Exasol supercharges sports analytics

Exasol has launched its sports analytics offering at the company’s annual conference Xperience, in Berlin. The use of data analytics in sports is booming – and Exasol is working with teams to help them gain a powerful competitive edge by using data analytics and data science in near real-time. The news was publicly announced after a panel of sports experts took to the stage for a discussion on football analytics: data and the beautiful game.

 

“Having worked with public football data for fun, it was a pleasure to be asked to be on the sports analytics panel at Exasol’s Xperience this year. I’m very excited and looking forward to sharing my views as a ‘fanalyst’ and augment the insights the other panellists will share,” said Ravi Mistry, Tableau consultant at the Information Lab.

 

Exasol is already working with several sports teams, including world-class Champions League football clubs and rugby federations. Exasol’s in-memory analytics database enables sports teams to run analytics and data science queries on their data, no matter how much of it there is, or where it is coming from – so teams can get actionable insights in near real-time.

 

“In a football team, players train for five days a week – and a lot of what they do on the training field is tracked via sensors,” explains Mistry. “Data is used to record their vitals, and this gives coaches, managers, physios and sports scientists the information they need to improve performance and fine-tune the team’s strategy. Data allows coaches another avenue of insight to gain a more rounded, holistic view of player and team performance — up to and including player progression and scouting.”

 

“Our customers have access to many different data sources, covering various aspects of the game. Bringing all these details together in one place can be challenging but it has great potential to deliver actionable insights about individual players, the team and the entire game. Tools like Exasol’s analytics database can make a big difference to sports clubs that want to drive faster insights from more data,” said Matthieu Lille-Palette, SVP at Opta. 

 

It’s not only about athletes’ performance. The sports industry is increasingly benefiting from the use of smart analytics in various areas. In their recruitment process, clubs can save a lot of time and money by using powerful data and analytics to shortlist players who are then visited by scouts.

 

“Data and analytics are the corner stone of any team. When they’re used smartly, analytics don’t just lead to opportunities on the pitch, they can also mean happier customers and more engaged fans,” said Eva Murray, Head of BI at Exasol. “And ultimately, this all means increased revenue streams and better performance for sports teams.”

 

“Our intelligent and efficient algorithm for calculating the Skyline set can help teams get the players that fit their requirements optimally, by using soft criteria for preferred performance attributes, which saves hours of work,” explained Andre Dorr, data engineer at Exasol.