Nike launches mental training app to help soccer players win the mental game

Nike Moves into Brain Train­ing with Launch of Pro Genius (Cre­ativ­i­ty):

“Nike has made its first move into the world of men­tal train­ing with the launch of Pro Genius, a series of tools and tech­niques designed to help young soc­cer play­ers devel­op the men­tal side of their game…

Brain train­ing apps were in the spot­light recent­ly when Lumos Labs were fined $50 mil­lion by the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion (Edi­tor’s note: Lumos Labs set­tled the case for $2 mil­lion; was­n’t fined for $50m) for over­stat­ing its apps’ impact on ath­let­ic per­for­mance, grades and mem­o­ry. An AKQA spokesper­son said, “We were aware of the law­suit and thought very care­ful­ly about the claims we made. Every­thing from ath­lete social requests to in-game copy have been thor­ough­ly reviewed.”

Pro Genius con­tains a range of men­tal train­ing games and tools, focus­ing on skills such as deci­sion-mak­ing, strat­e­gy, con­fi­dence, and visualization…The aim is to des­tig­ma­tize and democ­ra­tize men­tal train­ing, mak­ing it avail­able to a broad­er audi­ence out­side elite athletes.”

To learn more:

• Can brain train­ing work? Yes, if it meets these 5 con­di­tions (Not clear at this point whether Pro Genius meets them; to our knowl­edge the app has­n’t been val­i­dat­ed yet)
• Info­graph­ic on the Dig­i­tal Brain Health Mar­ket 2012–2020