Christian Pulisic runs with the ball during the FIFA World Cup Qualifier match against Trinidad and Tobago. The billion-dollar deal between wearables company STATSports and the U.S. Soccer Federation will not collect player-specific data from academy members. (Photo by Ashley Allen/Getty Images)
The billion-dollar partnership between STATSports Group and the U.S. Soccer Federation, which the parties announced earlier this year, will encourage all members — whether part of the national teams or youth academies — to wear tracking devices but will not collect player-specific data from academy players.
U.S. Soccer is collecting player-specific data only from its national teams, according to director of communications, Neil Buethe. And while the partnership does not require all U.S. Soccer members, whether elite or otherwise, to wear STATSports devices, the goal is “to give every member the opportunity to have their data compared and assessed against the top academies who are using our APEX Team Series,” said STATSports CIO Paul McKernan.
In January of this year, STATSports delivered 500 units to U.S. Soccer’s elite teams. The company expects to work together with the federation to deliver devices to the remaining academies throughout 2018.
The value of the deal, touted by the parties as $1.5 billion, is based on the assumption that all 4.2 million soccer players registered with the federation will buy the STATSports Apex devices. U.S. Soccer is paying for the devices for the elite teams, according to McKernan, and he expects the amateur players to follow their lead over the duration of the deal, which “is long term, covering at least five years.”
SportTechie Takeaway
When we first reported this deal last month, some of our readers jumped immediately to concerns about data collection and privacy. The subject is ripe, with Mark Zuckerberg defending Facebook’s policies before Congress, and Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) going into effect on May 25th of this year.
“We are collecting data for Nationals Teams that is player-specific to help us set their physical program,” explained Buethe in an email to SportTechie. He added that academy players, who will not be player identified, make up the majority of U.S. Soccer membership.
McKernan stressed the importance of his Ireland-based company’s adherence to the GDPR, noting that each member of U.S. Soccer will have the right to opt out “and will have the right to have their data forgotten in line with our privacy policy.”
