The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has inked a transformative ten year partnership with Genius Sports, designed to modernise its digital collection and distribution of intercollegiate sports data.
Coming in the aftermath of the landmark SCOTUS ruling that saw PASPA be overturned, this deal is to be of the benefit of over 1,100 of its member institutions across three divisions.
It is in stark contrast to what has occurred previously, which saw college sports stats and records exist in hundreds of different places, with individual schools and conferences managing their own collection, aggregation and distribution.
Oliver Luck, executive vice president of regulatory affairs and strategic partnerships for the NCAA, commented: “This digital transition comes at a time when data for all intercollegiate sports are increasingly important to our fans, our institutions and our partners.
“This initiative will transform the way we collect, use, and distribute the vast amount of sports data being consumed across all sports at every level. It will allow our schools to upgrade to state-of-the-art technology.”
Beginning in 2019 with its men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, the real-time data and statistics capturing technology will be subsequently rolled out to schools for a number of NCAA sports, including volleyball, football, soccer, baseball and softball.
Furthermore Genius Sports is to also serve as the NCCA exclusive agent in licensing real-time data from championship events, including March Madness, to media platforms and other companies.
Mark Locke, CEO of Genius Sports, stated: “This technology will deliver a world-class experience for NCAA fans, coaches, players, athletic directors and administrators alike.
“We’re delighted to be playing a pivotal role in the NCAA’s digital transformation, implementing one of the most advanced technology systems in sports.”
In its statement, it was detailed that schools and conferences that adapt the platform, are to benefit from NCAA member schools and conferences adopting the software platform will benefit from “improved efficiencies that include enhanced data capture and distribution services, richer coaching insights, and the ability to captivate fan and media experience by delivering engaging statistics to multiple platforms in real-time.”
