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Rose Table Dialogue on Sports and Innovation

The Rose Table Dialogue on Sports and Innovation will explore the use of technological and process innovations in sports, derive implications from the pace of innovation thus far, consider who is resisting these changes and why, and suggest how sports can welcome inevitable innovation while preserving the essence of the sport.

Innovation is a constant in sports. From using new technologies and analytics to enhance performance to creating safer equipment, from new approaches for evaluating players (Moneyball) to the creation of new sports, e.g., e-sports or sports in space, innovations are changing the game. Teams can, for example, wire up a player, analyze each element of his or her game, explore how their use can be better employed in a game, and make other critical competition-enhancing decisions.

As one F-1 team owner suggested, their analytics tell the team so much, they don’t even need the driver! Often innovators profess to move fast and break things, i.e., ask for forgiveness rather than permission. This often leads to disruption, and in sports this can come from new technologies and analytics, new attitudes, or even new players. Yet many factors in a sport resist change. How can teams best determine which innovations should be adopted for the good of the player, team and sport, and which resisted?

How do innovators overcome cultural resistance?

Read Here "Reflections On The Rose Table Dialogue"