NBA has been active in promoting the use of wearable technology in sports and during professional leagues too. This has led to the use of wearable tech in professional games like MLB and Australian cricket.
This time, the league has partnered with Shock Doctor, a mouthguard technology company, to promote the use of mouth guards during games. The company already has some very good supporters inside the league who have been voicing out their opinion for the use of this technology in sports. The professional players like Kevin Love have also advocated the use of Shock Doctor during NBA games (watch the video above).
Apart from the deal, Shock Doctor has also been named as the official mouthguard of the NBA, NBA Development League (NBA D-League), USA Basketball (USAB), and Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA).
The partnership between the two will help Shock Doctor create retail lines for each league along with team-specific merchandise. Coming to the statistics on paper, National Electronic Injury Surveillance System has reported that the basketball sports have caused an average of 310,636 injuries per year. This figure is more than any of the other 33 sports in their system. About 13.86% of the injuries were caused on head or face.
Coming to the use of mouth guard and other protection technologies, Dr. Cynthia R. LaBella in 1999 researched data on dental injuries and concussions throughout the season for 50 Division I men’s basketball programs. She found out that just 13% of the players involved in the research wore mouth guards during the games.
Different researches have time and again also concluded that those players who do not wear mouth guards are six times more prone to get a serious injury. The stat is alarming and therefore concludes that technologies like Shock Guard should be used throughout the season and gaming sessions. It also becomes evident that sports professionals and athletes should also be taught to use protection so that they can stay rid of injuries and potential disease causing problems.
Shock Doctor has a lineup of total 12 mouth guards and can be used by different sports players for their protection during games.