Last week, sports data and analysis firm STATS launched an artificial intelligence tool called Edge. The new feature aims to use AI and machine learning to help teams analyze their own play, compare playing styles, and investigate how set plays change games. It is also designed to link that analysis directly to video.
“On average, it takes backroom analysts 25 hours over the course of three days using video from five previous matches to find insights on an opponent and develop winning strategies,” said Dr. Patrick Lucey, Vice President of AI at STATS, in a statement. “With Edge, coaches and analysts get all of that at the click of a button, giving them more time to focus on perfecting their approach to the next match”.
A recent Northwestern University study, commissioned by STATS, found that STATS correctly reported 99.6 percent of English Premier League events, surpassing their top European competitor (85.1 percent) by hundreds of events over the course of 90 minutes. On Wednesday, Paul Power, an AI scientist at STATS, presented as a member of a soccer data panel, “Getting Shots Inside the Box-Cox,” at the American Statistical Association’s 2018 Joint Statistical Meeting. The session was based on Power’s paper “Interpretable Analysis of Team Performance in Soccer Using Tracking Data: A Hybrid of Supervised and Unsupervised Methods.”
SportTechie Takeaway
STATS has been steadily adding new features and partnerships over the last few months. In May, the company unveiled a GPS vest with embedded textile sensors. In mid-June, STATS help the French under-20 rugby team win a world championship. And at this summer’s FIFA World Cup, STATS powered media coverage and provided STATS Insights to social media startup SpokeHub.