Springbok Analytics uses AI to create a tool with the potential to help all 450 players.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
A graduate of the NBA Launchpad, Springbok Analytics has been scanning players for more than three years and has grown its team partner list to 10. To date, performance and medical staffs had used the product to detect muscle asymmetries and fatty infiltrations into the tissue, both of which can be early signs of injury risk.
But teams didn’t gain value from Springbok’s normative database because, even though there is a large proportion of elite athletes to go along with recreational competitors, most NBA players are outliers for their height and ability.
Utah Jazz Director of Performance Science Barnett Frank said the new NBA database “allows us to really be a little more strategic with our information.”
“One of the biggest challenges I have in the space is always getting asked, ‘Well, what does that mean for an NBA player?’” he added. “There’s 450 of them. When we’re comparing them to the general research or what’s out there in the population, it’s really hard to make any specific conclusions for them. So knowing that it’s NBA-specific for us, that really gives me a little more juice, for lack of a better term.”
This feature has been requested by teams for a while, said Matt Brown, Springbok’s Director of Sales & Business Development.
“It’s the first time they’ll really use the comparison mode,” he said. “Now they’re going to have a better pathway forward of team-wide analysis, understanding how strength and development is working for their players, and what metrics that means, and what that looks like, and is there an attainable phenotype that they’re going after in comparison to other players?”
Brown added that other sport-specific databases are in the pipeline. A pro soccer database is next — consisting of players from MLS, the English Premier League and Championship and other European leagues — and slated for this fall. American football would follow that, primarily of college football players who participated in the NFL-funded hamstring injury research study. Similar datasets for women’s soccer and the WNBA are also progressing toward possible 2025 launches.
In 2023, Springbok Analytics was one of SBJ’s 10 Most Innovative Sports Tech Companies and also won Best in Athlete Performance Technology at the Sports Business Awards: Tech. Nominations have opened for this year’s awards, with the nomination window closing on Oct. 21. You can review the categories and make nominations here.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
In the latest edition of SBJ Tech’s Athlete’s Voice series, champion triathlete Matt Hanson discusses his approach to AI, both as an athlete and a coach, as he prepares for the world championships in Kona in October.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
You can’t have a discussion about sports technology today without including athletes in that conversation. Their partnerships, investments and endorsements help fuel the space – they have emerged as major stakeholders in the sports tech ecosystem. The Athlete’s Voice series highlights the athletes leading the way and the projects and products they’re putting their influence behind.
* * * * *
Triathlete Matt Hanson leads the Ironman Pro Series standings as the circuit gears up for the men’s world championship in Kona, Hawaii, on October 26. That’s the full 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.2-mile run in notoriously challenging conditions. Hanson races both full- and half-Ironmans, winning 13 races dating back to 2012, including four North American championships.
Prior to becoming a full-time triathlete, Hanson earned his PhD in exercise science and was a professor of exercise science and the director of the human performance program at Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa. In addition to his career as a professional athlete, the 39-year-old Hanson also coaches other triathletes. He recently partnered with Humango — an AI coaching platform — to advise on the creation of its algorithms and use the platform to assist his own coaching.
On getting his start in Ironman…
Kind of by accident. I definitely didn’t plan on this being my full-time gig, but that’s how it turned out. I was a college professor, and I was just doing the triathlon thing as a hobby. Then I turned into a quasi-professional, where I was still teaching full time and competing as a pro. Then I started winning some big races and decided to walk away from a tenured position and chase this dream in triathlon.
On his academic background prepared him for his athletic career…
In the early years, I was doing everything myself, so it gave me the information that I needed to know how to write my own programming, even though I knew nothing about triathlon. I knew how the human body adapts to exercise, and that actually formulated a lot of my views in terms of triathlon coaching. Triathlon is a really young sport relative to running, swimming, biking, and especially until very recently, most coaches were treating triathletes as runners, swimmers and bikers — and not triathlon as a sport in itself.
On how he monitors himself…
My role as an athlete is to execute sessions and give qualitative feedback. So I’m giving quantitative data and qualitative feedback and trusting the process of the people that I pay to be in my corner to do that. But obviously we’re monitoring power, heart rate, pace.
I’ve gone back and forth with monitoring HRV — currently, I’m kind of off that bandwagon right now, not really paying too much attention to that. I’m just trying to do things like quarterly blood tests and make sure that nothing’s getting out of whack. I’ve been using a company called BellSant this year, which is a little more of a holistic approach. I’ve definitely used InsideTracker in the past. Both are great companies, just a little different approach to the data. I think that’s an injury prevention thing as much as anything else. And then making sure we’re getting quality sleep with the Coros watch.
Patrick McDermott/Getty Images for IRONMAN
On partnering with Humango…
I’ve always wanted to skate to where the puck is going, instead of just sitting and reacting and trying to chase it. Obviously AI has been a big buzzword lately in all aspects of life, not just triathlon, but there’s definitely been a couple of companies that have come and really spent a lot of money to push what they’re calling AI programming. There were a couple things that were really important to me. One was, if I was going to partner with an AI company, it had to be somebody that was using true AI, or willing to push to use true AI, rather than algorithms and using historical data to set plans.
