Kitman Labs acquires The Sports Office

Companies combine to define the age of Performance Intelligence

Kitman Labs, Ltd, the leader in sports performance analytics, today announced it has acquired The Sports Office, the pioneer in athlete data management. The combined company creates the strongest data science and development capacity in the industry and forms the largest dataset from an advanced network of elite sports leagues, governing bodies, and professional and development clubs across the globe. The joint development power will be used to deliver innovations more rapidly to address the new, fast-changing needs caused by the skyrocketing growth of performance and medical data.

The Sports Office pioneered the creation of the digital infrastructure in sport for collecting and aggregating athlete medical and performance data when the use of sports data first exploded. With the vision of improving the standards of performance and health in global sport, The Sports Office was the first provider to capture every aspect of an athlete’s progress from the day they enter the development system through their advancement at the elite level.

“The sports data digitization wave led by The Sports Office established data management as a foundational layer of sports operations,” said Stephen Smith, founder and CEO of Kitman Labs.

“Without their vision and their transformational approach to putting the pieces of the performance and medical data puzzle together, the analytics innovations we deliver to quantify the drivers of performance and health would not be possible. Together, we have the combined power to maximize the digital landscape of sports data and create the operating system for high performance.”

Demand for performance intelligence solutions is on the rise, driven by the rising cost of talent. Total transfer fees in the Premier League alone have risen from £480M in 2010 to £1.9B in 2018, creating a new urgency to optimize the performance of top-tier talent at a club and enhance the in-house talent development pipeline. But the success rate of players from organized youth football who make it to the Premier League is only 0.012%, creating a pressing need to enhance talent development methods and increase success rates.

Andy Clarke, founder and CEO of The Sports Office said, “We’ve been working for years to digitize the entire athlete lifecycle, and Kitman Labs has developed the first analytics solutions that finally harness all data to improve performance and health, and radically improve long term athletic development.”

Smith continued, “Together, we can revolutionize youth development by providing a set of capabilities that uses the learnings from the largest dataset about the greatest athletes around the world today to produce the greatest talent of the future. The benefit of a large, consolidated performance and medical dataset combined with analytics also applies to leagues and national governing bodies who want to advance the competitiveness and safety of their game.”

The combined company represents the largest, most capitalized company in sports performance technology.

“We’ve watched many trends in the performance market over the years, and never have we seen a time when the needs of the industry have been so varied, complex, and so quickly outpacing traditional technology,” continued Clarke.

“There is a clear need for more investment, better products, better support, more flexibility, and more knowledge vs. just information. Now we have the resources to leverage what we have each built to date, accelerate product innovation, and redefine the customer experience.”

About Kitman Labs

Kitman Labs is the leader in performance intelligence solutions for elite sports teams. Founded in 2012 with the vision to fundamentally change how the sports industry uses data to increase athlete availability and on-field success, Kitman Labs has consistently set the standard for performance and injury analytics. With over 200 years of performance, medical sports science, and data science expertise, Kitman Labs delivers immediate and ongoing performance and business results. Kitman Labs powers over 150 elite teams across the NFL, NHL, MLB, UFC, NCAA, English Premier League, Bundesliga, Pro14, Premiership Rugby, NRL, Chinese Super League and more. The company has offices in Silicon Valley, Dublin, and Sydney. More information here: Home | Kitman Labs

About The Sports Office

The Sports Office supplies powerful and effective athlete and performance management systems to a range of organizations, competing at the highest level of elite sport. The Sports Office systems support those charged with consistently delivering world-class performance, in a highly competitive environment. Inspired by our own insights into elite sport, our mission is to help coaches, managers, sports medicine practitioners and athletes to optimize all aspects of preparation and performance. The Sports Office solutions are developed with the principle that individuals should be empowered by technology, not overwhelmed by it.The Sports Office supplies a range of high-profile organizations across the globe. These include clubs in the English Premier League and Italy’s Serie A. We also support teams in the NHL, NBA, and MLB; as well as elite organizations and federations in professional rugby, cycling, tennis and equestrian sports.

Thursday, January 30th, 2020 By Rebecca Kilburn

Monitor player workload with new self-reporting feature

The Sports Office new self-reporting feature enables elite sports organisations to track and monitor player workload, in training activities and matches that take place away from the club environment.

