Haptic Tablet Wins Sports Tech of the Year. The Data Layer Was the Real Story. Elevate's 1.7 Billion Devices Prove It.

SBJ's fourth annual SBA: Tech awards recognized winners across AI, performance, fan experience, and venue tech. A group of 11 companies tied to TGL, the golf league backed by TMRW Sports, won Best Technology Collaboration for a combined stack covering swing simulators, ball- and shot-tracking, virtual hole designs, and an adaptable putting surface. OneCourt's haptic tablet, which converts live game-tracking data into vibrations for blind and low-vision fans, took Sports Technology of the Year. Elevate's EPIC platform, spanning consumer insights, ticketing, and property analytics across 450 million individuals and 1.7 billion devices, also earned recognition.

The underlying principle here is what I would call unified data substrate advantage. The organizations winning awards are not building isolated point solutions. They are building shared data layers that multiple applications can query simultaneously. OneCourt's haptic tablet works because it ingests the same live tracking data that powers broadcast graphics and coaching tools. Elevate's EPIC works because 450 million individuals and 1.7 billion devices feed a single analytics layer rather than fragmented silos. The mental model: stop thinking about individual products. Start thinking about the data infrastructure that makes every product downstream possible.

Sports Business Journal runs the SBA: Tech awards, now in their fourth year. TMRW Sports backs TGL, whose 11-company tech collaboration won Best Technology Collaboration. OneCourt built the haptic tablet. Elevate operates the EPIC platform.