I felt a lot of the past practices were not treating us as triathletes or treating us as three separate sports, and if the approach of the programming is going to be based on all historical data, then we’re never going to adapt and be relevant and current with research. The first couple of meetings I had with other companies were very much that direction, and so it was just a non-starter.
I met with [CEO Eric Abecassis] a couple times and really appreciated how he wanted to incorporate me in having discussions about what’s current and what’s relevant in research and what the elite athletes are doing now, and how they could write programming to make plans that are based on that, rather than just, ‘Oh, we’ve got 20 years of other people’s Garmin data, so we’re going to make programs based on that.’ That was encouraging me enough to make the leap and start partnering with Humango and start using them as part of my coaching program.
On how he views AI when coaching other athletes…
The way I view it is that AI is a tool, not a crutch, so I can’t just let it do the work for me. I’m on the back end giving it the rules that I want the program to follow, and then I let it push out the program. Then I’ll go in and look at it and tinker with it a little bit and make sure that I’m happy with it. I’m not letting it coach for me at all. There’s definitely some benefits of doing that because obviously a fair amount of time is spent writing programs every week, and so in its current early stages of it, it just improved the access. Where a lot of people might have been searching for a pre-made program to buy online that may or may not be even remotely catered to them, where, for a similar price point, they can now get a program that is made for them.
That’s the no-touch model where I go in, set the rules and answer questions. Then I let Hugo, the Humango bot, take it from there. And then you can do the medium touch where I’m there every couple of weeks to touch base and answer questions, and then I’m still doing full, custom coaching, where I’m driving everything and still writing the plans completely. And so it just increases access, and it’s allowing a lot of people who probably couldn’t afford my previous rate, a way to have access to somebody who’s been around the block a few times.
Patrick McDermott/Getty Images for IRONMAN
On the future of how AI will shape coaching…
I don’t think that I’ll ever lose my job as a coach to AI, but I might lose my job as a coach to somebody who knows how to use AI better than I do. And so I need to be involved and keep my nose on the ground. At some point when I can’t keep up with the young bucks anymore, coaching is going to be my full-time gig. I need to have a good understanding of where AI is now, where it’s going in the future and how to use that appropriately.
On the Ironman world championship in Kona…
If you go in with a target time into Kona, you’re setting yourself up for the potential of a really bad day. You can’t predict the weather there, even the morning of the competition. It’ll look great on hourly weather report, but the winds change there so fast. If you go in there thinking that you know exactly how the wind’s going to respond, maybe you get lucky, but more than likely not. So you just have to really take the conditions as they come and be prepared. It’s having somewhat of a plan, but definitely not being too stubborn to not adjust.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
TempleOrthotics believe their proprietary compound could be the crucial difference in helping a player return to their peak post-ACL injury.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
Temple OrthoBiologics has created a proprietary compound called TX-33 that has shown good results in preventing fibrosis in abdominal and pelvic surgeries and is on track for human trials in knees as part of the FDA approval process in late 2025 or early 2026.
ACL tears rank among the most devastating injuries to athletes, particularly among girls and women, typically requiring a year of rehab and no guarantee of a full return to pre-injury performance. Understanding the mechanism of injury is a growing focus among researchers, with FIFPRO and the Women’s Super League among those who recently commissioned a study.
Temple OrthoBiologics is announcing its formation on International Arthrofibrosis Awareness Day. It has been privately by its co-founders to date.
“We have a technology that can make a difference in the knee,” said Temple OrthoBiologics CEO Sanj Singh. “The scar tissue that forms in the knee does several things. It prohibits proper function. The stiffness leads to pain and also inhibits good rehab.”
Renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Riley Williams — who practices at the Hospital for Special Surgery and leads surgical care for the Brooklyn Nets, New York Liberty and New York Red Bulls — is such a strong supporter of the drug’s potential that he joined as a co-founder.
Williams said he completes between 100 and 115 ACL reconstructions annually. The typical post-operative scar rate is 4-5%, but he noted the importance of reducing it further because, among his patients, “that’s four people” who might have that excessive scar response.
“The formation of scar in and around these surgeries is a very poorly understood phenomena, but it has real-life consequences in surgery,” Williams said, adding: “It’s very exciting because that in a very clean and unfettered way can help to dampen that [inflammatory] response without dampening the natural immune response.”
TX-33 can be injected after an injury or at the time of surgery and, by inhibiting excessive scar tissue from forming, healthy tissue can regenerate instead. Williams predicted that, following a successful trial and FDA approval, it will “become standard care very quickly.”
Another orthopedic surgeon backing the Temple drug is Dr. Vinod Dasa, who chairs the orthopedic surgery department at LSU, and has joined the company as an advisor.
“From a sports perspective, reducing scar tissue will definitely enhance return to play and faster recoveries,” Dasa said. “If it’s an issue in terms of scar formation, in terms of that ligament healing after a sports injury, maybe this will allow that natural healing to progress more appropriately.”
Retired Canadian Olympic bobsledder Neville Wright, who now owns and operates Wright Performance & Therapy, is a speed consultant and trainer for the Canadian men’s World Cup team who now advises Temple OrthoBiologics. (Bobsledder Emily Renna is the other athlete advisor.)
