Featured Insight: Diagnostic Scanning in Sport — Building the Infrastructure for Athlete Longevity
In elite and developmental sport alike, the role of medical imaging has shifted from an occasional intervention to a central component of performance planning. Diagnostic scanning — particularly MRI, ultrasound and musculoskeletal imaging — now underpins injury prevention, athlete development, and long-term health outcomes. As sports continue to professionalise across more levels, the demand for reliable, timely and athlete-specific diagnostics has never been greater.
A Sector Under Pressure
Injury rates remain high across most sports. Football, rugby, athletics and cycling all report growing incidence of both contact and non-contact injuries, often associated with increased training load, competition frequency, and shortened recovery windows. In the Premier League alone, clubs lost over £250 million in wages due to player injuries during the 2022–23 season. The average first-team squad faced 20–30 time-loss injuries annually, costing clubs not only in treatment and wages, but in performance drop-off and league position.
Beyond elite sport, youth and academy systems also experience mounting injury risk. A UEFA study found that players aged 16–21 account for nearly 30% of lower limb overuse injuries in football academies. These injuries often go under-diagnosed, contributing to high dropout rates during critical development windows.
The Imaging Infrastructure Gap
While the global sports medicine diagnostics market is projected to exceed $10 billion by 2033, imaging infrastructure has not kept pace with demand — particularly within sport-specific environments. Many athletes still rely on referrals into general NHS or hospital-based systems, where imaging is not optimised for training schedules or return-to-play models.
Globally, disparities in scanner distribution are stark. According to OECD data, Japan leads with more than 30 MRI scanners per million population, while countries across sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia operate with fewer than one. Even in the UK, scanner access varies widely between regions, with significant constraints in rural or university-based sport centres. This delay in access can add days or weeks to injury assessment and increases the risk of reinjury due to unclear diagnosis.
There is a growing call for purpose-built infrastructure that places imaging inside the athlete environment — not as a bolt-on service, but as a core part of the training ecosystem.
More Than Injury Diagnosis
The role of diagnostic scanning is expanding rapidly. It now feeds into:
injury prevention (identifying early stress reactions or tendon degeneration)
performance optimisation (e.g. using imaging to guide training adaptations)
rehabilitation tracking (monitoring tissue healing over time)
movement assessment (via real-time ultrasound and motion integration)
A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (2022) found that integrating MRI and ultrasound into weekly athlete monitoring protocols reduced time-loss injuries by 21% over a 12-month season. Furthermore, athletes with access to regular biomechanical screening and diagnostics returned to play 27% faster on average following non-surgical injuries.
New models of care now embed imaging directly into multidisciplinary environments — linking radiologists, sports physicians, physiotherapists and strength coaches in shared systems. This model allows scan results to inform day-to-day decisions on training load, conditioning plans, and recovery programming.
New Models of Care and the Role of Technology
At the heart of this shift is the move away from reactive treatment toward proactive care. Increasingly, imaging is paired with biomechanical diagnostics such as 3D motion capture, gait analysis, and force plate assessments to create a complete picture of athlete readiness.
High-frequency data from wearable sensors is now cross-referenced with imaging outcomes to identify movement inefficiencies, asymmetries, or stress accumulation before injury occurs. In high-performance systems, this fusion of technologies is used to tailor training loads, inform technique correction, and individualise return-to-play plans. It also enables more predictive models of injury risk, offering clubs and governing bodies a long-term planning advantage.
Ultrasound is playing a growing role in these new care models — used in real time to assess muscle healing, guide injections, or provide visual feedback during rehab. Some systems now integrate scanning into gym and training environments, allowing for same-day clinical review and load adjustment.
The Economics of Injury
The financial cost of injury goes well beyond the medical bill. For clubs, the loss of a key player impacts competition performance, squad rotation, and match outcomes — with measurable implications for broadcast revenue, ticket sales, and prize money. For individual athletes, injury reduces visibility, disrupts sponsorship contracts, and, in some cases, shortens earning years.
Sponsors also feel the effects. Brand campaigns built around high-profile athletes often rely on visibility across specific tournaments or broadcast slots. When those athletes are unavailable, activation value drops, and ROI diminishes.
Investment in imaging and diagnostic infrastructure, therefore, is not just a medical consideration — it is a commercial strategy. Timely and accurate diagnosis can be the difference between three weeks out and three months out, which for a club or brand partner may equate to millions.
Supporting the Development of Facilities
Knexu works with providers, clubs and institutions to support the planning and implementation of scanning and sports diagnostics environments. This includes:
conducting data-led needs analysis using injury trends and activity load
designing clinical pathways that integrate imaging into return-to-play models
developing multidisciplinary team structures with radiology, physio, and sport science alignment
advising on operational processes for scan triage, reporting turnaround and performance communication
These facility models must be scalable — from elite club hubs to regional centres supporting youth development and university sport.
Building the Case for Change
As the global athlete population grows — and as sport becomes more data-driven, financially intense, and high-risk — the case for robust diagnostic infrastructure becomes more urgent. Imaging must be repositioned from reactive service to core enabler of athlete development, injury resilience, and competitive advantage.
Whether in elite football, Olympic sport, or grassroots talent systems, the integration of diagnostics, technology, and performance medicine represents the next frontier in athlete care. It is no longer a question of whether sport needs scanning infrastructure — it is a question of how fast we can build it.