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Sportradar MOCAP acquisition brings ‘The Machine’ to sports fans

By Derek Helling

An example of the rich player tracking and machine learning data that Sportradar can now make available to fans with its acquisition of MOCAP. Photo courtesy of Ketchum.
An example of the rich player tracking and machine learning data that Sportradar can now make available to fans with its acquisition of MOCAP. Photo courtesy of Ketchum. /
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The world’s premiere supplier of sports data is prepared to further upgrade its product with additional artificial intelligence capabilities directed toward the average sports fan.

Sportradar supplies player tracking and sports data to over 1,000 media companies, bookmakers, sports federations and government authorities in over 80 countries. Because of that scale and its existing fan-focused products such as Game Stream and Game Stories, many sports fans around the world are familiar with it as well. The Sportradar MOCAP acquisition will make having deep and reliable data at fans’ fingertips possible with machine learning at its core.

Sportradar announced on Thursday its acquisition of MOCAP, a company which has specialized in transforming data from sporting events like player tracking into simple, small bites of information that sports fans can use to enhance their understanding of sports. MOCAP has been in use by sport entertainment corporations like the NBA’s Golden State Warriors for years, and it has played a part in the Warriors’ success.

“We were the first NBA team to become heavily ingrained with player-tracking systems and companies such as MOCAP,” said Kirk Lacob, assistant general manager of the Golden State Warriors. “Such data has now become invaluable to organizations and fans alike.”

A big part of what made MOCAP so successful is its ability to relay that information to sports fans. As Alexander Inglot, Director of Communications for Sportradar AG explains, that’s exactly what made MOCAP attractive for acquisition.

“When we started building our product for fans in the United States, we really looked at what the journey of a fan is,” Inglot commented. “Determining key points at which we could deliver data to fans in useful ways was important. We are looking at a broad spectrum of ways that we can make this information available from social media to live broadcasts to game recaps.”

“What we want to do is give access to this incredible data and bring it to life,” added Ashok Balakrishnan, SVP of Tech and Product at Sportradar. “We are trying to establish a new benchmark for what fans need. We want to be informing every discussion. My dream is that you can’t win a debate with another fan in a bar without Sportradar data.”

While Sportradar already provides player tracking and other forms of integrity- and odds-related data to sport entertainment organizations around the world like ESL, the ITF, the NBA, the NFL and the NHL, the acquisition of MOCAP is directed toward improving its offering toward millions of fans of those and other sports operations.

“One thing that we have noticed over the last year due to our exclusive partnerships with leagues like the NFL is that there is huge potential to raise the fan experience by bringing out insights in the form of storytelling experiences,” Balakrishnan explained. “That begins for us by investing in artificial intelligence and machine learning. With the depth of this data, it’s difficult for any individual to analyze them all. AI is a huge enabler. MOCAP is one of the only pioneers in the space in taking a machine learning approach to understanding that data.”

NFL fans are already experiencing Sportradar’s Game Stream product through publications like Sports Illustrated, and Game Stories is being made available to NBA fans through Second Spectrum. The result of integrating MOCAP’s AI and machine learning is an easy-to-digest but still data-rich rendition of the action for fans. The result is like having an electronic version of Tony Romo analyzing and predicting plays represented in this visualization of “The Machine.”

The immensity of Sportradar’s data being made available to fans in such a convenient way is not only poised to elevate the conversations that fans around the world are having, but should also prove useful when the United States catches up to the rest of the world on sports betting, as current litigation and pending legislation have the potential to facilitate. As the world leader in providing data integrity services to organizations like FIFA and law enforcement regarding sports betting, Sportradar is poised to assist in the development of that industry in the United States.

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There’s little debate that Sportradar is the most popular sports data service in the world. By adding MOCAP’s AI to their fan-centric products, the company is in position to not only retain that title but become a regular part of the lives of average sports fans around the globe.