Stats Perform, a leading provider of data technology and artificial intelligence for sports, signed a new agreement with OGC Nice on December 1. Some 20 years ago, Nice was one of the first football clubs to adopt player tracking solutions for its first team. Satisfied with the benefits of the AI developed by Stats Perform, OGC Nice has decided to extend the analysis and recruitment solutions to each of the club’s main football sections.
Stats Perform is one of the leaders in SportsTech for data and AI. Andy Cooper, the company’s head of marketing, said:
“We provide the most reliable sports data and the latest advances in AI and machine learning with the aim of delivering better predictions and insights for fan engagement, betting and team performance. As a company, we have been collecting data from many sports for 40 years and currently have over 1,500 customers worldwide.”
Andy Cooper also states:
“We have an archive that is faster and more extensive than any other sports database in the world. This database is used to power our own AI innovation centre, which has over 300 developers and 50 AI professionals.”
The 20-year collaboration has enabled OGC Nice to use Stats Perform’s cutting-edge solutions to optimize match preparation and analysis, which allows data to be used to inform player monitoring, fitness and recruitment decisions.
Today, the club’s performance analysis department continues to use Stats Perform’s SportVU optical tracking technology, built on the latest advances in computer vision and an active learning framework. Drawing on 20 years of expertise in player tracking, SportVU provides performance statistics by extracting player and ball coordinates with statistical algorithms to provide better match information and generate the data behind the latest AI analysis software.
This technology also powers Pro Analysis, a platform that provides the club’s analysts with predictive information about each upcoming opponent through eight specific artificial intelligence models. This process is complemented by a stadium camera system provided by Stats Perform’s SPIN partner Pixellot, which captures panoramic and tactical images to enhance pre- and post-match analysis. The integration of Stats Perform’s Opta data will facilitate recruitment decisions.
OGC Nice’s Director of Football, Julien Fournier, said:
“Stats Perform is a historical partner of the club and I am delighted to extend our collaboration. Stats Perform works with the best football clubs in the world, has a real understanding of the different daily challenges faced by the sports sector. Their knowledge and expertise is very useful to us. They also have a compelling long-term vision for AI in sport that puts them at the forefront of innovation, making them the ideal partner for us as we look to successfully execute our long-term strategy.”
The agreement will enable OGC Nice to create a central fitness platform using Stats Perform’s Dynamix cloud solution. The physical performance of players from all divisions of the club will be tracked together. This global fitness monitoring of all the teams in the Training Centre is a strong trend in modern European football and will give the club an advantage in talent identification and injury prevention.
Antoine David of Stats Perform, who has worked closely with the club for two decades, said:
“OGC Nice and Stats Perform share many common goals. We both strive for high quality performances and seek to work with key partners to ensure that our respective objectives are met. To achieve this, investment in new technology is crucial and we have made great strides in the ongoing development of our AI-based performance analysis, recruitment and wearable systems solutions, which are now in place in each of OGC Nice’s key departments.
There is no doubt that artificial intelligence will change the way we analyse sport throughout the 2020s and I look forward to supporting the club’s technical staff in making the most of the benefits offered by these technologies in the years to come.”
Translated from IA et sport : l’OGC Nice compte sur les solutions de Stats Perform pour l’analyse et le recrutement
