A London-headquartered sports data and AI company, home of the Opta brand, with a long UK history in London and Leeds.
Stats Perform is a sports data and artificial intelligence company. In plain terms, it collects detailed information about what happens in matches, such as every pass, shot and tackle in a football game, and turns it into data, video, graphics and predictions for broadcasters, sports teams, leagues, media outlets and fantasy-sport and betting companies. Its best-known brand is Opta, whose football statistics appear in television graphics and newspapers. The company's own site says it holds more than 7.2 petabytes of sports data across over 3,900 competitions and more than 20 sports, covers more than 500,000 matches a year, and uses computer vision and AI, including a tool called Opta Vision that tracks all 22 players in a football match. Its editorial site, Opta Analyst, reports more than a million visitors a month.
The company has roots on both sides of the Atlantic. STATS, Inc. was founded in the United States in April 1981 by John Dewan, growing out of a volunteer baseball statistics project. Opta Index began in 1996 to analyse Premier League matches, and Opta became the league's official statistics provider from the 1998 season, according to Wikipedia. Perform Group was created in 2007 and bought Opta in 2013. In 2019 STATS and Perform's content business joined and were renamed Stats Perform under chief executive Carl Mergele, whose stated aim was to harness large amounts of sports data with AI. We did not find a formal mission statement. The company's brand line is "In sport, truth starts with Opta."
Stats Perform describes itself as headquartered in London, at The Point, 37 North Wharf Road, W2 1AF, and says it has more than 2,450 employees across 26 countries. Leeds has also been important to Opta. In April 2018 Perform Group announced a new UK headquarters at White Rose Office Park in Leeds, signing a 15-year lease. An earlier Yorkshire Evening Post report said the group would create 100 jobs at a base on Park Row in the city, backed by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership, and Ben Warn of Perform Group said the company had built strong relationships with universities across the region. Those Leeds reports pre-date the 2019 merger, so check where teams sit today.
Pages we could read say little about culture, so we have not guessed. In the Leeds report, Mr Warn said the region "appeals to our employees" as a unique place to work, which is the company's view rather than something we checked. The company's developer site claims more than 140 AI models and over 690 patent assets. The history shows a business that grew from sports-statistics enthusiasts, including a volunteer baseball network, into a global data firm.
From its products, a company like this employs match-data collectors, data scientists, software engineers, video and graphics producers, writers for Opta Analyst and account managers, plus finance, legal and people teams. Maths, statistics, computer science and sport-related subjects are natural starting points. The company's own website lists current openings.
Website: www.statsperform.com
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