Sports Technology has sky rocketed in the past few years. When you see your favorite sports anchor announcing your favorite player’s stats, he is not just making it up as it goes. Most probably the data he is delivering is provided by a Chicago sports tech firm called Stats.
Stats claims that it has inked five deals this year worth an aggregate of more than $70 million. Stats is renowned around the world for gathering data from different sporting events around the globe. It recently announced a $10 million deal in which they broadened and extended an association with a worldwide telecommunications and broadcasting corporation.
According to Chief Revenue Officer Richard Henderson, the company is looking forward to invest in A.I to progress its use in capturing game data. Henderson also said. “There’s lots of video footage that exists globally of historic games… If we can get computers basically to watch the game and code the game, that enables us to aggregate data sources on a much grander scale than individual humans can.”
Stats is already using advanced technology to accumulate data. It sends employees to record and code gaming data in real time. For example, their current technology can gather around 2700 data points in a soccer game. With a successful A.I program they can gather and process an even larger data which can provide better predictive analysis to the coaches. For example, it can show them the how to turn a failed game into a successful goal by adopting a different run approach.
The coaches don’t necessarily have to take the suggestions but it can help provide insights regarding their players’ game and how to improve it. Henderson claims “Because we’ve aggregated so much data, it will know how that defense operates in certain scenarios”
This increased use of AI wont replace the human employees but it will provide data that they dont have the time to accumulate. Sheldon Jacobson, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign said, “It’s the artificial intelligence that realizes the potential of the data… What Stats is really monetizing is the information the data contains.”
The use of AI will certainly open new dimensions for success and sport technology over all.