The sort of statistics that makes the most hardened football aficionado misty-eyed.
Given that stories are essentially a collection of stats, it’s not surprising that sport is driven by them. But as a reformed filmmaker, it is the images and sounds which express the meaning behind the ‘metadata’ which interest me. It’s the visceral connection to people and actions which leads to the creation of heroes and villains, the drama and pathos in the sports we love.
But the 2019 / 2020 season won’t be remembered by the numbers, nor will it be remembered for the collective roar from the terraces, but rather, the lone voices from terraced houses across a nation, each with their own personal story and individual perspective.
And as we run egoli annotation against the Premier League matches being played today, I will be watching thousands of tags attach themselves to video, adding context to every shot. This aggregation of data and video will bring fans closer to the action than ever before – and enable embattled Rights Holders to unlock hidden gold.
It’s a bold claim and our solution may be somewhat ironic – we built an Ai to humanise the stats.
Teamsheets open out into play-by-play moments during the match and across careers. Every goal, save, nutmeg and dive. The striker, the keeper they defied, the official who raised a card, the fan who cried, – the drama that is the Beautiful Game captured as data. Replayed as story.
That may all sound very romantic, but what does it mean for football leagues, clubs and fans?
It means additional revenue derived from secondary content sales.
It means greater fan engagement and the ability to move casual observer to super-fan.
It means clubs giving the fan the opportunity to curate their own story and become embedded in the narrative of their team.
It means coaches having the ability to embed performance data into the granular visual detail they need to refine player performance.
It means scouts having the opportunity to know players before signing them.
The applications are endless – but fundamentally, egoli helps Leagues, Clubs and Teams to find gold.