Even though it will be under just half a year before another collegiate or professional football game is played, companies and groups throughout the US are still actively working on ways to make the most popular sport in America safer. The cat has been out of the bag for a while now with regards to the negative physical effects that football has on its players, and the most notorious possible detriment is universally accepted to be chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). In response to all of this, apps (such as BrainGainz), tech-and-science-driven football equipment, and more are all being developed so that a career in football never becomes synonymous with a decreased life expectancy.
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Vicis, a startup based out of Seattle, is one of the leading enterprises behind the attempts of technology to fix the issues that are hurting football. Vicis has developed a high-tech helmet, referred to as the “Zero1”, which uses a unique combination of physics and ideas borrowed from cars to provide a football player’s head with exceptional protection. And by performing between 20 and 50% better than Riddell and Schutt Sports helmets in head trauma reduction tests, the Zero1 has already proven that it can serve as a viable replacement for helmets conventionally used in the collegiate and professional sports world. But, much like any new, spiffy tech, the Zero1 is expensive to produce and very expensive to buy.
That doesn’t mean Vicis is having a difficult time garnering funds to create its safer helmet, though — the company had already accumulated $10 million by the time 2016 rolled around. Since then, Vicis has earned $750,000 from winning the NFL’s Head Health Challenge, and just received $4 million more in funding from more than 60 investors just last week. On top of that, Vicis expects to secure $6 million more in just the next few months.
Alas, despite all of the funding, Vicis helmets are not going to buy themselves, and the Zero1’s $1,500 price tag could scare buyers away when industry giants Riddell and Schutt Sports have helmets ranging from $200 and $400. Regardless, the monetary support that Vicis is receiving is huge for not just Vicis but also for the football industry as a whole, and serves as a resounding reminder that everyone wants football to be safer.