Ep. 27: Christian Holzer - ⚽ 🔢 Sports Data Emerging as Strategic Priority for Leagues 🏟

⚽ 🔢 Sports Data Emerging as Strategic Priority for Leagues 🏟 Just having breakfast in New York, with Christian Holzer of Sportec Solutions AG and we were discussing how sports data is becoming a top strategic priority for major leagues. So I thought... this is A guy with a scarf episode! As Holzer explained, "There is everywhere sports data available now in every kind of level. And I think he also mentioned it quite well, that the ownership and the control that the leagues are now seeking in that area is important for future growth in fan engagement, in commercialization, in product development, for leagues like MLS or like Bundesliga." The value of sports data spans across nearly all aspects of a sports organization now. As Holzer stated, "from production over digital, competition department, refereeing, player recruitment, health and safety. Everybody is involved, everybody can benefit from sports data and most of them are relying nowadays on sport data to do their decision." For Sportec Solutions specifically, the company focuses on "sports data officiating and sports technology," Holzer said. This includes "data gathering, data management, data analytics, data distribution and data content generation." The company also provides video assistant referee (VAR) systems and integrates third-party sports technologies. Originally founded as a joint venture between the German Bundesliga league and DeltaTre, Sportec Solutions now works with other leagues like Major League Soccer (MLS) in the U.S. The company recently opened an innovation center in Arlington, Texas to be closer to major U.S. sports entities like the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers. One major partnership is with Amazon Web Services (AWS). As Holzer explained, "We are very deeply integrated into AWS infrastructure due to their sponsorship with Bundesliga, and we are developing new kinds of metrics with AWS technology." They called these new metrics "Bundesliga match facts," which apply "data analytics, artificial intelligence processes" to raw sports data to generate "new kinds of insights" and storytelling around matches. The U.S. sports industry seems particularly eager to embrace these types of sports data analytics to engage fans and enhance operations. As Holzer stated, "I think that's the reason why they have chosen us, because the turnaround times here in the US are much faster. They're faster in decision making. They're also trying things, try and fail and do the next thing until you are succeeding."