The general manager of your favourite NHL team has likely used data gathered by Montréal-based Sportlogiq to inform their blockbuster trades and minor free agent signings. Last week, the AI-powered analytics platform made its own trade headlines after being acquired by sports operations platform Teamworks.
Sportlogiq has already been providing its player tracking and event data for Teamworks’ Intelligence models.
The Durham, NC, company said acquiring Sportlogiq will improve its own hockey offering by combining Sportlogiq’s video and data infrastructure with its own predictive intelligence models. Teamworks founder and CEO Zach Maurides said the combination will “deliver a complete data and analytics platform for talent evaluation, game preparation, and player development.” The purchase price was undisclosed.
“Sportlogiq was built by athletes and data scientists who understand how elite teams operate,” said Sportlogiq CEO Mitchell Wasserman in a release.
Founded by former Canadian Olympic figure skater Craig Buntin and CTO Mehrsan Javan in 2015, Sportlogiq has become ubiquitous in the hockey world, both in team offices and broadcast booths, for its gameplay tracking and analysis powered by computer vision and machine learning.
“The last few years were a true rollercoaster. I remember when COVID shut down live sports…no games meant no data, and no data meant no clients. Yet the team pushed through,” Émilie Boutros, managing partner at TandemLaunch, one of Sportlogiq’s early investors, said in a LinkedIn post.
Sportlogiq says its platform is now used by 97 percent of NHL teams (which implies only one team forgoes its service), and serves more than 220 clients worldwide, including North American and European professional hockey leagues, National Collegiate Athletic Association hockey programs, International Ice Hockey Federation federations, as well as some soccer clubs.
Wasserman said joining Teamworks will enable the company to expand its capabilities. Sportlogiq’s team of 80 employees, including 10 AI researchers with over 180 published research papers and patents to their name, are joining Teamworks as part of the acquisition. Teamworks said the additions significantly expand its AI, computer vision, and data science expertise.
Last year, Teamworks, the self-proclaimed “operating system for sports,” secured a valuation exceeding $1 billion USD ($1.4 billion CAD) through a $235 million USD Series F round, which contained a mix of primary and secondary capital. Its platform provides more than 6,500 sports teams a place to manage their operations, scheduling, communications, and roster insights. In fact, Sportlogiq has already been providing its player tracking and event data for Teamworks’ Intelligence models. With Sportlogiq as part of Teamworks, the company said teams will be able to move from video to advanced insights with just a click.
Feature image courtesy LOGAN WEAVER | @LGNWVR via Unsplash.