“Surgery is always a fear for a lot of athletes.” Wright said, noting the concern of post-traumatic osteoarthritis and its impact on full-fledged return to performance. “If I’m off a degree in regards to flexion of my knee, that can be a difference of running a really fast time to being outside of that high-performing category.”
Interest in sports is acute, but there is broader potential to help the general population, particularly with total knee replacements. “The age demographic of arthritis is slowly moving to the left,” Dasa said, referring to a trend of younger patients needing interventions.
Big Pharma doesn’t typically get involved in orthopedics, he added, noting the large opportunity for a drug like Temple’s. Dasa also noted that “non-surgical management of arthritis has essentially been non-existent. The lack of treatment options has implications on particular demographics, too.
“We see differences in fibrosis based on health disparities, so based on race, socioeconomic status, and a few other things,” Dasa said. “So if we can improve fibrosis, we may actually improve some of the health inequities and disparities that we see as well.”
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
Four staging posts to help you follow through on your wellbeing aims when reality starts to bite.
A Human Performance article brought to you by our Main Partners
You may want to go for that walk or a run, but perhaps there’s still so much that needs to be done before your team’s next training session. You know you’ll feel guilty if you step away from your desk for more than a few minutes.
To compound matters, you may silently chastise a colleague for stepping away from their desk and ask yourself ‘where are they finding the time?’
“There is not a single person in this room who has not felt guilt daily,” said Sonia Boland, the National Wellbeing Manager at the Australian Institute of Sport [AIS].
She was addressing an audience at the Leaders Sport Performance Summit in Melbourne in February where the question of guilt, and the fear of fostering an ‘excuses culture’, were raised.
“In those moments where I absolutely feel that, if you know it’s going to help you do your next thing better, ask yourself: what’s the worst that’s going to happen?” she continued, making the point that performance won’t instantly collapse because you’ve gone for a stroll.
“You’ve got to have something around you to allow you to take that step out of the door.”
Boland is echoed in her sentiment by Emily Downes, the General Manager of Wellbeing & Leadership at High Performance Sport New Zealand [HPSNZ], who admitted to the same feeling.
“We all probably struggle with that at one point in time or another,” Downes said. “Who else do you need to have on your support crew that helps give you that permission?”
“It’s not doing new things, it’s not creating new programmes,” added Boland. “It’s just giving more focus to how we do what we do, not what we do.”
Boland and Downes suggested four key staging posts in reaching this goal.
1. Establish what you mean by ‘wellbeing’
Establish the framework for how you want to talk about wellbeing before all else.
Boland will not define ‘wellbeing’ in sport. “What became really clear is that we’re all talking about slightly different things,” she said of her time at the AIS. “When we’re talking about wellbeing, are we talking about your wellbeing or my wellbeing? Or are we talking about the wellbeing of everyone in this space? Are we talking about the environment that enables us to be who we need to be? If you don’t know that, it’s probably the first step.”
2. Consider an ‘ecological’ approach
The wellbeing conversations at the AIS, HPSNZ and beyond are shifting from simply duty of care and risk management for athletes (and increasingly coaches) towards wellbeing as a performance enabler. It’s an encouraging development, but Boland argued that it needs to go beyond a focus on the individual.
“We can throw heaps of money to help athletes and coaches do wellbeing better, we can talk to them to the cows come home about how to deal with burnout, how to lower your stress levels, but none of that means anything if the things happening above and around them are continuing to compound how that stress is coming,” she said.
The Australian system promotes an “ecological model”, as Boland explained. This means there is a focus on relationships, structures, policies and even job descriptions – because job descriptions can help people to set boundaries and feedback mechanisms.
“People want feedback, they want to learn and grow from when it’s not working,” she added. “We need to have the opportunity to fail and we need to have the environment where we can do that. And all of those things contribute to the wellbeing of the individual.”
3. Support self-care
We return to the question of guilt over self-care despite growing awareness of its performance benefits.
“The challenge around this is: are you asking for it?” said Downes. “Are you communicating to your manager what support looks like for you or what you might need to be at your best?”
She addressed the leaders in the room directly. “Have you set up systems within your environment to enable people to [step away from their desk]?”
There is similar thinking across the Ditch. “[If you get up and leave] think about the poor person next to you who’s got the same level of guilt,” said Boland. “They might look at you and say ‘yeah, maybe I’ll give that a go tomorrow’. It creates the culture where we prioritise what we need to do to perform at our best.”
4. Make it make sense to your people
Different words will resonate with different groups, so choose your terms smartly when discussing wellbeing.
“Find language that makes sense to you and your people,” said Boland. “If I think about the Olympic and Paralympic system, the language that needs to be used in skateboarding needs to look different in equestrian, and it’s going to look different in rowing. It’s not one-size-fits-all.
“Find the stuff that’s going to resonate, that connects to the meaning and purpose.”
SportAI’s system can be used in conjunction with phone or camera footage to generate overlays that chart swing curves in tennis.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
Through the agreement, SportAI’s offerings will be available on the MATCHi TV streaming service, which is underpinned by cameras installed at 2,000 of MATCHi’s tennis and padel courts. The integration lets players access highlights and technical analyses of match footage on their phones. In all, MATCHi has a network of more than 1M users across 2,600 venues and 14,000 courts in 30 countries.
Financial and duration terms were not disclosed.
