Do You Want to Build Trust and Collaborate With Players, or Not?
The global sports industry has moved beyond the theoretical beta stages when it comes to athlete data. At BreakAway, we have a solution—available now—that gives athletes access to their data in the BreakAway app on their mobile phones.
May 3, 2023
By Ben Smith
The prevailing theme at FIFPRO’s three-day event focusing on player data in late April drew a line as clear and unmistakable as goal-line technology: There’s a stark difference between giving up personal information related to fame (strained hamstring, can’t play) and giving up detailed biometric data that can be used against you in the course of doing your job.
The event in Tel Aviv kicked off FIFPRO’s inaugural Player IQ Tech Experience Tour, with the goal of ensuring that player associations are equipped to support their members on how to safeguard, utilise, and monetise athlete data. Representatives from FIFA, players associations, and technology companies were on hand to discuss who owns, controls and can benefit financially from athlete data.
The event was a direct offshoot of FIFPRO launching its Charter of Player Data Rights last September. The ongoing concern is that player associations need to stay ahead of how fast the field of athlete data is progressing, with new data being collected and used regularly for performance and commercial purposes.
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Take, for example, volumetric data or body pose data, which is highly personal to athletes. This data can be collected by wearable and optical tracking devices without athletes even knowing it’s being measured (which is often the reality). This data can then be used to forecast an athlete's performance limitations, injuries, and other factors that could impact career or earning opportunities.
There were many forward-thinking people were at the FIFPRO event talking about what’s conceptually possible, but the global sports industry has moved beyond the theoretical beta stages when it comes to athlete data. At BreakAway, we have a solution—available now—that gives athletes access to their data in the BreakAway app on their mobile phones. Our solution means putting athlete data in the hands of players in near real-time and in lockstep with team updates to databases.
The industry will likely look back on FIFPRO’s event as a turning point when it comes to the acceptance of sharing data with athletes in professional sports. People on all sides of global football are preparing for this change. Player associations are starting to understand the urgency of supporting their members to avoid missing out on relevant opportunities, and teams are realising what it means to effectively empower players with data.
First and foremost, players need to understand and consent to having their data collected.
Technology is rapidly changing and impacting everyone, which is why GDPR was introduced to give every European citizen a legal right to determine their comfort with data usage. Athletes are no different. Players can now enforce their legal rights in a sporting environment.
The way forward is full of nuances and complexities as business systems and team support structures adapt to change. To be sure, this is a fork-in-the road moment for clubs that will impact their team culture for years to come.
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The best cultures will create an environment of transparency, encouraging players to be aware of and consent to data collection—precisely because data is being put in their hands in meaningful ways.
Data provides valuable insights that help players learn about their individual responses to various environments, such as sleep, training, and recovery. Each athlete has unique habits, and data can accelerate the learning process to optimise performance both within and outside of clubs. When clubs embrace this belief, they’ll be better positioned to help their athletes on a 24/7/365 basis.
Currently, when a player is with a club, the club typically has great oversight. But when the athlete leaves that environment to join a national team or loan club, the parent club has a blindspot on what the athlete is doing and how that work is affecting them. By sharing data and establishing a culture of trust and transparency, clubs can have data from those other performance environments sent to them by their athlete.
I previously worked at Chelsea FC before joining BreakAway, and I’ve been around football long enough to know that administrative tasks and legal concerns are significant barriers when it comes to different organisations swapping information about a shared athlete. Putting information in the hands of players resolves those concerns.
Some organisations are already creating a transparent data sharing culture with their athletes (think old-school printed sheets or ephemeral messages scribbled on white boards), but BreakAway helps organisations formalise these often informal processes. Our backend coaching portal, STACKS, allows team personnel to upload all kinds of information directly into players’ BreakAway apps, which a player can choose to share with their club, national team, etc. With this level of real-time data sharing, organisations can make on-the-spot decisions about the state of a player and adjust training accordingly. This ensures that the information is actionable and valuable, leading to more effective management of athletes.
Once the information-sharing process becomes standardised, it creates a culture of informed performance. This eliminates the suspicion or distrust caused by clubs withholding data from players. Athletes will automatically receive their information, and they can use the resources to become better players.
There are two approaches clubs can take.
You can either ignore the impending changes around athlete data or you can acknowledge that they are inevitable and take steps to manage them proactively for the benefit of both players and teams. You can either stay ahead of the changes or become a victim of them.
If you choose to ignore the inevitable changes, well, you can’t.
Legally, a club must provide personally identifiable athlete data to players who request it. Practitioners can't fight this requirement, but they can choose how they give data and whether that actively empowers players with timely performance-boosting information.
Put another way: Do you want to build trust and collaborate with players, or not?
The issue of athlete data isn’t for clubs or player associations to solve alone. There’s significant overlap that requires cooperation and understanding how players benefit from having their data—and what legal requirements dictate.
Athletes have the right to safeguard their personal information, and athletes should be able to maintain a level of privacy when it comes to highly personal information.
The ideal solution, from the perspective of both FIFA and the player associations, involves protecting player rights and ensuring that data cannot be used against them in any harmful manner. When players are protected in this manner, they can participate in the upside of commercial opportunities and receive a share of the profits that are fairly and equitably distributed.
The primary concern for player associations is protecting athletes from the use of data without their consent, which can have significant negative impacts.
Whether that consent is given or denied—a simple yes or no with profound ripple effects—will be a direct reflection of how well clubs create a culture of trust and transparency.
In the end, athlete data isn’t just a reflection of what players are doing in training or games. It’s also a reflection of how well you’re treating and taking care of athletes.
Question? Comment? Want to chat? Email Ben Smith, BreakAway’s head of international business, at ben@breakawaydata.com or hit up the rest of the team here.