Sport analytics leverage AI and ML to improve the game

Jamie Capel-Davies, head of science and technical for ITF, says metrics don’t mean much if you can’t communicate them effectively in time to make use of them.

“One of the key things we were looking at was what were the most important metrics and how can they be communicated effectively,” he says. “The great thing about the app is it’s very visual and it also has a reasonable amount of customization.”

LaLiga adopts AI and ML for peak performance

LaLiga, Spain’s premier football division, is leveraging AI and ML to deliver new insights to players and coaches.

With the help of Microsoft, LaLiga has created a data analysis platform called Mediacoach, which uses Azure infrastructure to collect, interpret, and showcase insights from approximately 3.5 million data points captured in near real-time per match via 16 optical tracking cameras. These cameras are installed in each of the league’s stadiums to capture data on player and referee positioning, and the ball’s movements.

“With this huge amount of data per month, we’re able to offer stats and reports,” says Ana Rosa Victoria Bruno, innovation manager at LaLiga. “With 112,000 reports in the system and 8 million bits of information, it’s a huge amount of information for 42 clubs.”

One of the tools that’s also provided to broadcasters for fan engagement is a Goal Probability model, which leverages a range of variables, including the player’s line of sight (taking into account the positions of opposing players); distances between the ball and the goalkeeper, and the ball and the goal; and the distance and angle to the nearest defender to measure the probability of finishing a given scoring chance. The calculation also takes into account a player’s efficiency indicator based on variables such as the player’s ratio of goals per match and per shot.

Bruno’s advice: Create a multidisciplinary team.

Bruno says it required a multidisciplinary team of football analysts, business intelligence analysts, and the LaLiga analytics team to find success. “One of the challenges is, in order to turn this raw data into knowledge, we need not just data scientists, but also football analysts, UX experts, and coaches,” she says.