The Power of Perspective: How Video is Changing Youth Sports

Athletic Intelligence Episode 9 Transcript

The Power of Perspective: How Video is Changing Youth Sports

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Why Video Perspective Matters in Youth and Pro Sports

[00:00] Lonie Paxton: It's really the game and the kid and the player, or the coach and the family, and at the end of the day, they just want to see Sarah hit a home run. 

[00:11] Narration: That's Lonie Paxton, a three time Super Bowl champion with the New England Patriots, who also spent seven years at GoPro, helping them make the leap from individual adventure to the world of team sports.

In this episode, Lonie joins Aman Loomba GameChanger's SVP of Product and Anna Nickel, Senior Marketing Manager, to talk about how the same camera that goes skiing or surfing can now sit behind a chain link fence and stream a little league game live to grandparents, relatives, and fans across the country.

Together, they explore the evolution of video capture, the power of perspective, and how this tiny action cam is helping players, coaches, and parents stay more connected to the game than ever before.

This is Athletic Intelligence from GameChanger. A show where we go deep inside the world of baseball and softball, uncovering the tech that's shaping the game.

[01:12] Narration: Every player remembers the first time they watch themselves on video. That mix of curiosity and surprise when you finally see what the game looks like from the outside. For Lonie Paxton, that moment came at Sacramento State. 

Watching the Tape: What Players Learn from Film Review

[01:26] Lonie Paxton: I went to a small school, Sacramento State. What, we were one AA at the time. Not a lot of money in the school, not a lot of scholarships to give.

Um, it was a commuter school up in Sacramento, and, but they watched film and they reviewed, you know, the game film. They reviewed practice, film, and they had individual film, meaning, you know, the individual drills that you do. Someone was out there with a handy cam just filming perspectives. And so, really spent a lot of time with self review and preparation for the upcoming opponent.

We were working off of, you know, VHS tapes and some of 'em would, the film would cut and break up and, and now that game film was lost and so you just have to kind of roll with it. I would say college, it started, but you know, when you got to the NFL, that's when it's hours upon,hours upon hours a day. 

[02:13] Narration: What started as grainy practice footage for film review became something bigger.

A way to learn faster, see what others see, and stay one step ahead. 

[02:22] Aman Loomba: Can you think of any examples where it was the video that really made the difference, maybe in the way you train or even just communicate with each other? 

Seeing What the Opponent Sees: Scouting Through Their Eyes

[02:31] Lonie Paxton: To me, the best perspectives were the end zone shot for us. So it would, you know, be behind the defense or offense.

You could see the spacing, you could see your actual footwork and steps. You could see the gaps that the guys would shoot. You could see kind of the flow of the block if it's a double team or, or a, a man on man block. And so that would always help me adjust footwork, adjust hand placement, adjust timing.

Then when I got to the pros, it just only became footage of long snapping, whether I'm watching the opponent. Or watching myself in practice. And so that's when you would really see some of your tendencies that, you know, other teams are looking at. So whether it was the way I would move my hands right before I'd snap the ball or the, we, sometimes I'd wiggle my butt a little bit that, you know, they knew the snap was about to come.

So all these tendencies, I tried to self scout myself so that, knowing, you know, what the other team might be looking at could help me get ahead of that. 

[03:32] Aman Loomba: Mm-hmm. You're trying to watch and, and see exactly what your opponent sees, so you know what kind of decisions they might be making. 

[03:37] Lonie Paxton: Yeah. Or obviously watching them and figuring out, you know, what they've done to other guys.

Uh, in the past and, and get ready for it. If, are they gonna try and run you over? Are they gonna try and run around you? They're gonna try to ear hole you. They're gonna try to hold you. Um, and everyone in between.

How Youth Players Can Use Video to Build Awareness and Confidence

[03:55] Narration: On youth fields today, video serves the same purpose. It helps players see themselves the way others do, the small cues, the moments of hesitation or confidence they might never feel in the game. And that view from the outside can be what turns awareness into growth. 

[04:14] Anna Nickel: It sounds like video has played a major role in not only your development, but also your competitive edge.

