Special Episode – PlayerStatData
On today’s episode, I speak with Colin Brett from PlayerStatData. We talk about their new soccer data and analytics platform. Learn more about PlayerStatData.
Matt: [00:00:00] Hi everybody. Welcome to Discover College Soccer. We are continuing our interviews here live at the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Philadelphia. And today I’m lucky enough to be joined by my Good Now good Irish friend Colin from Player Stat Data. Welcome sir.
Colin: Matt. How are you my friend?
Matt: Doing well. You know, we connected via, I don’t know, Twitter months ago. Yeah. And then ha got got to chatting and, and. I love what you guys are doing and it was great to be able to meet you in person, uh, here at the show and, and, and welcome you to, uh, your first ever United Soccer Coaches convention. And, uh, so, so how’s it been for you?
Colin: It’s been, um, everything we expected and more. Um, everything is bigger in this country and it’s, it’s very big here. It, uh, just the, the number of stalls, the podcasts, the people walking around. Yeah. It’s, it’s an attack of the census sometimes.
Matt: Yeah, that’s for sure. Huge. Yeah. Well, you know, my, my wife’s uh, family is, is from Ireland.
Uh, she calls it going home. So, uh, you know, it was awesome to, to be able to connect and, and, You know, meet a new Irish friend for the next time I go over. But, uh, but while we’re here, you know, let’s, let’s talk about why you came over and, and your company player stat data. You guys are doing some awesome stuff.
One thing, uh, it seems at least to me in the exhibit hall is data and analysis, [00:01:30] uh, is really being brought to the forefront.
Colin: Yeah. What, what, what kind of in you seem to be in that space now where. Eh, data and analytics are becoming attainable at all levels. It’s not just the MLS or the EPL or wherever it might be.
Um, and there’s a lot of advantages to be gained from being able to utilize data. There’s a lot of cameras at games, VO trace, even camcorders. So it’s to turn that into data and what you can do with the insights. So yeah, there’s an, it’s, it’s a little bit behind back in Ireland, but here in the US it’s really been Really and truly
Matt: well, and on your, I mean, right there in the middle of your website, you, you say you’re focused on, uh, academies, right? Focused on that, that U 13 to U 19 age group. I’ve seen some of the, some of the folks in there have these massive camera installs you have to do and are really probably more geared towards professional.
Teams. Uh, but, but you guys are really focusing kind of on, on that academy market, right?
Colin: Yes, indeed. It’s, um, it’s obviously a huge market, as you well know, there’s quite a number of clubs across, across the country, even up in Canada. But, um, yeah, we are, um, We found in our research that there’s a large number of clubs, have video footage, but not really getting much out of it.
So we want to take their footage as part of our platform, eh, squeeze out as much performance data from as we can give it back to the clubs and allow them to work, um, on the [00:03:00] various insights and the findings with, with the players on the training ground. Even, excuse me, even on the field. So, um, our mission to be kind of very markety is we’re democratizing performance data insights for all youth soccer stakeholders.
So we want to make it accessible, affordable, and effective. So if the, if the match footage is there, We’re gonna turn it into a gold of data for you, along with the other couple of elements in, in our platform. Um, we believe everyone should have access to data if they can get, um, if, if they want it. And if so, we’re the ones to give it to ’em, basically.
Matt: No, that’s tremendous. And, and kind of looking at it through that college soccer lens, right? We, everybody’s worried about their highlight videos and, and that’s really, A player might get their first, you know, in, if you will, with a coach is, Hey, here’s what I can do. But, but if they’re able to then, you know, parlay that with, and oh by the way, here’s the data that goes along with my season.
Um, you know, that I think hopefully for them, that’s gonna be another thing that helps them get, get in.
Colin: Right. Yeah. That’s what we’re, um, one of our key messages here for a couple of days. Clubs that are, have issues around player retention and player turnover. Our performance at a platform will hopefully keep more players and attract more because ultimately when it comes to that peak time of college recruitment, they have an advantage over others.
It’s, they can offer [00:04:30] this into their players where, um, here’s your highlight reel, but here’s your data profile to back it up. Um, highlight reels can be, can be good, but you’re never gonna show a bad thing on a highlight. So, at least the data, we’re looking to get into benchmarking insights. So you can say, uh, my kid is the best in the state at this.
He’s the, you know, uh, the third best at that. She’s the, she’s the, uh, uh, top girl in this, this, that, and the other performance facet. So it makes ’em stand out.
Matt: Well, yeah, and actually that was gonna be my next question. You mentioned the word benchmark, so obvious. I send a, a college coach, uh, my highlight tape and, and give him this data that says, oh, I complete 80% of my passes that are 20 yards or longer, or whatever, whatever that metric might be.
A coach might get that and go, is that good? You know, like should it be an 80, it should be 60, should it be 90? So, so you guys are gonna be able with your platform, kind of be able to help find those benchmarks and guide both players and coaches through to see really where they should be at.
Colin: Right, exactly.
Um, as our data bank gets bigger and bigger, ultimately the clubs, it, all, the tools be given to the clubs so they can do the searches the. They can benchmark their, their player across the best practice by age position. And as I said, as the Ben, as our data bank is larger, we can go by region and even over time period.[00:06:00]
So it allows, yeah, eh, our player is the best at this in the last six months in the Florida state, so on, so forth. Now that’s always gonna lead, need a large amount of data, but we’re already a couple of million data points. We have some AI technology coming on board in the next two or three months, so that will give us a couple of million extra data points per game.
