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Why EA is investing in 3D sports data

Plus: Does Spotify need a knob?

Author

Janko Roettgers
February 07, 2025

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Welcome to Lowpass! This week: The logic behind EA’s acquisition of an optical tracking startup, and a new Spotify hardware controller.

Why EA is investing in 3D sports data 

This is a big week in sports, and not just because of the Puppy Bowl coming up this weekend: On Monday, Electronic Arts announced that it was acquiring TRACAB, a Sweden-based sports tech company specializing in optical tracking of soccer matches. The acquisition, which is expected to close next quarter, will allow EA to gather a lot more data about soccer matches. This will not just help the company to improve its own games, but could also be key towards taking interactive 3D sports beyond gaming.

Here’s how EA Sports President Cam Weber put it when his company announced the acquisition: “Our EA Sports games are becoming living, breathing simulations of sport, and TRACAB’s cutting-edge technology and expertise in real-time data capture and analysis will enable us to enhance realism, immersion, and engagement in all our experiences.”

Okay, confession time: As you may have guessed from the awkward Puppy Bowl joke above, I’m not much of a sports guy. I do turn into a soccer fan every four years, but otherwise do my best to avoid most sports coverage. 

However, EA’s announcement struck me as super interesting, and prompted me to dig a little deeper to find out what TRACAB actually does, how it fits into EA’s plans, and how 3D data could transform the future of sports. I also got on the phone with former Alliance of American Football CTO and sports tech insider Erik Schwartz to hear his thoughts on why EA may be a great steward for sports media tech.

Down to the bone: TRACAB’s 3D sports tracking data. TRACAB is a Swedish sports tech company that got spun out of Chyron Hego, the parent company of the eponymous Chyron brand. Its main offering is optical tracking of soccer games, which it does for FIFA, Bundesliga, La Liga and others.

  • TRACAB’s optical tracking solution reportedly uses 12 cameras to track all the action on the field during a soccer match.

  • One of the original applications for this tech has been Semi-Automated Offside Technology, which is used to more accurately identify whether a ball was offside. TRACAB received FIFA certification of its Semi-Automated Offside Technology last summer.

  • To accurately identify offsides, TRACAB’s system does skeletal tracking with 21 body points. This then allows referees to access a 3D reconstruction of any play, and essentially look at a player from all angles to identify where exactly they were when they kicked the ball.

  • Altogether, TRACAB’s system generates 600 million data points per game, according to this week’s press release.

  • TRACAB tracking tech is already installed in 300 soccer stadiums around the world, and the company has also developed a portable tracking solution to bring to matches that matter.

More data, better play: How EA will use TRACAB. Getting access to all this data will allow EA to improve its own sports games, and also have some long-term benefits as the company looks to blur the lines between games and real-life competitions.

  • “It allows us to create new animation content,” Weber told Sports Business Journal this week. “It allows us to create more realistic AI and team behaviors. And so ultimately, it makes our games more realistic.”

  • But EA isn’t just looking to target gamers with the data gained from TRACAB. The company has also taken some first step towards broadening its audience to include soccer fans that may not spend a lot of time with a game controller in the hands.

  • To that end, EA released a mobile app called the EA Sports app last fall. Thus far only available in Spain, the app allows soccer fans to track La Liga games in real-time, chat with like-minded fans, watch game highlights and more.

  • In the future, the app could also let fans experience soccer in new ways, as the gaming giant pointed out in this week’s announcement: “We’re planning for TRACAB’s volumetric data capture technologies, combined with EA SPORTS’ capabilities and game engine, to help open up completely new opportunities for fans to create and share in the EA SPORTS App – beginning with reimagined highlights, predictive simulations, and even watching alternative broadcasts on-demand.”

The EA Sports app, as shown in the Spanish Play Store.

It’s all about catering to the right audience. TRACAB will reportedly keep its Stockholm office and continue to work with its existing partners, but the EA deal ultimately put the company on a path to address a much bigger audience: sports fans and gamers.

  • That’s a smart approach, argued Schwartz. “If you want to do venture-scale business in sports, you need to sell to the 400 million fans, not the leagues,” he told me.

  • One of the problems with B2B sports tech is that leagues have a limited budget for it, Schwartz argued in a LinkedIn post this week.