Oslo-based SportAI was co-founded by Lauren Pedersen, a New Zealand native who is combining passions for sport and technology to democratize access to swing technique analysis – first in racquet sports but with the aim to eventually expand into the likes of cricket, baseball and beyond.
Image: SportAI
“Technique coaching, specifically, is still very subjective and expensive and unscalable,” Pedersen told SBJ in a recent interview at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, where she spent time during the U.S. Open pitching prospective clients. “If you have a tennis lesson pretty much anywhere, it’s easily going to cost $100 – and you might have a good coach, but if you had three or four good coaches looking at your technique, they would all say something different, and there would be no data to back up what they’re saying.”
SportAI’s system is hardware agnostic; its algorithms can be applied to phone or camera footage and generate overlays that chart swing curves (and compare those curves to professionals), ball strike timing and other statistics like hip or shoulder rotation and swing velocity. The system also provides textual feedback, which as of now is pulled from a matrix of preset options but could in the future tap into a large language model, Pedersen said.
Here, Pedersen demonstrates the technology analyzing her one-handed backhand.
“To get to technique analysis, the computer vision, the platform itself, has to identify the boundaries of the court, identify different players on the court, be able to pick up all the biometric movement,” Pedersen said. “Before we even get to the technique analysis, we’ve got a lot of the technical data, which provides heat maps and statistics as well. We can deliver all that, and then technique analysis or coaching on top of it.”
Pedersen is charting a B2B model for the company, wherein SportAI licenses access to its software to three key segments: racquet sports clubs and coaches, broadcasters, and equipment manufacturers. She did not disclose pricing but noted it is variable based on which analysis modules businesses subscribe to.
As a coaching tool, Pedersen asserts that SportAI can reinforce instruction with empirical data, expand coaches’ influence outside of traditional lesson hours by making swing analyses accessible remotely, and unlock incremental revenue by creating a premium digital offering coaches or clubs can charge members to use.
For broadcast, Pedersen envisions the potential to improve the less objective niches of common tennis analysis and introduce technique comparisons between players or digital twin visualizations.
Integrating with equipment manufacturers, Pedersen added, would bring the opportunity for increased personalization in matching players with the appropriate racquet for their skill level and play style.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
The NYCFC custodian recently featured in SBJ Tech’s The Athlete’s Voice series where he discussed his career, education and forays into the business world.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
You can’t have a discussion about sports technology today without including athletes in that conversation. Their partnerships, investments and endorsements help fuel the space – they have emerged as major stakeholders in the sports tech ecosystem. The Athlete’s Voice series highlights the athletes leading the way and the projects and products they’re putting their influence behind.
* * * * *
NYCFC goalkeeper Matt Freese has started all 30 of his club’s matches this season in MLS and has a 73% save rate, stopping 102 of the 140 shots he’s faced. This is his second season with NYCFC after beginning his career with the Philadelphia Union. A native of Wayne, Pennsylvania, Freese signed a homegrown contract with the Union and, after two seasons at Harvard, made his MLS debut in 2019.
Freese, now 26, had an opportunity to begin playing pro soccer after graduating from the Episcopal Academy in suburban Philadelphia but elected to attend Harvard first. Though he left early, Freese completed his degree remotely, balancing Ivy League studies with professional soccer, which is something he actually considers an advantage for his athletic career. A curious mind and avid follower of sports business — and a reader of Sports Business Journal, he revealed — Freese wrote independent research projects on MLS franchise valuations and advanced analytics for expected goals.
On opting for college, not pro soccer, right after high school…
The first and most obvious [reason] is just the fact that I wanted to honor my parents’ wishes to go to college. When I got into Harvard, they pushed even harder. I was really fortunate and lucky for that to happen. My dad had gone there, and he really wanted me to make sure I got a degree. The really awesome thing about Harvard, or most colleges at this point, is if you go for a semester or two, you pretty much lock in the ability to go back and finish your degree at some point.
On a more personal level, I don’t know if I was ready to be an adult and live on my own outside of the college setting when I was 17, 18, signing a homegrown contract. Also, goalkeepers usually develop a little bit later, so there wasn’t as much of a rush, if that makes sense. Seeing now the way my career has unfolded and changed, maybe I’d make a different decision and start it earlier, rather than waiting that year.
Ira L Black – Corbis/Getty Images
On balancing school and sports…
I would [attribute] most of my on-field soccer career development to my off-field academic efforts. This was at a time when I was 19, when structure and schedule is so important for a 19, 20-year-old who’s now a professional athlete making good money and getting pulled to do things that that most 19, 20-year-olds are getting pulled to do. Having the structure, having a few hours of work every night after training, making sure I had to be on a good sleep schedule, it all really allowed me to focus on soccer and not get distracted with other things. It really grounds you. It humbles you.
The other thing that I really liked about it was that it gave me a de-stressor off the field. As a 19, 20, 21-year-old, you’re now competing for your career every single day that you’re playing, and it becomes stressful, and as a young guy, you don’t really know how to handle that. So when I got home, and I would be doing work, reading a textbook, doing whatever — my mind was able to get away from soccer, which is super important.