And figuring out how can I level up, how can I outsmart, how can I play chess against the other team in a very specific role? So that makes me think, hmm, maybe when you heard about GoPro, you said, wow, there are so many places I can see this show up. Was that true for you? Did you find that you could imagine all the use cases in that team sports space?

From Red Bull to GoPro: Lonie’s Journey Into Sports Tech

[04:43]Lonie Paxton: When I first got to the NFL, I was, you know, I'm a Southern California kid, I'm, I got some tattoos. I drive a big truck, and you know, I'm a long snapper. So I have this unique kind of position on the team and I was always inter ingrained with the brands. And so I was, I was probably the first Red Bull ambassador in team sports.

That's where I met Paul Crandell, who Paul Crandell went on to be the vice president of GoPro. So. I think this happened in like 2011, and by that time I was at the Denver Broncos. And I remember seeing an article in Sports Illustrated about the POV perspective and they were talking about like the quarterback's perspective.

And right around that time, he took the job and I called him, I said, Hey, man. I got some ideas that I feel like could be pretty impactful for GoPro. I'm in my 12th year, you know, this ain't gonna last forever, so maybe there's a way that I can just talk to you about a role or something. And you know, he is like, well, I can't give you a job.

He's like, I don't want you to gimme a job, just I'll fly myself down. And just put me in the room with the vice president of marketing, with the owner, with the, you know, CTO. And so I kind of paid my way to go have meetings with his people before I was even an employee. Started talking about coaching perspectives, fan perspectives, you know, off field, uh, lifestyle perspectives.

You know how you can really leverage this content for self-improvement, for bringing the fan closer for things that fans don't normally see from long lens cameras, whether it's in the field to play or off the field.

[06:19] Narration: Inside GoPro, Lonie embraced the challenge of bringing a product originally designed for individual action sports. Into the world of team sports. Team sports were a new vertical for the brand. One where he could draw directly from his own experience as a professional athlete, it was no longer about catching the craziest shot, but about capturing the game itself and helping people understand how to use the camera to do it well.

Teaching Coaches How to Use GoPro on the Field

[06:47] Lonie Paxton: It was education of where to use your GoPro. Everyone's so used to the Handycam that has zoom. Or they're used to a reactionary out of the pocket, turn it on and go. GoPros were not your zoom, and there needed to be a little bit more forethought into what shot you're gonna get. And how you're going to mount it, if you're gonna get that shot, what settings to run it in.

And then back then we didn't have a, a really good functional app, so use of content was always tricky. Um, so once the app got better and was, you know, it became like an ally to us, the same as the phone. The phone for the longest time was an enemy, but then we kind of made it this companion that you needed because of the app and controlling and changing the settings via Bluetooth and all those things.

[07:37] Aman Loomba: Yeah, it's tough to compete with the phone. Makes more sense to, to work with it. 'cause no one's putting the phone down. Everybody's got one no matter what. Right? 

[07:44] Lonie Paxton: Yeah. They, just, from a GoPro's perspective, you don't wanna put it in these like dangerous situations. So you're not gonna mount it on a helmet.

[07:51]Aman Loomba: Right

[07:51] Lonie Paxton: You're not gonna take it under water. You're not gonna, you know, strap it to your surfboard or so, but it was just trying to tell that story of. Why, why you needed both of them? 

[08:01] Aman Loomba: Yeah. I think keeping the phone safe is a big concern among our users. Where the typical use case is you just mount it to the backstop and, um, we've got a lot of great footage of phones being destroyed by foul balls.

[08:13] Lonie Paxton:  Yeah. 

[08:14] Aman Loomba: People need a, a more ruggedized camera for that use case for sure. 

The Ideal GoPro Angle for Baseball and Softball

[08:16] Lonie Paxton: Yeah, and that's a great, I mean, that's honestly in, in team sports, behind the backstop in a baseball diamond is literally the ideal spot for a GoPro because of you get both foul lines. You're getting the pitch and the hit, you know, you're obviously not getting a closeup of the ground ball or a pop fly or whatever, but where all the action is happening on those, you know, first and third base lines and at home plate you're getting. And so that to me is like the best perspective.

