Hudl Absorbs Wyscout To Bolster Football Offering

Video performance analysis company Hudl has acquired talent identification firm Wyscout in a deal it said will create the most comprehensive football video analysis, data and recruitment platform in the industry.

Hudl’s purchase of the Italian company marks the US firm’s ninth overall acquisition since 2011. With more than 1,000 professional clubs, 1,000 player agencies, and 60 national teams and federations using its platform, Wyscout offers tools that seek to make it easy to understand the game, identify and assess talent, and evaluate performance.

Hudl said connecting Wyscout’s video and data library to its suite of solutions will form a leading platform for not only the top organisations in the world but also clubs at all levels of play. “Without having an army of data scientists, clubs of all sizes will be able to make impactful, sophisticated, data-driven decisions every day,” said John Wirtz, Hudl Chief Product Officer.

“Hudl and Wyscout coming together means coaches, analysts and the football community will have unprecedented access to all the video and data they need to drive improvement and unearth talent from all over the world. And they’ll have all of this at their fingertips, which lets them focus on their core roles, not navigating across multiple systems. It’s going to dramatically change lives.”

Matteo Campodonico, CEO of Wyscout, added: “It was very clear to us early on that they were just as passionate as we are about helping members of the football community reach their potential through technology and collaboration.

“For organisations to reach their full potential they need to recruit the best talent. For athletes to reach their full potential they need to be seen. Connecting Wyscout’s content to Hudl’s video analysis and distribution platform means clubs won’t just have access to a local pool of talent, they’ll have access to a global network of players. This ‘super system’ will provide this access in a way that saves everyone hours of time.”

Hudl and Wyscout believe that combining platforms will ease the introduction of new innovations and make everything easier for clubs and the broader football industry.

Wirtz said: “Some of the biggest breakthroughs are going to be powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. Clubs can take advantage of camera systems that require no human operation and that produce highly accurate physical data from optical player tracking–which is accessible and usable with just a few clicks of a button. Not only will all this be a part of the Pro Suite, but it will also be connected to the new Hudl Sportscode, which was released two weeks ago.

“By bringing our R&D teams together, we can deliver this type of value to teams even faster.”