And then the third thing that’s also quite interesting is that there’s a lot of research out there that really supports cognitive development, especially at that age, and your ability to solve problems, lead and organize and be a team leader. A lot of that is correlated with academic and intellectual stimulation. As that was continuing to grow, as my brain was continuing to be pushed and grow, it allowed me to, in my opinion, learn more quickly on the field. Learning quickly, learning on the fly, is completely necessary for a professional athlete.
On writing an undergrad thesis on MLS franchise valuations…
It was my last semester. I had finished all my core requirements, and I was doing everything remotely and then flew up to take exams in the offseason. And so I was able to do two independent research projects as my last credits. The title of one was “The theoretical analysis of the rise of MLS valuations.” Since 2010, they just completely skyrocketed, and the whole point of what I was discussing is that demand was going up. The supply was very limited. It was very constrained for several reasons. The primary one is expansion is limited within the MLS.
Probably the bigger focus was just talking about how demand, from an ownership perspective as well as from a fan engagement perspective, is going up. The academy situation has really changed everything. People want to go see kids or teenagers from their hometown that they knew growing up. They want to go see them play. They want to see them succeed. The US team is obviously getting more and more attention year over year, and that impacts the way fans look at MLS games.
People want to buy into these teams. They’re becoming more and more profitable. Revenues are going up. Operating expenses are also going up, and salaries continue to increase, and transfer fees just always are rising. But in general, they’re just becoming more profitable and easier to operate.
On writing MLS papers while a player for the Union…
I was in my third year. I’d always go to this one coffee shop in Philadelphia and work on that paper. The other independent research project I should probably mention because it’s somewhat related was, I created an expected goals model using data from MLS over the last five, six years, which was also really cool.
Goalkeeper is a weird position [for analytics] because essentially the only one that matters is the post-shot expected goals model and how that relates to the goals conceded. Goalies are a little bit of an anomaly, but in general, yeah, I love looking at data. I love talking to our data analytics team in the organization about these things. I just think it’s really interesting. It can shape a strategy of a team to a degree.
It can’t completely take over what the philosophy of the team is, but it can point you in the right directions or show you what type of cross has the highest percentage of expected goal coming from the end result of, leading you to probably want to look at getting into the cutback scenario more than these long, high crosses. We’re a relatively younger team. Our height and our strength isn’t as much so fighting against these big center backs might not be as successful as getting into that cutback zone, which is something we’ve worked on a lot. This is not me driving that, by the way. [laughs] This is the coach, the data analytics team making those decisions, obviously.
Jeff Dean/Getty Images
On not looking too deeply into his training data…
I am into that, but I just trust our performance director and the medical performance side of things on the team. They handle all that, and they make sure that my dive count is not too high, my explosive [actions] count is not too high. I am hitting the numbers that they want, and I just trust them to do that. They’re very good at their job.
On his interest in sports business when he retires…
I do think about it. The clear priority right now is playing, and I want to play for a very long time and have a good career and get my name into the that top tier of MLS, goalkeepers. But at the same time, I also take a serious interest in what my post-playing career will be. I believe one avenue would be to stay in the sports realm, whether that’s on a business operating side, being on the finance or marketing side of an organization, or the sporting side —GM, Assistant GM, sporting director, that type of thing — is really fascinating as well.
And then there’s also the investing side. I have a background in investing as well. I took several classes and audited some MBA classes at Wharton when I was in Philly. So I’m comfortable and really enjoy that type of stuff. A lot of it also depends on how my playing career goes.
On his game prep…
As a goalkeeper, the routine really is everything. And I’ve become somewhat psychotic about my routine before every game. There’s a lot of research that has indicated that, for an athletic event, your sleep two days prior is actually more important than the sleep one night prior. So my routine really starts two days before the game. I try to get as much sleep, like 9, 10, hours two nights before, and then I usually do a series of meditations leading up to the game. I do the same type of film, just very serious about my routine.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
Data Analysts Julia Wells of the UKSI and Mat Pearson of Wolverhampton Wanderers deliver a series of practical tips to help address one of sport’s notorious blind spots.
An article brought to you in collaboration with
That is according to a straw poll of attendees at a recent Virtual Roundtable hosted by the British Association of Sport & Exercise Sciences [BASES] and the Leaders Performance Institute.
The perception is worse when it comes to analysis and recruitment, with over 60 per cent of attendees suggesting that their analytics and recruitment teams do not work closely at all.
Yet 63 per cent also believe that improved data and computer literacy across their staffs would directly impact performance.
The sense that there is room for improvement gave the session its title: ‘Mobilising Performance Analysis in Practice’. It was the second in our three-part collaboration with BASES called Advances in Performance Analysis and centred around two case studies.
The first was delivered by Julia Wells, the Head of Performance Analysis at the UK Sports Institute [UKSI], and the second by Mat Pearson, the Head of Performance Insights & Data Strategy at English Premier League side Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Five areas where data literacy can improve performance
Before Wells and Pearson delivered their insights, attendees were set a further task: ‘as a consequence of improving data or computer literacy, describe what you would see as being the most significant impact on performance’.
The responses were varied but five stood out:
How the UKSI are mobilising performance analysis work-ons in meeting common challenges in data analysis
The first session highlighted the four biggest challenges facing people who use data analysis in sport. To kick off her presentation in the second, Wells explained how the UKSI is trying to tackle those four challenges (plus another).
