When we speak about high performance in a professional sports organization, there are certain expectations that the project owner holds for the success of their athletes and team. As part of the digitization of performance, innovation and investment are key to remaining competitive – yet, however high you set your goals, it isn’t easy to know when and where digitization will have the biggest impact.
Understanding how to implement performance analytics tools into your wider ecosystem – and which technologies you need to invest in – are the first steps to achieving your team’s ambitions and supporting the organization’s corporate objectives. One of the best ways to invest is in people and finding the right combination of expertise to break down and leverage data that steers the team’s on-field success.
Another is to consult the wider business and to better understand how the tools and technologies you’re adopting on the training ground will support the growth of the entire business – both in terms of the team’s success in the short-term, and the long-term commercial opportunities through the property’s off-field activities, including the generation of athlete-led, performance-driven strategies.
Although performance analytics is naturally related to the development of the athlete and how to maximize their potential, from my side, as the industry seeks to digitize its operations, how we connect athlete data to other departments is just as important. The evolution of the whole entity will give you more scope to generate training schedules tailored to the individual athlete and a deeper knowledge of how to monetize performance by generating unique connections between the athletes, the organization, and their fans.
DIGITIZING PERFORMANCE BENEFITS BUSINESS OPERATIONS
In my four-plus years as Director of High Performance at N3XT Sports, the company has moved from being a performance-focused consultancy firm to an integrated digital transformation specialist. As part of our evolution, we’ve supported the modernization of clubs, leagues, and federations as part of their business development. For example, our work with the Guatemala Olympic Committee (GOC) included the development and implementation of a digital transformation strategy that encourages data-driven decision-making throughout the organization’s high-performance and administrative efforts.
While digitization is often associated with fan engagement and internal communications, inside the organizations setting the benchmark for performance analytics, their athletes are no longer considered to be separate from their corporate objectives. This means that the processes and technologies used to develop performance interconnect with other areas of the business and contribute to their success, too.
No matter the size or scope of the sports organization, the benefits of digitalization are much the same for all properties that invest in high-performance analytics and digital solutions. However, the challenges for digital integration and maximizing athlete data vary, and ultimately depend on the goals the organization wants to achieve and the digital maturity of the property.
Here are five tips for preparing your business for developing its high-performance capability:
1. Culture drives adoption: It’s easy to talk about performance analytics in terms of digitalization, but it isn’t super easy to build an ecosystem that meets your high-performance goals and nurtures growth in the wider business. A lot of the processes start with people, so we must focus on the culture of the organization. Aligning the organization’s expectations for athlete high performance and the reality of their digital infrastructure is a recurrent challenge. Therefore, it’s vital to nurture a culture that understands, not only the importance of digitalization, but the challenges of implementing high-performance solutions into the organization’s existing digital infrastructure.
2. Fan engagement increases advocacy: Fan engagement is, in my opinion, something that boosts the digitalization of performance. A lot of technologies that monitor performance are supported by fan engagement, while the integration of athlete metrics and data into broadcast production and digital content creates advocacy for performance analytics tools, and therefore investment from the rights holder. By improving the experience of the fan, you also improve the athlete, and vice versa. This helps develop a connected culture within the business and brings down the price of innovation. It also increases return on investment (ROI) in performance analytics technologies through fan engagement and its ability to build customer relationships.
3. Knowledge creates opportunity: By generating more data, you generate more knowledge, and are therefore able to explore new ways to communicate with athletes. The more you understand the athlete, you can better integrate them into the organization and align your operations with the culture of the athlete. When you have more knowledge, it’s better for everyone. Therefore, better understanding what creates high performance also generates ideas for monetizing performance and new athlete-fan connections. It is therefore important to align the management’s expectations with the organization’s existing digital capability and to select the right technologies that optimize work streams throughout the whole operation.
4. Innovation isn’t always expensive: Our goal is to lead the organization to invest in the right way. We help plan how they invest and innovate, so as to continue to be competitive while other teams are also digitizing their performance and administrative operations. It’s all well and good being able to monitor the speed and skills of an athlete, but the choice of technology for the project you are undergoing is key. For example, when an organization asks for investment in the performance department, the choice of their technology must improve the performance of the team, for sure, but also relate to the organization’s broader operations and the project’s scalability.
5. Data bridges owner-athlete relations: The biggest change within organizations that adopt performance analytics into their digital ecosystem is the connection it develops between the property’s ownership and its athletes. The balance between these two entities is shifting, and how a club or team approaches the analysis of its on-field talent is bridging the corporate and performance departments within the organization in very interesting ways. For example, if we consider Kevin De Bruyne’s four-year contract renewal with Manchester City FC last year and his use of data analytics to prove his worth to the club, it identifies how an organization’s high-performance capability can support the development of both the athlete’s playing ability and commercial value.
WHAT'S N3XT?
The growth of the sports analytics sector will depend on the rights cycles for the organizations in question. Whereas some professional sports leagues have adopted competition-wide performance-technology partnerships, other properties such as Olympic committees, which run on four-yearly cycles, may take a more long-term approach to their analytics strategy. Once again, investment and innovation are key to the growth of every sports organization – but how it fits into its wider ecosystem will vary greatly.
In order to decipher how and when to integrate performance analytics into your digital transformation, our team at N3XT Sports supports the organization’s digitalization at every stage of its development. By tailoring a clear and easy-to-understand roadmap to the property’s current digital makeup and growth targets, consultation around the implementation of high-performance expertise and innovation inside the organization goes beyond helping a team improve its success on the field, and also expands its commercial initiatives through the power of athlete data.
To find out more about what N3XT Sports can offer your organization’s digital transformation, please fill out the form below and we’ll be in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.