The Big Interview – Whoscored.com

Cristiano Acconci, co-founder of the football statistics website WhoScored.com, discusses partnership development within the industry and the changing face of football analysis.

WhoScored.com experienced a 345% year-on-year increase in 2013, attracting over half a million unique users per month, but how did the platform come about?

WhoScored.com was founded five years ago, when my co-founder Ali Ozturk and I spotted a gap in the market for a website that helped football enthusiasts that bet. We wanted a very detailed website that could help the average fan, rather than just reporting on the result of the match. 

To put this into action we needed some statistics, and came across Opta, the most detailed data provider out there, and we used their data and added our own layers to make it more interesting and easy for our users to comprehend. That’s how we developed our algorithms and key features such as our player and team characteristics, as well as our unique player rating system.  

It has taken us around two years to build the website and another two to be out there but now we have over 600,000 unique users each month and we have established a product we can profit from. 

You mentioned the player rating system for your website, what makes it unique?

Opta outputs a remarkable feed that has all the raw information and data of every single stat that could possibly happen on the pitch, we then process those and use an incredibly smart team to help develop the algorithms into results. We chose to base the ratings out of ten as it’s easy to comprehend and then the rating is essentially based on the player’s positive and negative events during a match, such as scoring or getting booked. 

We take great pride in our ratings, clubs such as Manchester City have asked us to come over and help them – they use the same data feed but don’t have the capability to use the data in the way that we do, that’s what makes it unique. 

You recently signed a deal with a betting brand, how do you see the partnership developing?

The gap in the market was not really envisioned for what is happening now because it’s something that has happened naturally with us. We have marketed our product on Premier League clubs’ websites and national newspapers such as the Guardian and the Independent run articles using our team of the week. 

Bet Victor – who recently signed a new partnership with the website – saw something interesting in this avenue and they previously featured Man of the Match awards from Sky Sports games, which were based on a commentator’s choice, which left a lot of room for subjectivity. 

Bet Victor wanted to be different and give their users something unique, and that’s what our product does. This is not an exclusive deal with Bet Victor, which is why I think it will grow even more and will be good for the industry. 

We have seen the “moneyball” theory take effect in the USA over the last ten years, do you think the same is developing here?

I think it is. Two years ago we had an email from an American working at ESPN saying he thought WhoScored.com was bringing the stats revolution into Europe, that really made us step back and look at what was happening. When we got Opta’s feed we were the first B2C customer that had the major leagues on a public platform for people to see. We have made it possible to consumers to compare all their favourite players and see where they stand with all these interesting stats. 

WhoScored.com also wanted to make the European audience more comfortable with these stats, and to be comfortable with something it is better not to throw it in their face, but rather give them the power to play around with it to suits their needs. 

When I look at the marketing and development of sport, I always see America as the one that can make it as a product and then it comes into Europe. Stats have become a normal thing now. 

From your point of view is having these stats available to the bookmakers more beneficial to them or the punters?

At the end of the day a football game is unpredictable so, if anything, it’s better for both parties. It will motivate the consumer more but it can help the betting company develop its odds. That’s why the player ratings work; it’s giving the user the feeling of being an expert.