Rugby Canada Partner with The Sports Office

Rugby Canada has become the latest elite sports governing body to choose The Sports Office Athlete Management System. They will use it throughout their organizational structure, to support various departments and high-performance teams.

Matt Barr, Rugby Canada’s Director of Athletic Performance, said: “The Sports Office will allow us to operate with a platform that links all our critical performance areas together, helping us to make informed decisions in maximizing our players’ potential and reducing incidents of injury.”

The Senior men’s, women’s, and academy squads will use ‘The Rugby Squad’ as they begin their return to play. They will benefit from each component of the system including coaching, medical and sports science. Rugby Canada will also use the system to support performance planning, strategy and player pathways. 

“With the use of The Sports Office, Rugby Canada will now be in a position to have an efficient, robust and reliable central database that can monitor and support both current and future international players.”  

“We are working hard to align rugby throughout Canada, and in a country as big as ours The Sports Office platform will be invaluable.”

Dustin Hopkins, Rugby Canada’s Managing Director – Rugby Operations

And Kingsley Jones, Director of Men’s Rugby, said: “The database is a critical tool for Rugby Canada’s performance rugby department. The multipurpose nature of the platform allows it to act as a critical talent ID and player database, and in addition, it enables us to assess, track and provide feedback to players identified nationally and globally. “

Under the Covid-19 safe practice guidelines, athletes will use The Sports Office App and The Monitoring App to monitor any symptoms and ensure a safe return to play for both players and staff. The app also provides a range of other benefits for athletes. It enables them to log their RPE’s when training, view assigned match footage and communicate with staff.

Many elite rugby organizations throughout the world are among The Sports Office’s varied client base. These include governing bodies such as Irish Rugby Union, Argentina Rugby Union, teams in the SANZAR Super Rugby competition and the Australian NRL.

The Rugby Squad users also include clubs in the UK’s Rugby League Super League and teams in North American Major League Rugby.

Implementation for Rugby Canada

The implementation of the system began in June. We will work with the Rugby Canada Performance team to configure their system and roll it out to departmental staff via remote training and following this a roll out to the players. 

Client Manager, Chris Tuson, who is working with Rugby Canada to implement the Athlete Management System, commented: “We are excited to be working with another leading organization in the world of elite sport to support their performance needs, especially during these uncertain times. 

“Usually, we would travel to meet the client in person, but the current restrictions have not hampered us. We have adapted our implementation process and delivered the system in a new way to meet Rugby Canada’s performance goals and strategies.”

The Sports Office V3 UX Capabilities

The most modern and streamlined Sports Office system to date will improve overall usability and workflows across all areas of the system. We are soon to release a whole new and improved design in summer 2020. While there is an improved look to the system, the enhancements will benefit the user experience, with even further streamlined processes.

The new interface design also maximises the full-screen for improved data visualisation and delivery. The latest enhanced navigation across the system is faster and more intuitive for more efficient workflows and athlete management processes.

Soon, users will be able to define their favourite pages across the system to easily access their daily pages. The user experience will also be improved with greater search and filter functionality. This will be available across the system, which will aid their processes.

Before now, workflows had the capacity for improvement due to the ever-growing fast pace of the sport and the system needing to match. Software design can soon become outdated in the fast-paced environments, V3 eradicates these inconsistencies to working to the most streamlined system to date.

We’ve strived to solve this across our system by individually reviewing over 900 pages, seeking out usability improvements. We’ve analysed these and prioritised the most frequently visited pages during the enhancement process. By maximising full page width, reducing white space and have consistent icons, panels and options we have accomplished a uniform system for elite sports. The subtle design improvements will involve less scrolling and more workspace will keep users focused and ultimately improve efficiency.

For more information on the V3 Improvements, please contact us here!

Medical Reporting Updates to assist Injury Auditing

The existing UEFA style injury audit report has been enhanced with improved functionality to aid the auditing of injuries across clubs and organisations.

The report has more interactivity for charts and tables and will be made available to all TSO Medical users.

