This weekend, we head into the finals of the 2026 FIFA World Cup. If you’ve been secretly streaming matches under your desk during the workday, dreaming of what life might be like as a professional soccer player, you might be surprised to learn that your own job has something in common with Lionel Messi’s and Kylian Mbappe’s.
The soccer pitch, though airier and greener than the typical cubicle, is still a workplace, where players and referees do their — albeit unique — jobs. And much like at the average job, players and referees are subject to enormous and increasing amounts of data collection and automation. As researchers who study technology and work, we were struck by these similarities. Workplace monitoring tools are changing the work of professional athletes and everyday workers alike, and both groups are pushing for a greater voice in how technology governs their jobs.
Measuring player performance through wearable devices and analyzing player analytics is now standard in many professional sports. But in this World Cup, player data is being amassed and deployed more than ever before. In each game, more than a dozen cameras stationed around a stadium are tracking up to 29 different data points for each player, 50 times a second. This data, along with 3D scans of all 1,248 players created ahead of the tournament, is used to power FIFA’s semi-automated offside and out-of-bounds technology. FIFA shares some of this data with players through an app, and incorporates it into a new generative AI assistant for teams.
This is not so different from a typical workplace, where monitoring tools, sometimes known as “bossware,” are commonplace. From tech companies tracking their employees’ mouse movements and keystrokes, to AI-enforced delivery speed quotas that prevent drivers from taking restroom breaks, millions of workers are subjected to mass data collection everyday on the job.
For both players and workers, this kind of data collection can change our working conditions. As studies of workplace technologies demonstrate, data-driven evaluation tends to over index on aspects of work that can be more easily quantified, and in turn under index on qualities that aren’t as easily quantitatively captured.
The freedom to be creative is what helps us do our best work as individuals. But workplace monitoring can squash that by imposing norms or expectations of how we should be working, eroding our discretion and autonomy. Wearable trackers measure how fast and how much players run, which can be valuable information for preventing injuries and helping players understand their own performance. But the best players aren’t necessarily the ones who run the fastest or farthest on paper. Oftentimes, the joy of sports is rooted in its randomness and surprise — the thrill comes from a player’s unique creative skill, not from optimizing player performance metrics.
Even referees struggle with this tension, managing their autonomy in the face of automation. While on-field technologies can make officiating seemingly more accurate and transparent, our own research shows that even rules that may look clearly-defined in sports actually have messy, subjective implementations, with referees’ professional knowledge pitted against these technological truths.
These debates also have applications for everyday workers, who face similar dilemmas. Truckers might argue with their managers over real-time weather monitoring software that challenges drivers’ accounts of the conditions in front of them. Hotel workers get bossed around by apps, zig-zagging around massive hotels to clean rooms, even when they can find a more convenient path themselves. Cashiers have to spend time responding to dysfunctional alerts and pings from AI embedded in self-checkout machines, instead of getting to manage the pace of their work at the checkout till.
Allowing people to do their best work means centering workers in decisions about how to govern workplace technologies. Right now, workers often have limited transparency into or control over these kinds of tools. But workers both on the field and in the factory are pushing for stronger protections for their data and more say in the role technology plays in their work. One of the most promising avenues for meaningful worker data protections has been a similar vehicle for both groups: collective bargaining agreements (CBAs).
The WNBA’s new collective bargaining agreement, heralded as a landmark agreement for revenue-sharing and player salaries, also includes protections that give players a say in how wearables are governed and explicitly bans the use of data collected from wearables in player contract negotiations. In the midst of bargaining for a new agreement, the MLB Players Association’s recent proposal includes provisions for players to have access to the same performance data as team management. Outside of professional sports, UPS drivers negotiated a contract in 2023 that heavily governs data collection, banning driver-facing cameras in trucks and limiting what data can be used to discipline workers.
At a time when the pace of technological change can feel disempowering and isolating, the World Cup reminds us that a game is won together as a team. Athletes and everyday workers can be teammates in the pursuit of worker-centered technology governance, and meaningful protections will require collective action. Viewing the datafication of sports as a workplace rights issue can help workers across industries learn from each other and advocate for better protections across the board.