H3: GoPro + GameChanger: A Better Way to Capture Games

[08:49] Narration: When the pandemic hit in 2020, families were suddenly separated from the game. Travel restrictions and safety protocols meant parents, grandparents, and friends couldn't be there in person. At the time, there wasn't a reliable live streaming option for youth baseball and softball. Still, most parents heading to the field already had everything they needed in their pocket.

A cell phone and the GameChanger App. When GameChanger launched live streaming, it gave families a simple way to watch games in real time and stay connected even when they couldn't be there in person. The integration with GoPro took that one step further, bringing a wide angle lens, longer battery life, compact sizing, durability, and other unique advantages that make it an especially appealing option on game day. 

Coach Audio, POV Angles, and the Power of Replay

[09:40] Lonie Paxton: You can have the coach wear it, so you get his audio of how he's coaching, you get his hand movements and gestures. So you see, uh, you see the player in front of him getting the coaching. But those sound bites, you know, people can listen to.

Sometimes when you're getting coached or yelled at, you kind of forget some of those coaching points unless you were to go back and listen to it again. And sometimes the coach maybe didn't say it the right way and he can almost self-review himself of like, oh, actually I would've coached it differently.

Then there was a behind the line, end zone-type perspective. But from a closeup shot, when you're in practice, you're much closer. So you're, it’s this up above angle. And then it was the POV perspective of the player. So side of the helmet on a quarterback, side of the helmet on a, on a defensive player. And then they flip flop.

They watch each other's film, so they see the quarterback sees what the linebacker's looking at the linebacker sees what the quarterback's looking at. 

[10:33] Anna Nickel: You're giving me so many ideas as a coach right now. So I coach softball, specifically pitchers, and what you just said clicked for me is like a personalized tutorial.

There are so many times where I review video and then go to the athlete and we review it together, but it's post, right? So like I'm videoing and then we're talking about it after, and she doesn't necessarily have those two things married. She's reviewing the video and my voice, but she doesn't have a recording of my voice unless I do it through, you know, a coaching app, or I have the diligence to actually go on my computer and record and do it over.

[11:07] Lonie Paxton: Yeah.

Visualizing Pressure Moments: Video as a Mental Rehearsal Tool

[11:08] Anna Nickel: So you're giving me a lot of ideas on how I could create more personalized athlete tutorials when I can't be there and I'm at a division three for softball, like I can't be there all the time. So to give them more of my voice, helping them kind of navigate through it. It's really interesting, and so you've kind of got my brain clicking of like, wow, I could use this for hitting, I can actually put this on an umpire and help my pitchers see the strike zone better that they can't see when they're in execution mode.

So many applications that are clicking for me as a coach, and I'm sure parents also see that avenue of like, I want my kid to see what everyone else is seeing. They have a hard time seeing that because so much of our execution is emotional, right? We're disappointed and it's hard to kind of zoom out from that emotional, so maybe this is even an additional angle to a live stream, right?

So there's the behind the backstop, um, angle and there's also a side cam that's GoPro that's being cut up so they can kind of see those things together. So, you're flooding my brain with ideas on how this can apply and help us really educate and be part of that journey that's longer than just the hit, right?

There's so much more than the hit. There's the preparation and there's also that, the clutch-ness, right? Yeah. Being able to capture that clutch-ness, like here's how you can visualize clutch-ness in the future, because I imagine as a long snap, you spend a lot of time visualizing, and the video can help you strengthen that visualization muscle, and the science truly backs up how important that is now, so.

I'm just excited to think about, wow, there's so many things I could be doing that doesn't sound like it's an additional, like it's a lot of extra work. It's really just setting it up, putting it on me, and then going. 

Coaching Perspectives That Often Go Unseen

[12:47] Lonie Paxton: Yeah, and it's also just like examples of how to do it, you know? So you're educating the coach and the player who is in some other state and they have questions, but I always love the perspective of, you know, the catcher and the hitter watch that perspective. Then you have the base coach. Rocking it. And so you get that kind of perspective whether you know you're a righty and you're on the first base line, or you're a lefty, you're on the third base line, but you, you can see like the level of the ball, you can see the level of the swing.

