Backed By FIFA, Player Maker Dives Into Sports Analytics Feet First

The Israeli company claims that its shoe-mounted trackers can help athletes improve their footwork or avoid injury by crunching massive amounts of data for key insights.

Advances in analytics have revolutionized the sports world over the last decade, changing how training and competitions are managed and played, and giving teams distinct advantages by providing brand-new ways to measure performance and skill.

While some analytics focus on determining a player’s value or evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of play calls or other decisions, few have examined athletes’ fancy footwork until now.

If you look at the top athletes in any sport just like from Steph Curry in basketball to great tennis players to Troy Polamalu and others. It all starts with great footwork,” Erez Morag, chief novelty officer at startup Player maker, recently told The Times of Israel in an interview.

FIFA Player Maker That Focuses On Soccer Analytics And Expanding Other Sports

The company, which specializes in wearable sports performance trackers, is looking to capitalize on the data-driven analytics approach that has massively reshaped major sports leagues such as the National Basketball Association and Major League Baseball in terms of both presentation and performance over the last decade.

The Stat Cast tracking system was introduced in all 30 MLB stadiums in 2015, and it was quickly adopted by scouting departments and major sports networks such as ESPN. The technology, developed in collaboration with Google Cloud and Hawk-Eye Innovations North America, employs 12 cameras strategically placed around ballparks to collect more than 17 petabytes of data per season.

Player maker, which focuses on soccer analytics but is expanding into other sports such as basketball, does not use cameras but rather sensors attached to players. While other sports data companies, such as PlayerData and StatSports, offer sensors attached to vests, Playermaker claims to be the only one that places trackers on players’ cleats.

How FIFA Player Maker Created An Algorithm To Analyze Data

“We have the advantage of being mounted on the source of motion of the foot where everything begins, and the secret of sports is footwork,” Morag said.

According to the company, by collecting data from players’ motion on the field, specifically from their feet, they can unlock athletes’ potential in ways that are difficult to detect with the naked eye, while also protecting them from injury and improving management.

Anyone can learn about the activity patterns and footwork of large populations of men and women players while they are aggressively involved in their sports by having our sensor in both feet.

To analyze all of the data, player maker created an algorithm “that allows us to understand not only the physical aspect of the game, but also the technical aspect of the game, how involved you are in the game, how many times you touch the ball, how many possessions you have, and how balanced you are between the left and right feet,” according to Morag.

The company, which was founded in Tel Aviv in 2014, claims that its technology has been used in over 250 elite, professional, and recreational soccer organizations, including English soccer powerhouses Arsenal and Liverpool.

How He Is Able To Analyze FIFA Player Data By Using Player Maker

In the year 2019, the legendary Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger turn out to be a major stockholder in the get-up, which relocated to London the same year, altering its name from Motionize Israel. According to player maker CEO Guy Aharon, Wenger was initially sceptical of the technology, but changed his mind after the company bused a youth team to the manager’s north London backyard for a demonstration.

In a statement, he used our sports gears to record and monitor all their session, then analyzed the concerned data successfully. “He said it was an astonishing as an investor, as he always wanted to support us push in advancing,” Aharon said last year.

Being able to analyze player data has provided player maker with a better understanding of player development and injury rehabilitation, but it has also provided insight into an area that is frequently overlooked in the analytics revolution: women’s sports.

“We’ve collected over 1 billion metres of data on female players alone.” This is unprecedented. It’s unheard of. “You can learn a lot about activity patterns,” Morag said, referring to the distance travelled by athletes wearing the sensors.

Why Player Maker Sponsored A Women’s U-16 Soccer Team

Player maker sponsored a women’s U-16 soccer team at the recent Maccabiah Games in Israel, the so-called “Jewish Olympics,” providing them with access to technology.

Morag joined player maker in 2015 after serving as the head of Nike’s Athlete Performance branch, and was instrumental in developing the system that converts raw data from sensors into something that can help players. He is a prolific biomechanics researcher who has received 30 patents for his work.

To address the privacy concerns associated with feeding player data through AI, Morag stated that players have the option of deciding who they want to share their individual metrics with.

According to the company’s website, all information is kept “highly confidential for all clubs and users of the system,” and it complies with relevant data protection laws.

“All related data are kept in private servers, which means the data is being protected at all times,” as per the website.

How Company Is Expanding Its Presence In The Professional Pitch

Playermaker was added to FIFA’s Innovation Programme last year, the soccer governing body’s effort to help develop and standardise emerging technologies in the sport. Wenger, who left Arsenal in 2018, was named FIFA’s director of global football development shortly after joining Playermaker. His investment amount was not disclosed.

The company has raised $50 million in two subsequent funding rounds, the first of which was led by Ventura Capital Group, an Emirates-based venture capital firm, and the second of which was led by Singapore-based FengHe Group in 2019.

The company is also expanding its presence in the professional pitch. Harvey Elliott, a 19-year-old Liverpool winger/midfielder with several championships under his belt, became a brand ambassador for the company in March.

Elliot’s playing grace, which Morag defined as “very practical and not just physical,” embodied what Player maker’s contributions could bring to the field.

“We wanted to connect with authentic players with authentic stories who are using our product and are emerging players,” Morag explained. ” With our small input to the game, we can also help their game to grow to the next level at the same time.”