AI in Pro Sport: Laying the Groundwork – SportTechie

Even advocates of artificial intelligence (AI) will acknowledge that the concepthas endured some false starts over the years. However, the past decade hasbrought a transformation in how AI is perceived in sport -- with the clubs, leagues,organizations and businesses that underpin the industry discovering the innovationsthat can emerge through the simulation of human intelligence in machines.

Members of the public rely on this technology every day, and we take it forgranted, says Dr. Patrick Lucey, chief scientist at sports data and analyticsprovider Stats Perform.

The availability of data these days is one big difference that has driven AIadoption. There is also a greater appreciation of AI, and the return on investmentis there to see via objective measures. It also helps that AI can be applied acrossall business segments.

Barriers to Adoption

AI is fueled by crunching swathes of data via iterative processing and algorithmsthat allow software platforms to identify patterns and predict future outcomes. So,it follows that increasing volumes of data being collected and analyzed in thesports industry in recent years have refined such processes, generating moreaccurate results and bottom-line benefits.

However, given its definition, it is hardly surprising that AI has also been adifficult notion to grasp for many, especially given how it is often usedinterchangeably with machine learning a strand of AI that focuses on howcomputers can imitate the way that humans learn.

This barrier to adoption, though, has slowly evaporated as clubs and franchiseshave gradually learned to gauge the real-life results from an idea that manyinitially considered to be abstract.

When terms like AI and data science were first being bandied around, I was oneof those who didnt understand the value of it, says Ben Mackriell, VP data, AIand pro products at Stats Perform.

But now there is a greater level of understanding in the market in general thatAI is simply a mechanism that enables better experiences, with the coreingredient being data. The challenge is to make AI consumable and break downsome of the myths. The process is complex, but the output doesnt have to becomplex.

Journey of Understanding

Sports clubs have been on this journey of understanding how deploying AI canultimately improve results and there is certainly no turning back now.From a performance perspective, more than 350 clubs across various sports relyon Stats Performs data and technology services, of which AI is a centralcomponent.

Stats Perform was the first company to offer player tracking technology inbasketball more than a decade ago. It is now unthinkable for a team in the NBA as well as any other leading league not to have analysts on the payroll.It is an area that has grown exponentially over the past 10 years, Mackrielladds. Most Premier League clubs had one or two analysts a decade ago. Now, itis common for them to have more than 10 people working across multipleaspects data analytics.

Clubs are hiring data engineers now and you would not have seen that evenjust three years ago.

Vivid Illustration

During this summers delayed UEFA Euro 2020 soccer tournament, Stats Performpresented a vivid illustration of how consumable its AI capabilities can be forfans across Europe and beyond with its Euros Prediction model.Through Stats Performs public-facing digital platform, The Analyst, themodel estimated the probability of each match outcome by using a series of inputs that ranged from historical team and player performances to betting marketodds and team rankings.

Hundreds of thousands of scenarios were being crunched every time a goalwent in, Mackriell says.For clubs though, AI-driven predictive modelling can provide insights that delveeven deeper.Stats Performs Playing Styles framework, for example, takes into considerationnumerous events and factors to determine a teams tendencies. Eight playingstyles are put under the microscope, from build-up play to counter attacks.

Such data-based insights can then be used to identify the roles of individualplayers within each style and also analyze crucially, in an age of sky-high salariesand transfer fees how a possible new signing would slot into the existing teamsystem.Every action and phase on the field is broken down, Mackriell adds. Everyaction on the pitch can be quantified in terms of how likely it is to lead to a goal,and you can see how individuals contribute towards a goal-scoring opportunity.

This supports decision-making and assists in terms of scouting and investing inthe team.One of the most common questions we are asked by a club is: How will thisplayers skills translate into our team and league. That is where teams areseeing a return on investment with AI.

Moneyball

For sports clubs and franchises, AI is Moneyball 2.0 using data to introducelayers of predictive insights that can help them make sound businessdecisions.Most importantly, it is about focusing on solving a problem at the outset.We spend time with clubs across multiple sports to identify the problems theyare trying to solve, Mackriell says. This problem-solving approach is how wedeploy AI as a company, rather than just trying to bring together AI tech anddata.

Given increasing levels of data coverage, the results for clubs and franchisesworldwide will become increasingly sophisticated, according to Lucey.Sport has been a slow adopter as clubs are understandably private about howthey operate, he says. Like anything in sport, though, once there is success,there is a snowball effect.

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AI in Pro Sport: Laying the Groundwork - SportTechie