Eyeball: Changing the foundation of scouting

The very foundation of scouting has changed forever. 

Eyeball is an Artificial intelligence (AI) powered product designed to assist footballing entities in scouting the potential football athletes from various countries around the world.

With over 100,000 players within the technologies database all comprised of youth players, football clubs across the globe are raising their eyebrows as to what this brilliant technology can provide.

The system acts as a football scout. Remotely and in the convenience of a smartphone device, the search and evaluation of performance capacity of the players within its database can be compared to football’s finest players. The service prides itself on optimising academy recruitment, without a club worrying about the financial difficulties involved in travel or acquisition of scouting personnel.

The contemporary scouting platform has an established and researched insight database, all gathered from the youth academies of Europe’s leading football giants.

European markets including the footballing nations of Spain, England, Germany, Holland, Belgium, and Croatia are also joined by the African markets of Ghana, Mali, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Guinea, Senegal and Sierra Leone. These are the markets in which Eyeball operate within, acting as the ever growing customer base of their elite scouting technology.

Youth scouting is strenuous. Professional clubs who are struggling within their respective leagues due to being less financially opportunistic, are already on the back-foot. With its locality and lack of scouting network, the fundamental exercise in terms of growing a club and its talent pool, becomes surplus. The purpose of Eyeball and its technology is to make the scouting process simple yet effective, as it has essentially modernised the process, bridging the gap between potential players and professional clubs.

Determined to enhance its science, searchable player data is a primary focus of Eyeball in which they seek to further improve. This is through the analysation of video data from talented players throughout the globe, combatted with the collection of a prospects data.



The data collected is imperative. Driven by 13 statistical parameters, it includes shots on target, successful dribbles, incisive passes and passes in the final third – just to name a few.

The parameters collected can be searched by the club officials using the app, perhaps on the hunt for a player in whom possess specific qualities dependent on what the club requires on the pitch.

Summaries of key stats are compiled by AI based upon data collected from partner clubs that have detailed profiles upon talent within the database. The AI technology allows partnered clubs to put these prospects into AI generated match-simulations, allowing for the assessment of a players performance all through the use of Eyeball’s data breakdown technology.

The player app feature of Eyeball can be a considered a polarizing tool in which football participants can utilise in order to garner a tangible understanding of their ability. The player app allows players to access performance data from within the platform while also showcasing to the scouts using the technology, the ability in which the player possesses.

Games can be watched back by players, while Eyeball analyses the games and a breakdown of the performance. This allows players and coaches to make the necessary changes to a players training routine, showcasing the areas in which are in need of improvement.

It basically allows a player to sell themselves to scouts. Professional clubs are examining the profiles and the players are able to customize their profile, showcasing their greatest qualities in-match highlights. Matches can be watched back and analysed, as they are stored within Eyeball’s database.

Individuals can hunt for specific match moments, with a play-by-play game events feature dissecting every move a player makes throughout matches documented. Eyeball’s analysts watch each match closely, providing a breakdown of performance statistics. Players distribution performance, as well as their offensive and defensive performances are outlined.

Eyeball possesses the ambition of wanting to become a pioneer in bridging the gap between talented youth prodigies and becoming the next generational top tier of talent across the globe. All through the inclusive access of insight and data performance surveyed and interpreted through its system.

Over 100 professional clubs are using the Eyeball technology, with the company making major waves in regards to the foundation in which scouting is exercised. Perhaps it would be in the interest of Australia professional clubs to also utilise this ground-breaking technology for their benefit.  

Previous ArticleNext Article

Sevilla FC is the first sports club in the AI Alliance

Sevilla FC has made history as the first sports club invited to join the AI Alliance, a global community dedicated to the responsible and ethical advancement of artificial intelligence. Among over 150 member organisations, Sevilla FC stands out as the only sports club, highlighting its commitment to technological innovation in sports.

Co-founded by IBM and Meta, the AI Alliance brings together leading technology companies like Intel, AMD, Oracle, Red Hat, and Sony. It also includes renowned academic institutions such as CERN, EPFL, ETH Zurich, Yale, Cornell, the University of Tokyo, Imperial College London, and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.

Nationally, Sevilla FC is the fourth Spanish institution to join the AI Alliance, alongside the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, MLOps Community, and Esade, representing a significant milestone for sports and technology in Spain.

Sevilla FC has long been a leader in adopting cutting-edge technologies across both sports and business operations. The club has utilised AI to develop advanced solutions in various areas, including player identification and profiling based on scout evaluations in natural language. On the commercial side, AI has been integrated into ticketing, sponsorship, and Fan 360 tools, with a strong focus on attendance prediction, greatly enhancing the management of the secondary ticket market.

Club president, José María del Nido Carrasco, expressed great enthusiasm about the club joining this organisation.

