5 Technologies Your Baseball Facility Needs in 2024

As a baseball facility owner you’re now competing less with the infrastructure, square footage, and layout of the facility down the street - and more with their offered technologies. It’s common to hear a parent ask about your scheduling app or a player to inquire if HitTrax is available in one of your cages.

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Whether you’re starting a new facility build, or you own/operate an existing facility, these are the 5 must-have technologies to invest in to keep you ahead of your competition: 

Ball-Flight Tracking 

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If you turn on your local baseball game you’ll hear terms like spin rate, launch angle, exit velocity, vertical break, and more thrown at you. Since the introduction of Statcast in 2015, these terms have become the vocabulary of the technological boom baseball finds itself in now. The science involved in the game today may feel like an afterthought to the average fan. Still, as coaches and facility owners, we understand the important role data plays in player development and scouting. To keep up with the times you can offer athletes the same data through mobile solutions like Tackman, HitTrax, Rapsodo, and Yakkertech.

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Despite the initial investment in this technology, your main clientele will love the big-league experience. To offset the cost, you can consider creating upgraded memberships that offer exclusive or discounted access to your ball-flight trackers. Furthermore, look at expanding your services to include adult leagues as a way to capture fun for all ages with your ball-flight tracker.

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An honourable mention in this category is “smart balls” with PitchLogic leading the charge. Not quite as detailed as their more expensive counterparts, but highly portable and cost-effective! 

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Pitching Machines

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An almost timeless addition to any baseball facility is a pitching machine. Ranging in prices from the ultra-affordable to the ultra-expensive, your members are bound to ask if your cages are equipped with a machine.

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Depending on your layout and facility build you’ll want to consider factors like these before investing: 

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• Do I want portable machines?
• Will I buy specialty pitching machine balls? (This will eat into your budget)
• How fast do I need my machines to be able to throw?
• Do I need a machine that can throw off-speed pitches?

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The Hack Attack line from Sport Attack is a common favourite among the hundreds of facilities we work with. As a bonus to your members, you could consider purchasing self-feeders to allow solo training sessions. This is a great step towards making your facility 24/7 accessible.

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An honourable mention here goes to our Toronto neighbours Trajekt Sports who have designed the most cutting-edge machine on the market. They’ve been making headlines across the MLB this season - who knows, maybe your facility will be the first to bring their technology to the consumer market!

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Bat Sensors

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While ball-flight technology might be more commonly used and known, bat sensors are arguably just as important. Think of it like this, ball-flight trackers will tell your athletes what happened to the ball, but a bat sensor will tell why it happened to the ball.

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Blast Motion and Diamond Kinetics are the two main offerings in the space, both attaching to the knob of your bat. As a swing occurs, data like attack angle, bat speed, and on-plane efficiency are captured and reported via their app. Using this insight in unison with the ball-flight data is at the forefront of modern-day hitting analysis.

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A few key advantages to bat sensors are cost and portability. While HitTrax might require a significant loan or cash on hand, purchasing a few bat sensors for your members will run you next to nothing in comparison. We’ve seen facilities offer these sensors through an upgradable membership to recoup the initial cost of the hardware. Another option is expanding beyond your brick-and-mortar to offer remote training programs leveraging the portability of this technology.

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Radar Guns

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Potentially the longest-standing technology on this list, a radar gun is a must-have for your facility. Everyone is dying to know how fast they throw, and with velocity becoming more prominent than ever at the highest level of the game your clients will be looking for ways to measure it. 

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You might be looking for simple and affordable - which is the Pocket Radar’s bread and butter.

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For a more permanent setup, Stalker offers the most accurate measurements on the market with their advanced models tracking miles per hour (mph) down to the decimal and spin rate in revolutions per minute (rpm).

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Be cautious of unknown brands or cheaper offerings in this space as their reliability could put your business in jeopardy. There’s nothing worse than one of your members mouthing off about the “90mph fastball” they threw at your location just to find out they can’t sniff 85mph at their latest showcase.

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Scheduling Software

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All the technologies above will be great incentives for getting members through your doors. But how about managing all these new bookings and memberships? In 2024, more than ever, your clients are looking for convenience and simplicity. Scheduling software like Swift is an all-in-one facility management solution built to grow your business. Visit our comparison page to see what separates Swift from other tools on the market.

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If you’re ready to grow your business and save valuable time each week, book a free demo with a member of our team today.

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