Challenge 1: integration
Go back to basics. That’s the approach of the UKSI, who have placed an emphasis skill development, support structures and a clear data strategy.
It goes like this: the relevant staff members are upskilled in areas such as collecting the right data, using the correct formats in the right places before the interrogation and analysis even begins. This is then supported by a clear data strategy geared towards performance planning. For example, roles such as the data & insight lead and the performance data lead are embedded within the organisation to better help those leading programmes with the direction and the integration of their data. Thus, the strategy can come to the fore and everyone can better understand what needs collating and why within the team.
Challenge 2: data collation
Wells described how easy it can be to stay on the “hamster wheel” of collecting data without taking the time to critically reflect and pause. Can you, for example, call upon efficient processes for collecting data and wade through the myriad datasets potentially available? She recommended asking “quality questions”: why are we creating the data, what is its purpose, what decisions is it informing, particularly in the coaching process? Teams should do this periodically and continue to plan, do and review. Wells also encouraged engaging in conversations with key leaders in the environment to discuss what to start, continue and stop. It’s important to intentionally carve out those opportunities as part of your performance planning.
Challenge 3: communicating data insights
Wells stressed the critical nature of human engagement in the process and regards communication is a highly technical skill, despite the views of those who might see it as a ‘soft’ skill.
She shared that the different performance departments within the UKSI work closely with the psychology team to help elevate understanding of self and others. Wells said, if we can better understand the people we work with, it will support how people can get the best out of each other. As part of this process, they’ve tapped into better understanding one another’s preferences in order to be more impactful in how they support each other.
Challenge 4: buy-in
It is not uncommon for senior stakeholders to not perceive the value of the work being done. This makes it incumbent on analysts to critically assess their impact and share the meaningfulness of their work. “It’s our job, and it’s our role to be critically analysing why and presenting that back,” as Wells said.
On that note, alignment to the sport’s strategy helps to provide a clearer connection. If this alignment and connection isn’t there, you’ll naturally get disconnection so it will be more challenging to get the buy-in.
In addition, relationships are just as critical when generating buy-in. Wells advocated inviting leaders and key stakeholders into your world and shadowing them. When they immerse themselves in better understanding the process you’ll find that it can quickly lead to them becoming a voice for you in wider conversations.
Challenge 5: data illiteracy
Too often, practitioners can suffer in silence when looking for solutions. In the latest Olympic and Paralympic cycles, Wells and her colleagues are seeking to increase data literacy across the board. They have introduced an internal online data community that provides access to resources, promotes connection, and leads to the sharing of good practice.
Wells’ team also put together a ‘Data Leadership Programme’ which is focused on pulling together the data leaders in the various sports with whom the UKSI work to look at opportunities, challenges and future direction. Courses, with titles including ‘Data Camp’, ‘Project Automate’ and ‘Code School’, were created to improve skills and processes for coaches and practitioners to help them be more efficient. In her mind, this has been crucial to enable people to be upskilled; and all support staff should be able to ask a good question and have the data skills to answer them.
How data analysis is supporting coaching and recruitment at Wolves
Pearson explained that he and his colleagues at Wolves are trying to align the club to ensure there is consistent evidence available and better identification of the trends impacting decision making from a data point of view.
He focused on two key areas: coaching and recruitment.
In the environment, the analysts are part of the multidisciplinary team. They are very much now voices in the room and, with it being a specialised discipline, all analysts must have an impact on decision making.
To that end, Pearson’s team have moved away from leaving the coaches to find the solutions themselves. Instead, analysts are encouraged to go and find solutions, present them to the coach, and then have good conversations to better find the optimal outcome.
Part of the challenge we can face, said Pearson, in particular with performance analysis at first-team level in professional football, is that many environments can be quite coach-led, which is in keeping with the nature of short tenures. The coaches will lean into their viewpoint as a way to exert their control. Therefore, education is important and, in particular, how you communicate with them to ensure the message lands. That said, Pearson observed that coaches in modern day football are more attuned to data and performance analysis and are much more data literate and comfortable with technology.
A key learning when integrating performance analysis and data work with coaching is to make insights as contextual as possible. If you provide insights to a coach that are out of context, you’ll lose them straight away.
Pearson told attendees that some of the biggest strides in performance analysis and the wider data team have been in the field of game modelling, recruitment and selection decisions, with the obvious caveat that subjective input is still valued immensely.
The team have worked to create objective measures against the game model. In better understanding this, it has provided an additional layer of information related to individual player requirements for the game model. These insights are helping to inform both selection for matchday but also the recruitment of new talent. When thinking about the recruitment process in particular, Pearson said this process has helped to educate scouts and other recruitment personnel in the attributes for which they should be looking.
Visuals have played a key role in this process too, particularly in being able to show what it looks like to play in this particular style that the coach or manager wants. They’ve worked to make the playing style more objective.
SBJ Tech’s Joe Lemire takes it upon himself to answer the question for himself and ponders the lessons should elite athletes ever do the same.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
We know this because data from his Whoop, a wearable performance tracker, was shared publicly through a PGA Tour partnership. McIlroy’s heart rate was 128 as he struck the ball before it escalated to 152 when he hurled his golf ball into the crowd and celebrated at the Wells Fargo Championship.
Wearable tech such as Whoop allows 40-something suburban dads to compare biometrics to the pros (below).
