Modern sport is shaped by innovations that enhance athletic performance, in-game tactics, strategic decision-making, officiating, training methods and fan experiences. The global sports technology market is expected to more than quadruple, reaching USD 140 billion by 2030. Technologies such as equipment, smart wearables, data analytics, and assistive technologies are revolutionizing how sport is played, ruled and experienced today.
By examining IP filing activities, the WIPO Technology SPARK on sports innovations analyzes how new technologies are transforming sports, identifying emerging technologies and anticipating future breakthroughs.
Uncovering sports technology trends using IP analytics
The report analyzes over a 10-year period patent, trademark and design filings for sports technologies, uncovering patterns of innovative activity.
Sports-related patent data provides a detailed overview of how sports are shaped by technology. With an annual growth of 7.6%, 65,700 sports inventions appear in published patent applications over the last decade.
The sports with the most patents are golf, swimming and racket sports, with an increase in filings for inventions relating to equipment materials, sensor integration and training devices.
Worn on apparel or featured on equipment, sports trademarks protect the names, logos and symbols that are instantly recognized by fans. In the past decade, there have been 1.25m sports registered trademarks, with golf, swimming and American football/rugby being the sports with the most registered sports trademarks.
There has been a 6.1% increase in sports trademarks over the past decade, with the top three classes: clothing, footwear and headgear (38%), education, entertainment and sporting activities (38%), electrical and scientific apparatus (28%).
70,300 sports designs have been registered over the last decade with an annual growth rate of 8.3%.
The sports with the most designs are gym/fitness, golf and swimming, with both specialized sports equipment manufacturers and sporting retail giants contributing to technical and aesthetic progress.
Innovations in sports by disciplines
Sports innovations differ depending on the type of sport and objectives: speed, endurance, precision, safety, fairness, or fan engagement. Let’s see how innovation unfolds in practice for different disciplines.
Football-related innovations
Performance tracking and monitoring devices represent 33% of football patents. Players wear GPS and biometric trackers when training and competing to record distance, sprint patterns and heart rate. Sports monitoring systems such as VAR technology, goal line detection and advanced tracking provide fairness and accuracy to improve the overall experience of referees, players and fans.
Golf-related innovations
Golf equipment (golf clubs, golf balls, GPS rangefinders) represent 57% of golf-related patents, whilst analytics devices such as swing radars, launch monitors and high-speed cameras capturing motion account for 24% of the patents with more than 4,000 inventions; some of which rely on machine learning.
Racket-related sports innovations
Equipment such as modern racket strings represents 49% of racket sports patents. Performance monitoring systems such as court-side analytics systems and predictive technologies to anticipate opponent behaviors account for 35% of racket sports patents.
Cricket-related innovations
Cricket equipment accounts for 48% of cricket-related patents, whilst cricket analytics devices such as ball-tracking systems, acoustic analysis tools and computer vision techniques account for 46% of cricket-related innovations.
Swimming-related innovations
With innovations such as underwater camera, pressure-sensing platforms and wearable trackers capturing stroke timing, kick efficiency and body roll symmetry, performance monitoring systems represent 37% of swimming-related patents. Swimsuit and apparel account for 19% of patents with innovations such as micro textured fabrics.
Esports technologies
With hundreds of millions of viewers esports is becoming a major spectacle. Esports performance technologies such as specialized peripherals, AI-driven performance analytics and cloud infrastructure designed to eliminate "ping" or lag, facilitate professional competitive gaming. They allow competitive integrity, offering a fair, skill-based digital environment.
In sports, victory is decided by milliseconds; in technology, breakthroughs are defined by patents. At Gengee, we protect our core innovations to transform every touch and every run on the field into a data-driven language that empowers the sports industry.
Weidan Chen, Chairman & CEO, Gengee Technology Co., Ltd.
Hawk-Eye Innovations has grown from a pioneering ball-tracking system into a key technology platform supporting fairness and integrity across global sport. IP is central to this progress, protecting the specialized computer vision and machine learning methods that differentiate our technology and enable continued investment in cutting-edge sports innovation.
Ben Crossing, Chief Executive Officer, Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd.
Sports technology advancements
Some sports technologies not only enhance performance but can also transform how sports are played, adjudicated and experienced. The report reveals some of the sports technology advancements that have redefined games with a ripple effect across disciplines.
Hawk-Eye ball trajectory tracking technology
Originally developed for cricket, Hawk-Eye is a camera-based ball tracking technology that is designed to facilitate officiating decisions; its use is now widespread across different sports, including automated line calling in tennis, and VAR in football.
IMAGE: getty images / asiavision
Wearables sports technologies
Wearables sports technologies such as sports watches and fitness trackers facilitate performance tracking and health monitoring, providing access to insightful data: calories burn, distance, pace, location tracking, heart-rate monitoring, training load metrics, and sport-specific analytics.
IMAGE: getty images / kynny
3-D printing and recyclable performance footwear
Lately, 3D printing has revolutionized performance footwear enabling customization of running shoes’ components (upper, midsoles, tongue portions) for personalized fitting, and appearance. Conversely, sustainability has become a driver of innovation for recyclable running shoes that are not only designed for running efficiency but for end-of-live recovery.
IMAGE: getty images / fg trade
Parasport technology
Parasport technologies provide mobility solutions that help enhance para-athletes’ performance including mobility devices, prosthetics, exoskeletons and adaptive human-machine interfaces.