Quality Opta Data Extends Sport’s Thrills and Makes Them More Accessible
Imagine if TV broadcasts didn’t show the score or clock throughout televised live sports games.
That was the world until 1992, when UK’s Sky Sports controversially introduced the ‘live score box’ during their brand-new coverage of the Premier League. It took until 1994 for the live score box to hit NFL broadcasts. When it happened, fans were so upset, the production team responsible received death threats for ‘fooling with’ the coverage.
A Fan Is Not Just a Fan For 60 Minutes
Fast forward to 2022. There would be outrage if live scores and stats like Opta’s weren’t available, given how essential they are to sports fans today.
They don’t only shape how fans follow games on TV or on stadium big screens, but across traditional and digital media, including voice assistants and search queries. They’re also a critical part of match reports and pre- and post-game analysis. Without them, popular fantasy games and betting experiences wouldn’t exist.
Stats provide the context to make more sporting moments matter more to fans, making following their favorite team—or a new team, or a new sport—more thrilling. They unlock unlimited new stories in every game and extend fan attention from 48, 60, 80 or 90 minutes to the entire week — or year.
But every experience powered by sports data is only as good as the underlying quality of that data, and the availability of that data to power the right experience at the right moment for different fans. This is where Stats Perform’s Opta data and PressBox products excel.
Grow Fans, Grow Viewers, Grow Sponsors
Opta’s high quality sports data is relied upon by broadcasters, journalists, bloggers, podcasters, YouTubers, digital platforms and games across multiple sports around the world to get more attention from more fans, bringing them closer to the magic of sport.
Doing this at scale needs not only the power of a vast, accurate sports database, but also an easy way to extract timely, quality insights from it. Enter our range of PressBox products, including PressBox Live and PressBox Graphics.
Opta and PressBox help you quickly amplify on-field events and turn them into captivating stories, insights, videos or graphics to grow attention from viewers and fans, creating more opportunities for authentic sponsorships.
The Stats Perform team of highly experienced researchers and AI provide contextual insights before, during and after games to broadcasters, commentators and journalists via our powerful PressBox Live website.
PressBox Live covers thousands of soccer, NFL and college football games and has been described as ‘a producer’s secret weapon’ because it plays such a key role in removing the barriers between raw data and good stories, in real-time.
It has been an outstanding success, especially during the 2021 Euros, 2022 NFL season and 2022 FIFA World Cup. More sports are coming to PressBox Live in 2023.
PressBox Graphics enables leagues, teams, media and sponsors to keep fans informed wherever they are, through visually-rich, automated live updates, insights and visualized statistics, all within an outlet’s brand style. These visuals can be created in seconds — no design skills required.
These graphics and videos can be triggered by real-time events across multiple sports covered by Opta. They provide both authentic context to engage hardcore fans or to grab the attention of casual fans. They’re a perfect mix of high production values and useful information to enhance the on-field entertainment, before, during and after games, making them highly sponsorable.
More Personalized, More Accessible
From key injuries, squad announcements, new player transfers, scoreless first quarters and changes in team formation to backhand winners, shots on target and 30-foot buzzer beaters—and everything in between—Opta data adds context to turn major and micro moments into compelling stories that prolong and deepen the on-field action.
These stories help enhance men’s and women’s soccer, tennis, cricket, basketball, American football, baseball, ice hockey and more, including Stats Perform’s latest addition, wheelchair rugby. And this data powers an increasing range of personalized and accessible fan experiences.
For example, Opta Voice combines Opta data with a personalized, lifelike AI voice to help on-the-move or visually impaired fans follow the action in their local language, while automatically creating thousands of pieces of audio-enabled content.
Meanwhile, our automated sports videos provide informative coverage of regional teams to passengers as they wait for flights at nearby airports. Maybe flight delays won’t be quite so painful…
Looking Ahead
The best sports data is like a good referee. It blends into the background and allows the main action to shine even more brightly. Fans may not always realize that high quality Opta data helps them love their favorite leagues, teams and players more, but it’s something we work incredibly hard at, because we believe it’s vital to the ongoing popularity of sport.
At Stats Perform, we’re grateful that the sports broadcast pioneers of the early 90s stuck to their convictions about the live score box. We’re proud to now be at the heart of powering modern fan experiences with high quality sports data at scale. Let’s amplify some more spectacular moments together in 2023.
