A few years back, Stats realized the importance securing the future technologies in stats tracking, so they acquired an Israeli company called SportVU, that had already repurposed military tracking technology for use in international soccer. “It was an offensive and defensive play,” Kopp says. “The defensive was, another company could automate what we did. The offensive was, we can collect all sorts of new data.”
Simultaneously, this shifted Stats’ relationship with the industry overnight. Whereas they’d once paid leagues for their data, Stats began approaching the teams themselves to supply it. They converted SportVU to work in the NBA–it’s currently the only professional U.S. sport offering they have, though they’ve dabbled in NFL development–and for a fee, they offered to place six tiny, webcam-like cameras in stadium rafters, connected to a laptop. Each game, an operator would just need to show up to calibrate the system (tell the cameras which player was which), and they’d have access to massive amounts of new data.
Their system captures the X/Y coordinates of all the players and refs–along with the X/Y/Z (3-D) coordinates of the ball–25 times every second (or 72,000 times a game). Algorithms take into account all sorts of variables to keep the system accurate, from the lines on the court to the reflections of flashing billboards. Another layer of software at a central server puts this raw data together into something meaningful. Information as specific as player ball touches and dribbles can be calculated within 60 seconds of being spotted by SportVU cams. Stats can generate these values in simple, automated reports.
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