  • Leagues tend to see technology as a burden, Schwartz told me. “All of this is just stuff that costs them money,” he said. “They don’t see it as a profit center.”

In other words: TRACAB’s may have made some solid money by selling the technology that helps referees to decide whether a goal was offside or not to soccer leagues. Now, EA is in a position to take the same data and repurpose it for millions of gamers playing EA Sports games, and potentially hundreds of millions of soccer fans around the world.

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Is there a market for home audio controllers?

When Spotify bricked its Car Thing audio adapter late last year, it left a small but vocal community of users looking for alternatives. This included folks who hacked their Car Thing controllers to run alternative firmware, and turn them into what amounts to dedicated Spotify controllers for your desk. 

I wrote about this in December, and noted how some of the very people who had built the original Car Thing were bemoaning the fact that Spotify had retreated from hardware. Turns out they’re not alone, as I’ve seen two interesting nuggets recently that suggest continued interest in dedicated audio controller hardware:

The Sonos tablet controller. A random Reddit user figured out how to turn a cheap Amazon Fire tablet into a dedicated Sonos controller, thanks to the relatively new Sonos web app. When he posted a how-to on Reddit, a Sonos employee chimed in to add that the company came up with its own way of repurposing old iPhones and Android phones as Sonos controllers.

The Playdeck controller. A group of European hardware tinkerers recently formed their own startup called Toasty Gear to develop a dedicated Spotify / audio controller called the Playdeck. “The Playdeck is in active development with functional prototypes in testing,” one member of the team told me via email. “We’re aiming for an initial launch early next year, with a focus on delivering an affordable yet premium experience for music enthusiasts.”

Initial renders of the Playdeck do look beautiful, and somewhat reminiscent of the playful nature of Teenage Engineering hardware. Will the startup sell a ton of these? Probably not. But the team behind it seems to be okay with serving a niche market. 

Asked what they had learned from the shut-down of Spotify’s Car Thing, and the hardware hacking efforts it inspired, the unnamed team member responded: “The modding of Car Thing has shown that there’s a dedicated and creative community for niche, purpose-built music controllers – not just for Spotify but potentially for platforms like SoundCloud as well. It’s a clear sign that thoughtfully designed hardware can still thrive when it serves a unique purpose.”

What else

Google teams up with Samsung to take on Dolby Atmos. I wrote about Eclipsa Audio, the new royalty-free spatial audio format, for Fast Company.

Amazon Music Unlimited is getting more expensive. Prime members will have to pay $10.99 per month for the service going forward; the price for people who don’t use Prime is also increasing.

Nintendo’s revenue, profit down as people wait for the next Switch. The game console maker had to revise its outlook following a disappointing holiday season.

The new Sonos TV streamer won’t be cheap. The Verge’s Chris Welch is reporting that the device will be priced between $200 and $400.

Fox plans to launch a subscription streaming service. The still-unnamed service is scheduled to launch by the end of the year … but does anyone need yet another paid service?

Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers last quarter. Disney’s streaming business nonetheless managed to deliver its second profitable quarter for the company.

Sonos lays off another 200 employees. The move is part of a company-wide reorganization instituted by interim CEO Tom Conrad.

Amazon is having a devices event this month. The company has invited journalists to New York at the end of the month; Reuters reports the event is “Alexa-focused.”

That’s it

What a year, huh? I know, it’s February … and the news somehow won’t stop. One example: The on-again-off-again tariff whiplash. As someone who is closely monitoring how all of this is impacting consumer electronics (and, by proxy, the entertainment industry), I found it fascinating to read the unfiltered observations of Michael Tamblyn, the CEO of ebook reader maker Kobo, on the subject.

I recommend reading the whole thread, but two things in particular stood out to me: Like many other companies, Kobo tried to anticipate the tariffs, and moved as many of its devices to US warehouses as it could. And perhaps unlike many other companies, Kobo’s lesson from all of this is to keep looking elsewhere or profits. “We aren’t relying on any one country to keep the lights on,” Tamblyn wrote, adding: “Like they say about planting trees, the best time for a Canadian company to diversify its markets was ten years ago. The next best time is now.”

Thanks for reading, have a great weekend!

And many thanks to Kochava for sponsoring this week’s newsletter!

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