Are you ready for some multi-touch gestures used mainly in preparation for some football? The NFL is. It appears the iPad is taking the place of musty old playbooks in several locker rooms across the country. According to the New York Times, the Baltimore Ravens bought 120 of them during the off-season, which in retrospect seems to be a good move considering the Ravens’ AFC North-leading 5-1 record.
The other team to go the tablet route? That would be the NFC South-leading Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Maybe fans of the Miami Dolphins and St. Louis Rams should be sending their teams iPads instead of crossing their fingers for Andrew Luck in the NFL Draft.
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While other teams have been contacting Baltimore and Tampa Bay about their iPads, you won’t be seeing them on the field anytime soon —they’re banned under the NFL’s archaic sideline technology restrictions, which lists anything that can record and play video, as well as binoculars, as strictly verboten.
That means players have to look at Polaroids during the game, perhaps the only thing keeping the film format alive besides ironic hipsters. Until the day that the NFL expands its allowable technology to and beyond binoculars, iPads will have to remain a pre- and post-game resource.
The increased use of tablets could get interesting next year when the NFL has to decide what to do once its current contract with Motorola expires. Xoom playbooks, anyone?
[via The New York Times]
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