STATSports leading the way for GPS tracking

Big-name Premier League clubs have chosen to partner up with STATSportswho are industry leaders in providing GPS tracking systems and analysis. 

Up to five of the top six in the league have already made the switch to STATSports, including Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur – while the service is used by the majority of fellow Premier League sides.

These Premier League clubs have worked closely with STATSports as they developed Sonra 3.0 and Sonra Live which is the latest software upgrade that the Premier League will be set to receive – featuring marketing-leading analysis platforms and further improvement on athlete monitoring.

STATSports are widely regarded across professional football – in addition to their big-name Premier League clients, they also push further into the English FA and abroad across the world, venturing out to the likes of Paris Saint Germain and Juventus. 

STATSports were involved in the Project Restart by informing the Premier League with a Player Proximity Report, using their data to show which type of sessions would cause players to come to together more often. STATSports offers a quick and time-effective process, with download times four times faster than any platform. It means receiving results from a typical session for a squad of players would take under two minutes. 

For elite clubs, Sonra 3.0 is the ideal go-to solution and it further streamlines and enhances performance with a host of new features that will make a difference. Sonra 3.0 is the brand-new product launch by STATSports and the latest offering for anyone looking to acquire their very own GPS tracking and analysis. 

Among the key inclusions, session planning features have been added to the calendar, allowing club performance departments to map up training cycles for weeks in advance. Video integration in the Video Manager has been developed further while adding a full squad 2D positioning. There is also a Scientific Calculator, allowing practitioners to create bespoke custom metrics based upon their own requirements.

Users are now able to choose between ‘Light’ and Dark’ modes as they can customise their preferred theme when on the app. 

The launch of Sonra 3.0 has coincided with the introduction of a new iPad application called Sonra Live, enabling coaches to monitor training in real-time. 

Sonra Live’s real-time data has been independently validated to form a perfect correlation with downloaded data, making this the most accurate live-monitoring solution of its kind. Coaches can then make instant, informed and impactful decisions for anything they intended to achieve. 

Sonra Live features team-level reporting, detailed individual-player dashboards, drill cutting for precise session analysis, post-session reporting via PDF/CSV and synchronisation to desktop applications for further analysis. 

STATSports’ on-board metric processing means there will be no data drop-out and they are the only provider in the industry to give 100% identical live and post-session download data quality.  

With flawless results, this puts the power in the end users’ hands to make immediate decisions with confidence no matter what they want to do. Coaches can set multiple thresholds for individual players or full squads, while multiple coaches can each monitor their own iPads simultaneously. 

“This is an exciting day for STATSports and the many teams we work with. This is another major advancement in the level in which coaches and managers can monitor their players,” STATSports co-founder, Sean O’Connor said. 

“Technology is now truly integrated into the game and we have played our part in that. We have worked closely with those teams during lockdown and also used the time to finalise the development of our new Sonra platform – we’re confident that our clients will further benefit from working with us through the introduction of this.” 

The creation of both Sonra 3.0 and Sonra Live reaffirms STATSports’ commitment to being the industry leader in GPS tracking and innovations for this space, supplying this resource to world-renowned clubs. 

“We have really enjoyed developing this new software platform. Time is a key commodity for clubs,” STATSports co-founder, Alan Clarke said. 

“The quicker they can make decisions with reliable and accurate feedback, the greater the edge they have on their competition.  

“We will continue to push the boundaries of what is possible and ensure athletes can do the same on the training pitch and the competitive environment.” 

For more information on STATSports, you can find it here.

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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.

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