Before you say “the pros are just like us,” I submit this counterargument: On the 18th green of Saybrook Point, my own Whoop reported a heart rate of 78 as I took my final shot. Mine only rose to 81 as I contained my disappointment while failing to convert the hole-in-one for a free round.
This is probably where I should mention that Saybrook Point, as distinguished as it sounds, is a mini-golf course where I went on a recent family outing. We didn’t keep score that day, although I suspect my father-in-law edged me by a stroke or two.
OK, so I didn’t really learn anything about my physiology in that example — except my coolness under a lack of pressure — but I certainly have gleaned more than a few helpful tips over the past three years of continuous wearable usage, alternating between Apple Watch, Oura and Whoop.
Most of the time, I wear the Apple Watch during the day as my activity tracker and the Oura ring at night for sleep, but for several weeks this summer, I wore all three devices simultaneously, every waking heartbeat tracked in triplicate. Overkill, but enlightening.
The technologies are similarly accurate on resting heart rate. Oura and Whoop agree on my total sleep and heart rate variability, although they differ widely on sleep cycles: They mimic each other on REM sleep, but Whoop gives me credit for way more deep sleep (the more physically restorative cycle). They were directionally accurate, at least, and cycle identification is a fickle exercise outside of a sleep lab.
My own data has been living proof of the growing body of advice from wellness experts. My sleep and recovery scores are better if I don’t eat within a couple hours of bedtime and when I refrain from alcohol — but if I do drink, earlier is better. Think happy hour, not nightcap.
My latest midlife crisis sporting foray is registering for a 5-mile trail run around some local farm fields. While I keep abreast of the latest running principles — such as doing a majority of my runs in Zone 2, a low-intensity heart rate region, and the rest in high-intensity Zones 4 and 5 — and I do have the privilege of speaking with sport science experts for this job, I don’t have a coach or any formal training plan to follow. So I decided to try the artificial intelligence functionality of Whoop Coach and Oura Advisor.
Both remain in beta and were built by layering their algorithms on top of existing large language models. Whoop partnered with OpenAI on a ChatGPT implementation; Oura declined to identify its foundational LLM.
I wrote identical prompts to each about my plan to run a 5-mile race in two months and prodded for more detail, asking, “Can you write a weekly running program for me based on my data and this goal?”
Pulling on my own data as well as best practices — or at least the best practices embedded in the AI models — Whoop and Oura offered me similar plans. Both featured Saturday long runs, midweek interval runs at faster paces, a couple days of rest or light activity and recommendations for strength or cross training, such as cycling. Whoop offered more detail and suggested certain heart rate zones. (Oura is less precise on activity tracking anyway and imports my Apple Watch data for exercise.)
When I asked Whoop Coach how much faster I could get by training for my race, it alerted me to Project PR, a feature using Whoop and Strava to personalize eight-week running programs. The 2,772 users to complete the program reported an average improvement of 2 minutes, 40 seconds over a 5K. With that kind of a gain, maybe I can compete for the podium — of the 40-something suburban dad age group, of course.
Race day is October 27, after which I hopefully can report a fast time, though I suspect my heart rate won’t be quite as cool as it was at Saybrook Point.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
The ABT CUPRA star is promoting sustainability and innovation through his company Zero Summit.
A Data & Innovation article brought to you by
You can’t have a discussion about sports technology today without including athletes in that conversation. Their partnerships, investments and endorsements help fuel the space – they have emerged as major stakeholders in the sports tech ecosystem. The Athlete’s Voice series highlights the athletes leading the way and the projects and products they’re putting their influence behind.
* * * * *
Di Grassi, 39, is a multi-lingual native of Brazil who is close to completing a degree program at Harvard Business School. He co-founded the Zero Summit to promote sustainability and innovation of zero-carbon technologies and serves as a Clean Air Advocate of the United Nations Environment Program.
Most recently, Di Grassi partnered with Rubicon Carbon, a management firm for carbon credits. Rubicon’s logo has adorned the driver’s car and helmet at the Hankook Portland E-Prix in Portland, Oregon in June. Di Grassi has personally offset his personal carbon emissions for the entirety of his Formula E career, matching what the racing circuit has done since inception.
“When I met Lucas the first time, I said, ‘This guy is so switched on and is so into this,’” Rubicon CEO Tom Montag said. “He is such a good guy and what a great person to partner with in trying to get the message out to people about the value of this. He has a global basis, and he drives a car for a living.”
On partnering with Rubicon on carbon offsets…
So I’ve been racing in Formula E and, in parallel, I created this summit on technologies that will mitigate carbon emissions called Zero Summit back in 2020. We have a very strong partnership with Bloomberg, and through the partnership with Bloomberg and a friend in common, I met Tom and Rubicon. One of the core principles of Formula E, the racing series that I race, is to be net zero from inception and to develop the electric technology that we will see in electric cars.
The only way that we can be net zero from inception is that we need to offset some of the carbon. You cannot travel to races by sailing a ship all over the world. So I wanted to be the first racing driver to be net zero all my career in Formula E, personally. The team offsets some of their emissions. Formula E offsets the whole emissions from their own, and speaking to this friend of mine in Bloomberg, the conversation was, how could we do that with a credible company, with somebody that has been doing that for a long time and is the best in the market?