“For Sevilla FC, it is a great honour to be the first sports clubs to join the AI Alliance. We feel fully committed to its principles for the safe, ethical, and collaborative development of artificial intelligence. For the club, this represents significant recognition from the technology industry and various academic institutions for our strong commitment to applying technological innovation to sports, as well as to our different business areas, in order to provide our professionals with the best tools to pursue success both on and off the field,” he said via Sevilla FC statement.

Through its membership in the AI Alliance, the club adopts and aligns with the core principles of this community, including:

  • Global collaboration to advance AI development.
  • The definition and development of AI use cases in the sports industry.
  • The promotion of open source technology that encourages equitable access to AI.
  • The development of and adherence to standards that ensure trust and security in AI applications.

This achievement not only reinforces the club’s dedication to digital transformation but also establishes it as a leader in creating a more innovative, ethical, and sustainable sports ecosystem, setting a precedent for other sports clubs to follow.

Beyond Sports: Transforming Sports Engagement

Beyond Sports

Beyond Sports is a Dutch sports AI data analysis and visualisation organisation challenging and transforming the way sport is viewed and engaged with.

Founded in 2014 in the midst of the Brazil World Cup, Beyond Sports founders Sander Schouten and Nicolaas Westerhof felt there was a significant gap in the market for data driven visualisations that catered for both businesses and consumers.

Since then, Beyond Sports has bloomed in popularity and value, culminating in it being acquired by Sony in 2022.

Beyond Sports’ Solutions 

Driving Beyond Sports’ success is its wealth of solutions for a variety of markets and consumers, operating a number of unique progammes designed for B2B and B2C.

Many sport addicts may have unknowingly witnessed Beyond Sports’ work across its numerous contracts with high profile broadcasters and leagues like ESPN, Fox Sports, KPN, Sky Sports and more.

Virtual Reality 

Beyond Sports’ initial projects revolved around creating real life football matches within a virtual reality environment. A partnership with ChyronHego, Feyenoord and PSV assisted the organisation in creating the first ever live computer-generated VR football match, which was broadcast on Twitch to 37,000 viewers in 2017, demonstrating Beyond Sports’ ability to broker the cutting edge of technology.

The revolutionary project soon blossomed into a longstanding partnership with Fox Sports Eredivisie alongside KPN to create a fully interactive VR environment of each week’s best goals, allowing fans to pick and choose their favourite player’s perspectives of the action for free.

From such an innovative project, Beyond Sports then provided broadcasters like Fox Sports and Sky Sports with VR tools to more effectively analyse games.

Additionally, the organisation’s use of AI VR to capture on the ground perspectives of real matches has garnered the interest of many elite level clubs. By being able to review moments through a direct one-to-one perspective, coaches are able to more effectively scrutinise mistakes and convey instructions to players more clearly. Through this, Beyond Sports has gained partnerships with clubs such as Arsenal, AFC Ajax and AZ Alkmaar.

AI Animated Visualisations 

Capitalising on the organisation’s impressive momentum, Beyond Sports pivoted to alternative animated visualisations of live sporting events using the company’s world class AI across world class broadcasters and interactive gaming environments like Roblox.

Beyond Sports’ live visualisations most notably broke through into the consumer market via a partnership with Nickelodeon, CBS and Next Gen Stats. Through the collaboration, Beyond Sports used live positional data of the 2021 NFL Wildcard Game to create an alternative animated broadcast of the event in Beyond Sports’ signature “blockie style”. While the real game aired on CBS, the animated version was shown on Nickelodeon to major success, drawing millions of viewers and earning a 2021 Sports Emmy award. The collaboration was then repeated in 2022, with a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme.

To further drive and alter the way sport is typically viewed, Beyond Sports entered into a new collaboration with ESPN and the NFL to create a Disney Toy Story themed live animated broadcast of the Jaguars-Falcons London game in 2023. Like the prior Nickelodeon broadcasts, the live version of the game occurred simultaneously with the animated “Toy Story Funday Football” version. Displaying the game within Andy’s Room, the animated broadcast boomed in popularity. Beyond Sports’ work resulted in the animated game becoming the most viewed event on both ESPN+ and Disney+ ever and earning both Beyond Sports and ESPN three Sports Emmy awards.

In addition to the work Beyond Sports has done with the NFL, the organisation also has a long running partnership with the NHL. In 2023 and 2024 Beyond Sports created the Big City Greens Classic, an animated version of a live NHL game featuring characters from the Big City Greens Disney Channel show. Furthermore, Beyond Sports has also aided in the launch of the NHL’s “Hockeyverse”, a weekly condensed 30-minute animated version of a game that uses player tracking to feature stylized avatars battling it out on the ice.

Late last year, Beyond Sports also worked with the NBA to create the Dunk the Halls, an animated version of a live game featuring Disney characters.

Conclusion

While many people will still prefer to watch sports in a traditional format, Beyond Sports has found incredible success in creating new alternative methods of watching live events through its proficiency with AI to create VR and animated experiences.

For more information on Beyond Sports, check their website.

Most Popular Topics

Editor Picks

Send this to a friend