In the rapidly evolving landscape of professional sports, data and AI have emerged as pivotal forces, reshaping how decisions are made, strategies are developed, and performances are evaluated. The impact is especially evident in football, where the intersection of data and AI is reshaping the way teams operate, from the front office to the pitch.
While the role of player will likely always remain with the embodied, AI’s role within sporting institutions is to serve as a cognitive assistant – enhancing decision-making processes, optimizing individual performances, and sifting through the masses of data generated at international, national, regional, club and individual-player level to help discover valuable insights.
In professional football, thousands of data points are generated every week across a wide variety of categories such as fitness, training and in-game performance, creating endless opportunities for analysis, while also risking statistical overload.
Because data analysis plays a major factor in giving teams a competitive edge, it has become imperative for elite football clubs to track, process, interpret and draw insights from colossal repertoires of data. As the art of football continues to evolve, the need to rely on advanced analytics and data management systems will only increase. Thankfully, the increased dependency on data has coincided with the rise of powerful, easy-to-use AI models that can aid humans in quickly processing and drawing insights from huge datasets.
Unsurprisingly, talent scouting is no longer just about attending games, following leads, and signing players. Scouts can be far more successful in finding valuable players and signing them for the right club at the right time if they are armed with the data behind the gameplay. However, the sheer volume and complexity of the relevant datasets make it near impossible for an individual to trawl through. Generative AI has emerged as a powerful tool to help professionals in various industries focus their cognitive efforts on high-level decision-making rather than data processing.
To help save scouts valuable time and money by efficiently identifying and valuing players based on data analysis, Blend has developed ScoutBot, a personal scouting assistant powered by Databricks’ newly announced AI/BI Genie, made to assist football scouts and analysts in identifying and evaluating potential transfer targets.
ScoutBot is designed to provide near real time responses - via natural language querying and data-visualisations - to complex prompts such as: Identify a goalscoring winger that is in the top 25% of their competitive league in terms of progressive carries per 90 mins and is currently valued below €5m.
In doing so, ScoutBot functions as an AI PA to scouts hunting for their ‘unicorn’; helping over-worked, in-demand individuals quickly identify and value players whilst making better decisions using real world data. ScoutBot currently leverages a variety of football-related datasets to analyse and rank players based on specific performance metrics. The tool can leverage both performance metrics and market value data to offer a more complete evaluation, helping clubs make informed decisions on potential signings.
We are so excited by ScoutBot because it delivers value on multiple fronts:
ScoutBot is powered by Databricks’ Genie, a no-code interface that allows users to perform data analytics through natural language queries, making the tool easy to use for anyone, regardless of their technical literacy.
Genie is supported by Unity Catalog, Databricks’ unified data governance solution, ensuring that all data is secure, well-organized, and easily accessible, enabling data democratisation across the organisation, while ensuring you have the governance structure to build on for tomorrow’s projects.
This combination of tools - Genie and Unity Catalog - forms the backbone of ScoutBot, making it a valuable asset for any professional sporting organization.
By reducing the need for technical intermediaries and enabling scouts to interact directly with data, ScoutBot democratizes data analytics and empowers scouts to focus on what they do best: identifying and nurturing talent. ScoutBot illustrates how AI can make a real difference in sports, giving teams a competitive advantage both on the field and behind the scenes.
ScoutBot was first introduced to the world at the Otten Innovation Cup, hosted by PSV Eindhoven with some of the world’s biggest football teams, like Manchester United, PSG and Atlético de Madrid. You can learn more here: https://www.otteninnovationcup.nl/2024/en/news/8/partner-blend-develops-ai-scouting-tool .
In the rapidly evolving landscape of professional sports, data and AI have emerged as pivotal forces, reshaping how decisions are made, strategies are developed, and performances are evaluated. The impact is especially evident in football, where the intersection of data and AI is reshaping the way teams operate, from the front office to the pitch.
While the role of player will likely always remain with the embodied, AI’s role within sporting institutions is to serve as a cognitive assistant – enhancing decision-making processes, optimizing individual performances, and sifting through the masses of data generated at international, national, regional, club and individual-player level to help discover valuable insights.
In professional football, thousands of data points are generated every week across a wide variety of categories such as fitness, training and in-game performance, creating endless opportunities for analysis, while also risking statistical overload.
Because data analysis plays a major factor in giving teams a competitive edge, it has become imperative for elite football clubs to track, process, interpret and draw insights from colossal repertoires of data. As the art of football continues to evolve, the need to rely on advanced analytics and data management systems will only increase. Thankfully, the increased dependency on data has coincided with the rise of powerful, easy-to-use AI models that can aid humans in quickly processing and drawing insights from huge datasets.
Unsurprisingly, talent scouting is no longer just about attending games, following leads, and signing players. Scouts can be far more successful in finding valuable players and signing them for the right club at the right time if they are armed with the data behind the gameplay. However, the sheer volume and complexity of the relevant datasets make it near impossible for an individual to trawl through. Generative AI has emerged as a powerful tool to help professionals in various industries focus their cognitive efforts on high-level decision-making rather than data processing.
To help save scouts valuable time and money by efficiently identifying and valuing players based on data analysis, Blend has developed ScoutBot, a personal scouting assistant powered by Databricks’ newly announced AI/BI Genie, made to assist football scouts and analysts in identifying and evaluating potential transfer targets.
ScoutBot is designed to provide near real time responses - via natural language querying and data-visualisations - to complex prompts such as: Identify a goalscoring winger that is in the top 25% of their competitive league in terms of progressive carries per 90 mins and is currently valued below €5m.
In doing so, ScoutBot functions as an AI PA to scouts hunting for their ‘unicorn’; helping over-worked, in-demand individuals quickly identify and value players whilst making better decisions using real world data. ScoutBot currently leverages a variety of football-related datasets to analyse and rank players based on specific performance metrics. The tool can leverage both performance metrics and market value data to offer a more complete evaluation, helping clubs make informed decisions on potential signings.
We are so excited by ScoutBot because it delivers value on multiple fronts:
ScoutBot is powered by Databricks’ Genie, a no-code interface that allows users to perform data analytics through natural language queries, making the tool easy to use for anyone, regardless of their technical literacy.
Genie is supported by Unity Catalog, Databricks’ unified data governance solution, ensuring that all data is secure, well-organized, and easily accessible, enabling data democratisation across the organisation, while ensuring you have the governance structure to build on for tomorrow’s projects.
This combination of tools - Genie and Unity Catalog - forms the backbone of ScoutBot, making it a valuable asset for any professional sporting organization.
By reducing the need for technical intermediaries and enabling scouts to interact directly with data, ScoutBot democratizes data analytics and empowers scouts to focus on what they do best: identifying and nurturing talent. ScoutBot illustrates how AI can make a real difference in sports, giving teams a competitive advantage both on the field and behind the scenes.
ScoutBot was first introduced to the world at the Otten Innovation Cup, hosted by PSV Eindhoven with some of the world’s biggest football teams, like Manchester United, PSG and Atlético de Madrid. You can learn more here: https://www.otteninnovationcup.nl/2024/en/news/8/partner-blend-develops-ai-scouting-tool .
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