We want to work with the best and Rubicon’s name came along. I met Tom, and then we organized the way for me to buy this offset. So we calculated the offsets of these 10 years, and then I bought these offsets, which are carbon removal projects that are listed as S&P 500 companies. It is a great thing for the world of carbon removal projects, and carbon credits are somehow still not very known by the average person, especially on the personal level. And I think sports and entertainment is a great way to communicate, saying, ‘Look, this is how it works. This is how we can not only offset ourselves, but everybody can actually contribute their part, if they are willing to.’
On his initial interest in sustainability…
I always raced my whole career, and my target was to go to Formula 1. When I was in Formula 1, they were starting to introduce hybrid technologies into F1 cars, and then I raced endurance cars. And I’m not an activist. Of course, I think to try to preserve the environment is a positive thing. Trying to control negative externalities is also positive thing. But I’m not an activist. I’m not a tree hugger. I don’t try to mitigate my lifestyle in exchange of some greater good. No, I’m a very pragmatic guy, and motorsport has been a laboratory for technologies.
My assumption, being pragmatic, is technology is what’s going to save humankind. Humans are always going to use more energy, more resources. As people go out of the poverty, they want to eat more meat. They want to drive better cars. They want to have AC in their houses. They want to have three TVs instead of one. It’s a natural progress of humankind to use more goods and use more services. So the only way for us to have a sustainable planet, or let’s say, a stable environment, is that we should gain efficiencies. And the way to gain efficiency is basically to develop technologies.
On why auto racing is a good driver for the cause…
Therefore motorsport is probably one of the only sports in the whole world that actually we are doing the entertainment, which people like cheering for the driver, A or B, but the technology that is there actually is going to go into a commercial car, is going to be cheaper, better, is going to change mobility. And that was the case for combustion engines in F1 and the hybrid systems.
That was the reason why I decided to start in Formula E. I was the first employee of Formula E back in 2012, and this reasoning led me to say, ‘OK, the next step in racing will be electric, and therefore I’m going to bet on Formula E to be successful.’
On starting his sustainability summit…
I was already in Formula E since the very beginning, and in 2019 I decided to go back studying a bit. So I went to study at Harvard University. I’m doing this three-year MBA there, and the discussion in the classroom with my colleagues was always about how to adapt their businesses to mitigate their negative externalities, and to adapt to this new world, to create efficiencies. And there was not a summit about it.
There was no discussion about it. Latin America, especially Brazil, which is, I would say, one of the main countries in the world that could lead this, let’s say, low-carbon economy — because we are already a low-carbon economy right now — there was nothing about it. So I said, ‘Why we don’t have this discussion with the key people in Brazil?’ So that’s why I decided to do the summit.
On offsetting his career carbon consumption…
It’s done now for my entire career of Formula E. wow, my entire career, often my I haven’t calculated since inception yet. That’s going to be the target, I think, since day zero. But it’s quite funny, because the first go kart I drove — F1 is talking about synthetic fuel right now. ‘Are we going to go to 10% synthetic fuel?’ And I was listening to them talking. I was like, in ‘95 when I was nine years old, when I started go kart, I already used biofuel. We used 100% ethanol because it gave more power to the go kart than gasoline. And in Brazil, we have available ethanol. It is the same price as gasoline, and you can buy it any pump, so we use ethanol in go kart. So I was like, ‘OK, so the new breakthrough technology that you guys are doing is actually my go kart experience from ’95 when I used 100% biofuel.’
On the costs of offsetting his career…
It’s surprisingly not so expensive, and I’ll share the number: it was $30,000, more or less. Most of it is air travel. It is the biggest impact, and if you think about it, it is not that expensive, and that’s the reason why it is actually so easy to do it right now. But as more people actually start offsetting and the supply of carbon credits into the market starts to become less than the demand, this price needs to go up. And if there is, let’s say, a multinational or transnational entity controlling all these carbon credits, it will be very interesting to see how the dynamic flow of these projects and the offsetting and the price structure evolves.
As the moment it is almost zero burden financially — it’s $3,000 a year of offsetting my season in Formula E. It is not so much. But if every season, the price starts to go up and it becomes a financial burden to offset this carbon more and more, I will start thinking, ‘OK, how can I emit less carbon?’
On how the carbon offset market could evolve…
If more people buy those credits, and the market goes from, let’s say, $2-3 billion, to $200 billion, or $2 trillion, it starts to really go up. All the companies, they’ll be financially incentivized to look to increase their efficiency, and to start really thinking about, ‘OK, I’m going to fly this much, but maybe I take a train the next leg because maybe the carbon pricing starts to make financial sense for more people.’
This process creates this financial burden. At the moment it is voluntary, but if it’s a regulated market and the market starts to actually demand this for the companies and people to actually start offsetting themselves, it will push everybody to be more efficient, and new technologies to be financially more available. You can actually scale the production of batteries, making it even cheaper, and then electric cars would be even cheaper. So it helps the trend towards, let’s say, a net-zero world in terms of carbon output and input.
This article was brought to you by SBJ Tech, a Leaders Group company. As a Leaders Performance Institute member, you are able to enjoy exclusive access to SBJ Tech content in the field of athletic performance.
