Wilson Sporting Goods Co. has recently announced its highly-anticipated Wilson X Connected Basketball is now available. The Company designed the ball and an app to help players further develop their shooting skills by infusing gaming mechanics into two hallmark training avenues that help clutch shooters perform in those heart pounding minutes at the end of a close game: relentless repetition and high pressure game experiences.
"We wanted this ball to be different than anything available to players and basketball enthusiasts today," said Bob Thurman, Head of Wilson Labs, the innovation hub at Wilson. "By combining today's best sensor technology, our highest quality basketball construction and the feedback of thousands of youth athletes and coaches, this experience was born. We are excited to offer young players a basketball that can not only track their shooting percentages and distance from the hoop, but help make shooting repetition and game experience outside of a team dynamic more exciting, rewarding, and immediately shareable with friends, family and even coaches."
The Wilson X Connected Basketball is a smart basketball (a small sensor is embedded in the ball) that connects to an app on a player's phone; no other attachments are needed. Through the Company's proprietary Make/Miss Technology™, the ball knows when a player makes or misses a shot, and it tracks every shot that player takes so he/she can see how their personal shooting performance changes over time.
The Wilson X app features four modes that focus on pure shooting drills and game-like experiences, like Buzzer Beater, that challenge a player under game-winning countdown pressure. In real-time, the sensor in the basketball delivers data to the player's smart phone or tablet.
The Wilson X is a basketball shooter's experience; it is not designed to track short shots inside seven feet from the hoop. As the player shoots from the top of the key and out on the perimeter, a rich audio experience surrounds him/her so he/she always knows how they're doing, and full crowd noise and sports commentator observations bring the "in-game" simulations to life.
Players using the Wilson X Connected Basketball can track their shooting and performance stats, including shots taken, shots made, two-pointers, three- pointers, and free throws, and share them with friends, via social media, or with their coach. And when a player hits milestones and celebrates shooting streaks, he/she can unlock special badges.
Wilson Labs constructed the Wilson X Connected basketball for use on any indoor and outdoor surface – from the gym to the driveway – with a 10 foot regulation hoop and net. The ball never needs charging, as the sensor has been designed to track every shot up to approximately 100,000 shots (this equates to approximately 300 shots a day, seven days a week for 52 weeks).
To bring the Wilson X Connected Basketball to market, Wilson partnered with SportIQ, a sports technology and analytics company, and the creator of a groundbreaking player and sports equipment tracking solution. Over the past three years, Wilson and SportIQ have collaborated to explore how sensors and gamification technology could be embedded into sports equipment to enhance athlete performance. Basketball has been a project that is at the center of the Wilson/SportIQ partnership.
The Wilson X app is available for download via iTunes. The Company anticipates the app will be available for Android devices later this fall. The ball is available in Official (29.5 inches) and Intermediate (28.5 inches.) sizes. The Wilson X Connected Basketball is available for pre order by clicking on the buy link below.
