coaches in the world. One of the cornerstones of the Portuguese league is to focus on innovation and the challenges of the future. Precisely for this reason, Liga Portugal is the perfect place to introduce the SELECT Brillant Super iBall for the first time. At Liga Portugal, they are looking forward to being the very first to play with the first ever FIFA Quality Pro approved intelligent football, and they are looking forward to experiencing the new ground-breaking possibilities that the ball brings.
CEO at SELECT Sport Peter Knap says this about the new SELECT iBall: "At SELECT Sport we are happy to announce that our new SELECT iBall, which we have created in collaboration with KINEXON, is ready to be played with in all the top leagues . We look forward to seeing the ball in action in the best Portuguese league, and to clubs, coaches and fans being introduced to the new possibilities that the SELECT Brillant Super iBall brings. This new intelligent football with a built-in tracking sensor will improve the football experience for both clubs and fans".
The technology behind
SELECT, together with ball supplier Anwar Khawaja Industries in Pakistan, has developed a football with an integrated KINEXON tracking sensor. KINEXON has made an ultra-small sensor with the least possible weight, and SELECT has subsequently integrated this sensor into the bladder on the ball. Using radio technology, the sensor can transmit data on its position and movements approx. 50 times per second. The sensor can transmit data on position exceptionally quickly, and the ball data can be synchronized with the players' tracking data in less than 1 millisecond. By linking the (already used) player-tracking data with this new ball-tracking data, you can get a better overview of an entire training session or match, with all its complexities.
Advantages of the new SELECT iBall
The data that the new SELECT iBall makes possible to collect can be used for both match and training analyses, but also to engage the fans to a greater extent. The intelligent football makes it possible to collect real-time information about shot speed, successful passes, shots per game. player and team, quality of ball handling and much more. This technology can be used by clubs to analyze player and team performance for matches and training. By combining match data and training data with physical and tactical performance data, you can reach a completely new level of data-based performance insight.
This new ball-tracking technology can also be used to engage fans in a whole new way. As it will now be possible to present them with live graphics with different data from the match - both for fans in the stadium and at home in front of the TV. In addition, commentators and journalists can also receive live match data while covering a football match.
SELECT Brillant Super iBall is a game changer when it comes to providing actionable live data to coaches, clubs, fans, referees and the media.
Development
It has taken five years to develop the SELECT iBall. SELECT and KINEXON have developed and tested hundreds of prototypes to arrive at this new intelligent top football. The first test took place in the year 2018 in collaboration with Bundesliga club Bayer Leverkusen. Today, both companies can guarantee that the small ball sensor of 14 grams works flawlessly even in harsh conditions and that it does not affect the behavior of the ball. Professional soccer players will not feel the difference when playing with a SELECT Brillant Super iBall.
SELECT Brillant Super iBall is ready for the top leagues
This new SELECT iBall has been FIFA Quality Pro approved, which is the best approval a football can get in the FIFA system. Only footballs that have been FIFA Quality Pro approved can be used in international matches organized by FIFA. The new SELECT iBall has passed all the required tests and is now ready to be played in all the top leagues around the world.
About KINEXON Sports & Media GmbH
KINEXON is a global technology leader that develops ground-breaking new hardware and software solutions for a multitude of different purposes. More than 400 teams, leagues and events worldwide use KINEXON Sports & Media's technology for performance tracking and analyses, fan engagement and contact tracing. KINEXON has also implemented specialized real-time IoT solutions to capture, analyze and automate the logistics processor for e.g. BMW and Continental. During the Covid-19 pandemic, KINEXON launched SafeZone, which is the world's most reliable solution for contact tracing, and which has been used by many companies around the world. KINEXON was founded in 2012 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany. KINEXON today has more than 250 employees in the offices in Munich and Chicago.
