Future of football? Popular anti-sign stealing baseball technology makes pro debut in CFL

Like PitchCom did with baseball, the company is targeting the top of the professional ranks to introduce their new products. The new, anti-sign-stealing technology – called PitchCom Impact, the football version of the product that changed pitcher-catcher communication in baseball, leading to a more streamlined product while preventing sign-stealing – made its professional football debut this weekend in the Canadian Football League.

“Sort of the proof of concept,” PitchCom co-founder John Hankins told USA TODAY Sports.

The tech tryout began June 5 as the Saskatchewan Roughriders played the Ottawa Redblacks and continued through the league’s opening weekend as seven of the nine teams tried it out.

PitchCom debuted in Major League Baseball at the start of the 2022 season and, combined with the pitch clock, has helped dramatically decrease the length of games. But the company had its sights set beyond the diamond.

“At the end of the day, though, we wanted to be involved in football,” Hankins said, “because people always said, you know, ‘This makes perfect sense.’”

PitchCom attended the American Football Coaches Association Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina this past January. They walked to the CFL booth and vice president of customer relations Jon Updike demonstrated how PitchCom worked. The league was impressed by the size of the device and that it could fit safely into a helmet.

Co-founder Craig Filicetti said slight software modifications were required. In baseball, the pitcher or catcher presses the buttons and a pre-recorded voice calls out the corresponding pitch and location through an earpiece located in a player’s cap or helmet. But in football, there are exponentially more types of plays (and personnel groupings) compared to pitches and locations.

Source : USA Today