So the larger and larger it gets, the more insightful the data insights become and the more useful they’ll be for the college recruitment time for the player to use. For the club to use as a kind of a competitive advantage over others. It’s, um, it can definitely make them stand out from the crowd. And it’s not just YouTube links of here’s the 10 things I did well, here’s the stuff to back it up.
Matt: Well, and I think something you just mentioned that I, I just was thinking about was the, the overtime comment, right? So hopefully this is where you. You as a player in a club, can really see how is this person developing? And, and even that might be a good, uh, nugget for a college coach to see, hey, this is a coachable player.
That, that with enough training and, and, uh, and insights and match with the data, Hey, this, this is something we might be able to, to help bring this player along.
Colin: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It can show a kind of a steady progress as, uh, the player is moving along. There’s also the element that somebody matches have always been better than the rest, or someone all of a sudden has had that one good season.
They’ve [00:07:30] been relatively average and one good season. So, you know, each player is different. Each college recruiter is different, but it give you a much clearer picture of the player’s development and the players’ progress and better inform them around those decisions. Do you know? Yeah.
Matt: And, and I’m, I know we’re, uh, looking forward to, to getting you some footage, uh, for my daughter’s club and, and seeing, uh, and seeing what that looks like.
But, um, in terms of, you guys kind of rolling out really in the, in the US and Canada kind of recently, right? Yeah. Um, you know what, what would you like any, any club player. You know, well, I guess the question is, is are you only selling to teams and clubs or if I’m, you know, could, could I, as, as my daughter’s dad give you footage to help her out?
What, what does that kind of look like with the way you guys are doing your platform at the moment?
Colin: With the size of the company and the way our platform is set up, like there’s five elements. There’s the in-game stuff that I spoke about, um, the physical data element, socioeconomic sports, psych. And coach assessment.
So it’s kind of tailored towards clubs at the moment, but for the clubs then to release this data down to the players and say, look here, this can help you get in front of a, a college skill, et cetera, et cetera. In time, especially as our a, our AI tech, uh, goes from version one up to up to version two. Um, we want to kind of go into the retail market, so parents, [00:09:00] even the players themselves, can drop the footage into our platform.
Our AI model will collect the data and the report generation, so it spits out the report on the, on the other side. So that’s where we want to get there. In, in time. It could be 18 months, 24 months. Um, but for now it’s primarily at clubs. Academies and allow them, filter that, those insights down to the players.
But um, yeah, like if your club won’t be using a platform for the time being, we are working on a solution for that so that parent can drop in two. Drop in the footage, they get the data out and they, they, uh, use it as, as they want, then no.
Matt: Well, that, that definitely sounds like something that’ll be exciting for you guys to work on.
And, and I know, uh, something that I’m guessing a whole lot of parents, uh, here in the states will be, will be interested in seeing, but, but hopefully some clubs will, will do the same and, and, and really get that through. So, Before we wrap up, is there, you know, any, anything else that, uh, you want folks to know about the platform, about your services or, or anything else like that?
Colin: Um, essentially we launched over here last September, so we’re after getting a little bit of traction in the buildup to the convention and we’ve generated a fair bit of interest over the last few days. Um, and you listen to the podcast that would be interested, um, Head coach, director of coaching, executive director, whatever it may be at the club, just reach out to us.
Uh, we’re offering everybody a four game trial. So, um, you can see how it works for [00:10:30] yourself. Um, you know, you give us the footage, we’ll collect the data over four games, we’ll put it all back to you in your data platform and you can see how it works. Um, the other four elements of the platform that I mentioned, like the coach assessment, the physical stuff, they’re all.
So not everybody has wearable tech, so they might want that, but they may want the sports psych. So you can have one platform, you can one platform element, you can have all five. You can, you know, it’s completely up to you. So we’re keen to build a platform that clubs want, not what we want them to have. So we could have a hundred clients and a hundred different permutations of the.
even from the in-game element that we’re collecting the data from video footage, we’re collecting over 80 metrics from a game, but we provide the metrics that you want to see at the end so we can switch 40 50 off in the background. If you don’t want to see that many, we can give you all of them. So it’s completely flexible to what each club needs.
We don’t want to swamp people in data, so it’s definitely worth reaching out to us. Um, uh, Ron, if you go onto a website, players.data.com, uh, we’re on social media as well. Just reach out, happy to do, uh, a four game trial with anybody that’s interested. And, um, let them see for themselves how we’re going to revolutionize their youth player development pathways.
Matt: Well, I’m excited. I know, uh, I think I’ve given you maybe given you one game, but, but we got a tournament coming up, so I’ll get those three other ones to you and, and we’ll be, we’ll be interested to see, uh, [00:12:00] see how our kids are doing well. Uh, wish you the best of luck with it. Really excited to, to see all the new things you’re bringing on.
Uh, glad you were able to come to the States and see us, and, uh, hopefully the next time we meet, maybe I’ll be, uh, over there in Ireland.
Colin: Yeah, yeah. More than welcome, . I have a lovely couch for you to sleep on. .
Matt: Awesome. All right, thanks Colin. Cheers, man.
Colin: Thanks man. Take care. Yep, thank you.
