Last week, we announced that we will be continuing our support of women’s football in 2023/24 by offering free access to our StatsBomb IQ analytics platform.
But we also want to highlight our wider work towards supporting women in football, both internally, and in the broader analytics community.
StatsBomb Conference Diversity Tickets
Our annual football analytics conference is taking place at Wembley Stadium, London, on Tuesday 10th October.
We understand that the world of sports analytics can sometimes feel closed off to certain groups – you only have to look around at some major events in the analytics space to know that it isn’t the most diverse environment.
So, this year we repeated our offer of 25 free conference tickets to members of underrepresented groups. We received great feedback from attendees on the initiative last year, and we're looking forward to welcoming this year's invitees on October 10th.
Our Pledge to #GetOnside
#GetOnside is an initiative run by the Women in Football network, to encourage organisations and individuals across football to take action and improve the landscape for women and girls in the game.
As part of this initiative for gender equality, we have pledged 10 complimentary places to Women in Football members at the 2023 StatsBomb Conference. Our pledge joins the ranks of those made by Premier League clubs, governing bodies, and media companies alike.
Hays x Manchester City Women’s Hackathon
Recently, we collaborated with the Hays x Manchester City Women’s Hackathon Event, where participants were tasked with building an app or tool to deliver actionable match insights to the club's coaching staff at half-time and full-time. The competing teams used the club's game packs to build their apps, which include our event data and Second Spectrum's tracking data.
The winning Hays x Manchester City Hackathon team members will present their app at the StatsBomb Conference next month.
Case Studies
Earlier this year, we published a case study on Advanced Data Use in Women’s Football. We carried out bespoke research, speaking to professional analysts at our partnered clubs about how they use our data and IQ platform on a daily basis. Laura Brambilla, Match Analyst at AC Milan, uses IQ to help her produce video reports on individual player performances. She discussed her favourite features in the platform:
“I love using IQ Tactics and taking advantage of all its functions. It's really useful because the interface is intuitive and it is easy to visualise goal sequences and key passing data. It is also helpful to be able to easily analyse key metrics such as On-Ball Value (OBV) and xG in StatsBomb IQ, as both are fundamental to our team and the wider game right now."
World Cup Data Release
We recently released our Free 2023 Women's World Cup Data. Since StatsBomb formed as a company, we've been committed to educating and training the football analysts of the future, and we've thrown our weight behind the women's game to champion its development.
This dataset contains the same industry-leading event data that is used by our customers, and as such there's plenty of opportunities for analysis.
We are delighted to see aspiring female analysts, like Ana Beatriz Oliveira de Macedo, Data Science Intern at Orlando City SC, using our free data. Ana has created an app to make StatsBomb data easier to analyse for those with limited coding skills. In the app, you can view multiple maps and charts for different matches, with more features to be added soon.
Updating Our Analytics and Modelling
In the last year, the StatsBomb Data Science team has been researching different ways of incorporating our women’s data, which now covers several seasons across multiple leagues around the world, into our models. This work has mainly been conducted in our xG models and upcoming xPass model.
Historically, the availability of women’s data has been scarce, so most xG models were trained on men’s data. There are several subtle differences between the men’s and women’s games, so ensuring that the models we train perform well for both is important in order to maximise the value of the analytical tools. You can read about this research in our article Analytics & Modelling in the Women’s Game.
We have also been updating the 3D models of women's players within our IQ Live Freeze Frames. This has included scaling the models to the correct average size, and animating 60+ new shooting poses.
Championing Change: Data in Women's Football Webinar
On Wednesday 6th September, 15:00-16:00 (BST), we'll be hosting a webinar geared towards data analysts and women's football teams. This webinar will highlight the untapped potential of data in women's football.
Be inspired by success stories from special guest Juan Coste Delvecchio, Performance Analyst from Gotham FC, who will share real-world experiences, showcasing the impact of data in enhancing performance and decision-making. We'll also be demonstrating how StatsBomb's data and tools translate complex data into actionable insights, perfect for those with limited coding resources.
We're excited to provide this opportunity for people to connect with a community dedicated to pushing the boundaries of women's sports analytics. Register your interest today.
And Further News...
At the upcoming StatsBomb Conference, Charlotte Randall, COO and Co-founder of StatsBomb, will be hosting a panel on women's football, with the full panel speaker list to be revealed soon.
In this candid interview, Charlotte reveals the lessons she has learnt, both personal and professional, over the last ten years at StatsBomb.
