UFL Is First League To Have Players Wear Live-Action Body Cameras

On a 3rd and 1 late in the third quarter, DC Defenders running back Abram Smith ran through a hole between the left guard and center to convert the first down.

That seemingly routine play on April 13 looked spectacular on TV because the viewers saw the play through Smith, who had a body camera strapped to his chest.

“You really kind of feel the speed and the physicality of the game,” Scott Harniman, the UFL’s senior vice president of technology, exclusively shared, “in a way that hasn’t been presented before.”

The UFL, the spring football league whose games are primarily telecast on FOX or ESPN, introduced this groundbreaking vantage point for its 2025 season, which is beginning its fourth week of play this weekend.

Never before have players worn a body camera during live-game action.

“It gives you a really great view,” FOX Sports vice president of field operations and engineering Brad Cheney exclusively shared, “of what’s coming at you.”

Mindfly, an Israeli company, makes the cutting-edge camera vest. A two-inch circular camera sits on the center of a players’ chest on a specially-padded harness that fits into the shoulder pads.

Cheney likened the look to that of Ironman’s arc reactor.

Though some players declined to adopt that superhero look, the response has been very positive for the most part.

“The feedback we’ve gotten from the league and the players is they don’t notice it on them,” Cheney said. “They get some really great clips out of it.”

FOX first used body cameras on umpires during last year’s World Series. Officials also have worn them during international soccer matches, and hockey players sported them during the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off’s skate-around — but never during the kind of live action the UFL is using them for in 2025.

The UFL also experimented with body cameras on it referees last year, but they’ve since been refined with more attachments and ways to connect it to shoulder pads.

“The vest that you see now,” Harniman said, “is radically different than what we actually used in 2024 on officials.”

The body camera footage is only shown on replays, and during its production meetings, FOX targets four players (two on each team) a week to wear it.

Linebackers and safeties initially wore it, but Smith became the first running back to do so during the Defenders’ 27-15 win against the St. Louis Battlehawks last week in Week Three.

For Week Four FOX is televising UFL games on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

FOX originally committed a reported $150 million over three years as part of its ownership stake in the USFL. That league then merged with the XFL to create the UFL, which debuted in March of 2024.

As sports continues to evolve, could this body camera footage eventually be adopted for FOX’s college football or NFL broadcasts?

“We hope so.” Cheney said. “What we’ve seen in the first few weeks has been very beneficial.”