Sports Data Industry
The big reason for the fast development of the sports data industry is enabling technology, which creates opportunities to use live data during games and training. This was not possible in the past, when data was collected with papers and pencils. Videos are also used for post-match analysis.
This change is driven by three major forces:
1: Consumers
The under 30s spend significant time online daily. The age pyramid globally shows most of us belongs into this group. The same people are likely to spend the most amount of money on sports during coming years – and they are online. To attract the fast paced mobile world, the sports data must be online in real time. Sports Digitized is a must.
2: Technology development
Manual data capture has mostly led to three issues so far: inaccuracy, slow availability and lots of data being out of reach. Technology development is fast and enables new possibilities for Sports Digitized services.
3: Competition
Only those being globally recognised are making big money. One should win on continuous bases to build a recognised brand. Doing so requires knowledge of sport, players, coaching and sports development. The key word is analysis; analysis based on automatic data capture. Winning teams are constantly improving their analytics skills and equipment.
Data Driven Player Management
Data driven player management is about coaching and scouting, where traditional manoeuvers are enhanced with technology enabled analytics.
Fast developing technology gives opportunities for teams, federations and businesses to stand out. It is important to understand that there are several ways to operate with sports data and there is no single right solution. Every organisation must choose the best solutions for them.
The next big thing is to include data capture for off-field (and off-season) training as well – all in the same database as team training. Technology enabling this is already there; databases are built ready for those setting the trends. While hunting the big wins or developing the players, it is necessary to have all useful data available.
When a player enters an academy and develops further to join the main team, it would be useful to have data from training and games from the whole journey. Data capture can be started even before joining the academy. We call this data driven player management.
Coaching
Anyone who follows sports knows that gut feeling of momentum – which team has it, or did it just turn. The home team may be pushing hard but after couple of scoring opportunities missed, the game starts to slide slowly more often into the home defence zone. Something changed, we all know it, but we just not always see what it is and – boom, suddenly we are running behind.
As in sport, delivery companies must standardise their drivers’ performance. If drivers are slowly starting to slip below the company standard level of driving behaviour, it causes lost money for the company in terms of increased fuel and vehicle maintenance cost. So these companies monitor their drivers’ performance continuously in real time with intelligent tools.
Data capture and analysis enable these companies to develop their operations, ensure quality and enable better management based on facts. With the facts, management is focused on the right things carefully and quickly. Managing the fleet and drivers has become data driven.
In sports there are many studies and known facts about performance, but systems able to gather real-time data from all practices is rare. This is especially so in team sports. Teams turning their coaching into a data driven process are travelling the same path that has been done in many industries. Gather the data, analyse it in real time and coach and manage the team based on facts, not just gut feeling.
Scouting
Player scouts watch and talk to prospects and people working with them daily. They should have objective data from the players in and outside of their prospect list. They are looking for players and their performance information beyond the 200 games they see live every year.
They should have performance history with enhanced data points, not just games played with goals and assists. Most likely they will recognise players outside the original list. They should be able to reach the players they never saw, with objective data to enhance the scouting.
There are millions of talented football players globally. There are no means to reach even a small proportion of interesting players. Scouts should do everything in their power to enable teams or sponsors to finance data collection solutions globally. Supporting locals and finding the best talent for the best teams is enabled by Data Enhanced Player Scouting by AiScreen Sports Digitized.
For more information visit http://www.aiscreen.co/