This is especially useful for sports academies, development squads and semi-professional clubs. Their players and athletes often engage in training and competition, without direct supervision of a coach. Also, the function enables professional clubs to continue detailed monitoring of players on loan.

Watch this short video to see self-reporting of a training session

Self-reporting also supports military users

Self-reporting is a powerful new feature for military users. For example, training staff have the option to monitor preparatory work done by applicants for specialist courses. They could also track potential recruits with specific training demands.

Sports Office Client Manager Dan Jackson commented: “The new Sports Office self-reporting feature offers users the opportunity to monitor and manage training and competition away from their own environments and facilities.

“Significantly, we believe this will give them even greater scope and capability to improve performance and enhance their player and athlete development processes.”

Players and athletes can quickly input and log matches and competitions that have taken place without the presence of a coach. This includes: details of minutes played, RPE, opposition, surface type, fixture format and positions played. Metrics that can be logged for remote training sessions include: duration, RPE, surface and specific details of activities.

The new self-reporting feature is available to current Sports Office users who have upgraded to access The Player’s App.

e Sports Office new self-reporting feature enables elite sports organisations to track and monitor player workload, in training activities and matches that take place away from the club environment. — Monitor player workload away from the club environment with the new Sports Office self-reporting feature.

The Sports Office

The Sports Office provides online performance management systems and mobile apps for elite sport, which offer a range of powerful functions. The systems support key performance processes including: athlete monitoring, training load management, injury prevention, sports science, sports medicine, medical reporting, administration, coaching and sports analytics.

Premier League and Italian Serie A teams are among the company’s client base in the world of elite soccer. Also, clients include national governing bodies, sports academies plus elite teams in professional rugby, cricket and many other global sports.

For more information, contact our Client Management team.

Watch our interview with Inter Milan’s Roberto Niccolai, click here.

Follow The Sports Office on Twitter.

Friday, December 13th, 2019 By Rebecca Kilburn

The Sports Office supports Tier 1 teams in Rugby World Cup

The Sports Office clients England, Ireland and Argentina are finalising their preparations for the 2019 Rugby World Cup in Japan.

Our performance management system for elite rugby is used by both Argentina and Ireland. Medical and injury data generated by England’s players during the tournament will be also captured by The Sports Office system used in the Professional Rugby Injury Surveillance Project (PRISP).

The performance management system will provide Ireland and Argentina with a range of powerful functions. Management information and data generated by each squad will be available, and readily accessible in real-time, to the respective coaching and fitness staff, via The Sports Office App and our Monitoring App. Our systems also support coaching, fitness, video, data analysis and medical management in elite rugby.

The PRISP is the most comprehensive and longest-running injury surveillance study in professional rugby. It monitors the injury risk of players at Premiership, European and England level. The project is lead by RFU Chief Medical Officer Simon Kemp.

The Sports Office Head of Client Services, Andy Gorski commented: “We are delighted that our systems will be supporting three Tier 1 nations during the 2019 Rugby World Cup. We would like to wish each of them the very best for what will be a hugely competitive tournament.”

Gorski added: “We believe our performance management systems for elite rugby offer unrivalled support to any team or governing body seeking to attain world-class levels of performance. Our elite rugby client base continues to expand across the world.”

Sports Office client managers present our performance management system for elite rugby to UAR staff. — Sports Office client managers work with U.A.R. staff to implement our performance management system for elite rugby.

Ireland recently completed their Rugby World Cup warm-up games with a 19-10 victory over Wales in Dublin. That win means they currently rank as the number one nation on the planet. Argentina completed a 74-0 victory over leading Australian club side Randwick in Sydney as part of their tournament build-up. And England have already landed in Japan and are holding a final training camp in Miyazaki.

The 2019 Rugby World Cup kicks-off on Friday 20th September when host nation Japan face Russia. Argentina play France on day two. Ireland begin their campaign 24-hours later against Scotland and England face Tonga later on the same day.

Many elite rugby organisations throughout the world are among The Sports Office’s varied client base. As well as governing bodies such as the RFU and Argentina Rugby Union, teams in the SANZAR Super Rugby competition and the Australian NRL are also users. The Rugby Squad users also include clubs in the UK’s Rugby League Super League and teams in North America’s Major League Rugby.

To learn more about our performance management systems for elite rugby, contact us today.

Read about our work to support injury prevention in elite rugby here.

Read about our work with a leading NRL club here.

Thursday, September 12th, 2019 By Rebecca Kilburn