As an aspiring sports tech company, I’d like to share my thoughts about how recent technology developments are intersecting with sports. I wrote the following in June 2017, so some of the details are now out-of-date (re: STATS vs NBA). But overall, about 9 months later, I continue to think this is the direction basketball is moving.
Cloud Computing and Big Data in Sports
June 14, 2017
America loves sports. From America’s Pastime to the gridiron to the hardwood, we love watching our favorite teams and experience the thrill of victory and the sting of defeat right alongside the athletes. Many new technologies are affecting sport, both the field of play and how fans interact. I will specifically look at how the latest trends in cloud computing and big data are reshaping how we participate with sports.
The book Moneyball[i], and the popular movie adaptation, introduced the world to how big data and analytics would come to reshape sports forever. While the main struggle of have vs have not is universal, another theme sticks out: the passing of the mantle. The old guard of scouts are fighting a losing battle against the new guard of data wielding nerds.
What Moneyball highlights are several important trends converging on the sports industry, reshaping the landscape. First, we now measure everything – every second, every movement, every purchase, and every view. Second, the overwhelming amount of data leads to insights about the game, the athlete, and the spectator resulting in shifts to the very foundation of how our games are played. And finally, leveraging cloud technology, participants in the sports industry are demanding access to these insights in real-time.
Ultimately, this convergence is an enabler of three important outcomes:
- To better understand cause and effect on the field of play
- To inform better decision-making on the court and in the front office
- And personalization of development and performance
As with most industries, and the sports industry being no different, “availability and access to data currently outpace analysis, however; the gap is narrowing which seems to foreshadow even great future impacts.”[ii] I will highlight how cloud computing and big data are changing sports by exploring two companies on the cutting edge and then my pursuit of sports glory.
In the field of health and sports, WHOOP is a wearable for elite athletes. They are attempting to ‘Unlock human performance’ by leveraging big data and cloud computing to help athletes uncover information about how that athlete’s body is performing. WHOOP’s wearable “automatically measures physiological markers to indicate [an athlete’s] readiness to perform.” This recovery to performance then dictates how much the athlete should exert themselves, followed by how much sleep is required to recover. All this information is made immediately available to the athlete via smart phone and computer.
From Will Ahmed, Founder and CEO of WHOOP[iii]:
To breakdown Mr. Ahmed’s statement is to see big data and cloud computing as the backbone for this application.
WHOOP collects large volumes of personal data combined with game outcomes to feed that analysis back to the athlete – a virtuous cycle of athletic performance. WHOOP is leveraging big data and cloud computing in their wearable technology to enable all three of the important outcomes identified above.
The second company, STATS LLC’s SportVu[iv], is a six camera system used to track, in real-time, all players and the ball 25 times per sec. SportVu is revolutionizing our understanding of basketball through its cloud and big data technologies. Their partnership with the NBA means each team’s stadium is equipped with SportVu.
First, SportVu collects millions of data points each season, measuring not only the outcomes of a possession, but also what happens within a possession. For example, the NBA is currently obsessed with the ball screen action. SportVu can identify each ball screen event, the defense deployed, and the result of the play. Another example is the ability to determine a player’s distance travelled or average speed.
Second, the analytics resulting from the enormous data collected are innovative and changing how coaches coach, how players play, and how the front office makes decisions. Among other influences, the powerhouse Golden State Warriors of the last few seasons are a direct result of data driven insights. Head Coach Steve Kerr has employed a style reliant on guard play, short possessions, and three-point shooting. This is a 180 degree shift from the prevailing wisdom that championships are won with size and low post play. The Houston Rockets play a similar style. However, they leverage the unique ability of their star player, and potential Player of the Year, James Harden. Scoring from the free throw line is highly efficient and no one in the league is better at getting to the line than Harden.
Lastly, SportVu data stream and analytics are made available on their cloud-based platform, STATS ICE. This tool gives NBA teams access to pre- and post-game statistical reports and live updated stats during game play. SportVu allows access to their raw tracking and positioning data for building custom visualizations.
Similar to WHOOP, SportVU, through the use of big data and cloud computing, enables all three important outcomes identified above: game play, decision-making, and personalization.
The technologies capable of using big data and cloud computing are not unique to the elite level of sports. If we take a step back more generally, over time, technology will make a leap from the first adopters to the masses, or in this case, from the elite to the average athlete. SportVu and WHOOP are evidence of this – both are moving from the elite users (teams or athletes) to mass availability. I’m currently working on an idea, using big data and cloud computing, to target youth sports athletes. I believe all athletes should have access to high quality video and statistics: to better inform the athlete’s performance goals; to share insights with teammates, coaches and recruiters; and to allow friends and family to watch the athlete’s performance from anywhere. This is democratization of an elite level performance feedback loop.
The days of a parent traveling around the country, following their youth athlete from tournament to tournament and filming from the stands are rapidly ending. Equally likely to see extinction is the need for college coaches and recruiters to travel to every tournament site. The ability to watch any game live and receive the overall and individual stats afterward will change how college athletes are recruited.
[i] Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game by Lewis, Michael
[ii] “Seven Technologies That Are Changing the World: An Executives Guide” by Segars, Albert H.
[iii] http://whoop.com/about/
[iv] https://www.stats.com/sportvu-basketball-media/
