The Big Interview: Stats

STATS CEO, Ken Fuchs, talks exclusively to sportindustry.biz about the growth in analysis tracking and what’s next for data in sport…

Tell us about STATS?

STATS is a leading data-driven sports technology company that analyses performance data from more than 100,000 games a year. Founded in 1981, we now work with over 900 clients globally – including many of the world’s top brands – to enhance their consumer products or sporting performance, from Google and Apple to the NBA and Manchester United.

What drives you at STATS?

The fact that people love sport. At STATS, we are uniquely positioned to power and transform fans’ passion for sports and improve team and athlete performance through data-driven experiences, and this is what motivates us everyday.  At STATS we enhance sports on and off the field through real-time data feeds, sports content and research, STATS SportVU player tracking technology, and customisable digital solutions designed to engage fans with the action in fresh and innovative ways.

You mentioned your SportVU technology, used specifically in the NBA with advanced tracking data. Looking back over recent seasons, how has STATS SportVU changed the application of analysis in basketball?”

STATS SportVU has given the 30 NBA teams access to unprecedented levels of data to inform coaching and front office strategy. Delivering advanced movement information for players and the ball 25 times a second, SportVU can give teams detailed insights into key areas such as shooting efficiency, passing combinations, ball screens and player fitness.

In many ways, the beauty of the SportVU information is that it has enabled teams to find their own ways of applying the insights it provides. This is has facilitated a revolution in basketball analytics and is fuelling innovation in the NBA.  

Earlier this year we agreed a deal with the NBA to make STATS SportVU data available to media outlets around the world. This has allowed companies to create innovative and engaging NBA content, while giving fans the opportunity to gain a deeper insight into lineups, substitutions, play calling and other team and player performance metrics. The NBA has some of the smartest, most data-savvy fans in the world, and it’s great to be able to supply them with information that enhances their experience of the sport they love. 

How is data transforming fan engagement with sports?”

History has shown that the medium of sport is the one constant that brings people together and watching live games creates a powerful platform for brands to engage with a large audiences. I’d expect that every major sporting property is seeing an increase in engagement across social media as fans the world over seek to be ‘part of the conversation’.  The 2014 FIFA World Cup saw more people sharing comments, pictures and videos over social media than any other event in history with the most talked-about game (Brazil’s 7-1 defeat by Germany), attracting 35.6m tweets during the game.

Data is a means to connect and empower fans globally to share, comment and be a part of the conversation around the sports they follow. It’s our job at STATS to help brands leverage the data in a way that makes sense for the fan to improve their interactions and enhance their experience.

Sporting properties are competing with themselves as they seek to transform the fan experience both from the sofa and in the stadium. The rise of ‘Connected Stadiums’; where Wi-Fi and 4G networks are accessible to 70,000+ fans simultaneously, is enabling clubs to drive the evolution of in-stadia fan engagement and transform live sporting events. In parallel, the same sporting properties are engaging more brands who in turn are leveraging the advance of home technology solutions to recreate (or improve) the “live event” experience. 

Where next for data in sports?

Sport has always been a numbers game. Teams are continually looking for marginal gains to improve their product and are increasingly embracing data to better manage their high-value assets and maximise performance on the field. Whether they are trading for £50m players or trying to find the next Jamie Vardy, having access to data to analyse and apply the requisite intelligence to the decision-making process has never been more important.

Off the field of play, sports sponsorship is big business and brands are continuing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars of their marketing budgets into endorsing clubs, leagues, events and athletes, to ensure that their brand is associated with success.

The ability to effectively exploit the rich data available is the key to engaging and connecting fans with the brand. The increasing volume of data available from an unrelenting tech revolution has the potential to overwhelm teams, athletes and fans alike. With optical cameras, wearable sensors, machine learning and sub-second data recognition – the technology behind data production exists to drive the application of sports data to the next level. The data itself is not enough. Speed and automation are key to enabling actionable team insights or digestible fan insights in a way that can power and transform the user’s experience.

By performing rigorous, contextual analytics and applying predictive algorithms on top of the data to visualize the insights is both the greatest challenge and opportunity today, and this is where STATS come in.