Kitman Labs, the sports technology and analytics company setting the industry standar for how elite sports organizations use data, has launched "The Football Intelligence Platform" for Premier League academies. Kitman Labs is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland and Manchester, England.
The partnership will provide all Premier League club academies with a centralized, fully integrated ‘Football Intelligence Platform’ designed to aggregate and mobilize player and staff data across coaching, medical, sports science, operations, player care and education.
Data for academy players will be centralized in one platform - providing participants and coaching staff with a comprehensive, unified and real-time view of players’ medical, performance, training and development profiles.
The platform gives academies data accuracy and the ability to conduct advanced analytics at a league, club, or player level. Staff will manage player pathways through performance benchmarking and personalised development plans, in addition to providing tools, reporting, insights and actionable data to achieve specific operating and performance outcomes.
Stephen Smith, the founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, joined SportsJam with Doug Doyle to talk about his fast-growing company that is helping major sports leagues prepare future players for success.
"The Football Intelligence Platform is one of our proudest collaborations. I think the goal that the Premier League has is to produce more incredible talent that has ever been seen in the football or soccer world before. I think what they're doing is flipping the model in global football completely on its head. What I mean by that is most leagues typically look at their youth development systems as cost centers. You don't generate revenue from them. You're not selling huge TV and media rights packages. You're not selling sponsorship deals. You're not getting hundreds of thousands of fans through the gates to watch 10-year olds soccer. They decided instead of that being seen as a cost center, they're looking at it as an incredible investment opportunity and the future of the game."
Smith says that's where Kitman Labs is making a difference.
The Premier League is investing in technology like ours to help them find the best talent and to nurture the best talent by understanding what the strengths and weaknesses are. By the time they get to professionalism they understand everything about these athletes. They understand how to manage, care for them and individualize what they need to do to make them the best version of themselves. Essentially what they're doing is building a deeper and wider talent development funnel. That's something that we are incredibly passionate about and really excited to be a part of. "
Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top governing bodies, leagues, teams and athletes across a variety of sports, including soccer/global football, basketball, rugby, and American football. The company's technology has been used by leagues and teams in some of the world's most elite sports organizations and universities including the NFL, NBA, MLS, NWSL and NCAA.
"We know what we are doing is special. We know that it's the future. We're seeing every day that our industry is changing at an extremely rapid rate. The fragmentation of data in these pockets and silos across a high performance organization does not allow people to create shared understanding. It does not allow people to cultivate that data and turn it into intelligence. We're very quickly seeing people shift to consolidated and horizontal platform that allows people to see a 360-degree view of their athletes and understand how to make important decisions that matter."
Smith, who spoke from his office in California's Silicon Valley, gives much of the credit for his success to his days as an elite rugby player in Ireland.
"It was something that changed my life. I wouldn't be sitting here doing what I'm doing today if it wasn't for the passion I found in rugby and the friends and connections I've made. I ended up working for a professional team (Leinart) because of the connections I made from playing elite-level rugby. One of the things most people don't understand about rugby is that while on the field it's extremely aggressive and it can look really messy, it's probably one of the most organized and disciplined sports in the world. The level of respect and camaraderie that is built in the rugby community is like nothing else."
Smith says he still laughs about not taking his dad's advice to stay out of the professional sports world because it wasn't financially stable.
You can SEE the SportsJam with Doug Doyle interview with Stephen Smith here.