You might even see the signs. 'Cause when they look down, they're given their signs. Like there's a lot of like things that get missed by the everyday fan 'cause there's so much going on that if you tune into like that role of that coach or that player at that time. It just breaks down those little coaching points that sometimes are very individualized, but it could be like a bigger package of like, this is how the game is played from all these different perspectives.

[13:48] Narration: Seeing the game from every angle connects families to the game and gives coaches and players more to work with than ever before. And as Anna said, it unlocks new and creative ways for coaches to use these types of angles to teach themselves. New perspectives can also raise new questions. When you're breaking down your own footage, what are you releasing and how do you know what matters most? 

Why Players Shouldn’t Review Film Alone

[14:13] Aman Loomba: if somebody's reviewing their own game film, do you need to do it with a coach? Is there a way you could be misled by the technology, by reviewing film and not having the right sort of coaching and guidance around it?

[14:26] Lonie Paxton: I wouldn't say misled. I would say that, uh, typically youth players aren't as hard on themselves at the right moments. Like I, my kids do it all the time, you know that I see 'em make three good plays and five bad plays and, and comes home.

He's like, man, did you see that good play I made? Well, I'm like, I did see it. It. But what are the corrections we can also make on those things? 'cause I saw those too. You know, you don't wanna harp on one or the other, but it's like, it's giving them, when they're up, supporting that they're up, but knowing that they, it could have been a, you know, a little better.

There's some corrections to make and when they're down, pulling out the good stuff and saying like, it's not that bad. Like you're inches away from like all of those things being much better. And so sometimes when you self-review at that age. You might miss some things.

[15:15] Narration: It's a balance every coach and parent knows, helping kids see the whole picture: the good, the bad, the almosts, and the not quites. Perspective is what turns feedback into growth. The ability to zoom out and help young players understand why it matters and what comes next. And for families who can't always be there in person, live streaming makes that perspective possible too.

Keeping them connected to the game and to the people they love who play it. As technology continues to evolve, that connection will only deepen, giving players new ways to learn, coaches new ways to teach, and families new ways to share the experience of the game. 

What’s Next: AI-Driven Player Tracking and Post-Game Analysis

[15:59] Aman Loomba: Is there any really interesting technology that is being deployed in sports right now? Pro or amateur or youth outside of video or, or just an evolution of video that really catches your eye that you're really interested in? 

[16:13] Lonie Paxton: Yeah, I mean, there's some of these like, um, tracking, you know, like player tracking, you know, whether you're able to track a player. And then through AI kind of like clip that specific player.

So the camera isn't always doing this, it just knows in post who to follow. Um, obviously some of the like biometric stuff like heart rate and impact and, and speed velocity and those things are really cool. It's crazy how much data overload, you know, 'cause there's so much progression and there's so much data and there's so many.

Technology advances out there that like if you just kind of take a step back, it's really the game and the kid and the player or the coach and the family. And at the end of the day, they just want to see Timmy score a touchdown or Sarah hit a home run or whatever it is and, and be cool with that, at least for now.

And then as it progresses and everyone kind of catches up, then I'm sure that those things will make a difference. In my world, with just youth sports and whatnot, it's uh, it's just self review. Some great clips to hopefully get your kid to the next level in high school, college, or, you know, hopefully pros.

But, you know, it's, it's just having them play sports for as long as they can and enjoy that with their team.

More Than Metrics: Why Tech Should Serve the Player Experience

[17:32] Narration: It is a reminder that for all the progress in technology — the cameras, the data, the live streams — the heart of the game hasn't changed. It's still about the people on the field and the families cheering them on. From the first handycam on the sidelines to the GoPros behind backstops today, technology has changed the way we experience youth sports. But as Lonie reminded us, it's never been just about the footage. It's about what we do with it, how we use it to learn to connect, and to see the game, and each other, a little more.

Clearly this has been Athletic Intelligence from GameChanger. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to follow, rate, and share it. I hope you'll join us next time as we continue to uncover the tech that's shaping the game.