Medical staff using this key area will find an improved live, interactive injury surveillance report which allows organisations to access the key/critical injury data including information including:

  • the exposure
  • injury
  • injury type
  • incidence 
  • injury severity 
  • location 
  • Burden/Impact across all teams

The new report allows for single seasonal reporting or multi-season reporting when wanting to highlight or analyse any trends highlighted annually. These updates improve efficiency for the medical departments who want to quickly analyse varying injury types within their club over defined seasons.

At present, one of the major problems this solves is season-on-season comparisons that previously have been difficult to achieve accurately. The current report is restricted to clubs participating in the UEFA Injury Study, but now will be widely available to medical personnel across all systems. 

Until now, the club will have had to run the report for one team, before having to then change to another team, preventing team comparisons and seasonal comparison; which will soon be available instantly in one report. 

The Key Report Features:

The new report provides a live snapshot of their data and easy comparisons between seasons and also teams within a club/organisation. With key mappings of all orchard codes, this provides an in-depth report instantly. Also, we’re aiding analysis of the information with enhancements to the existing functionality to give greater flexibility on reporting to make season-on-season comparisons and team comparisons much easier through the use of additional filters and interactions with live charts and tables.

The report also includes a new visually appealing heatmap of data within the tables on the report. All users are able to have their personal preferences of data visualisation with the new various charting options.

The greatest impact of the easy to use reports will be providing this invaluable audit data, which will be ready instantly for analysis of varying injury types within their club over the defined season. 

This easy to use report provides invaluable data for the clients and sports organisations alike.

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.

Visit to Kazakhstan Premier League club, FC Kairat

The Sports Office Client Managers Stephen Young and Dan Jackson have visited leading Kazakhstan Premier League club, FC Kairat. The Almaty based organisation are consistently strong performers and have challenged for their domestic title in the last five seasons.

FC Kairat has used The Sports Office performance management system for elite football, The Football Squad, for the past 12 months. This client visit was timed to coincide with their 2020 pre-season training.

The four-day visit successfully supported the club’s coaching, medical, sports science and also administration staff and the system was rolled-out across the club’s Academy structures. The Sports Office team also gave presentations on each area of the system. They highlighted methods for using it to further enhance daily performance workflows.

Stephen Young said, “The club visit went extremely well and it was great to see FC Kairat’s amazing training facilities.”

FC Kairat is able to use ‘The Football Squad’ in Russian language thanks to the site’s automatic translation technology. This allows clients to easily use our athlete management systems in their native tongue. Currently, our systems are available in Italian, Russian and Latin-Spanish.

The Sports Office will continue to support FC Kairat remotely through their designated client manager, our support desk and regular webinars.

The Kazakhstan Premier League begins again on March 7th 2020, when FC Kairat will face Taraz. They will continue to gain maximum benefit from ‘The Football Squad’ for Athlete Management.

The Sports Office’s Global Clientelle:

The Sports Office work with a range of high-profile organisations in the world of elite football. These include clubs in the English Premier League, Italy’s Serie A, the Australian A-League, North America’s MLS and the Kazakhstan Premier League. As well as working in elite football, we also support a wide range of elite sports organisations, federations and clubs.

For more information on The Sports Office Athlete Management Systems, please contact us here.

Norwegian giants Molde FK choose The Sports Office

The Sports Office has added reigning Norwegian League Champions, Molde FK, to our roster of global football clients.

Molde won the 2019 Eliteserian and are four-time league and Norwegian Cup Champions. They will now use The Sports Office athlete management system for elite soccer.

Client Managers Carl Pomfret and Chris Tuson have visited the club’s Aker Stadion and training ground to deliver a full system implementation across the first team, academy and women’s teams.

Day One:

The Sports Office team met with key management personnel and staff from all departments, within the Molde club.

They were shown an overview of the coaching syllabus, session building, fixtures, and more to provide an in-depth overview of the system.

Sports Science staff including the physiotherapy and strength and conditioning team were guided through the system and shown The Sports Office App and The Monitoring App.

Molde’s Academy and first-team staff were also supported to begin using personalised player development programmes.

Day Two:

The club’s Coaching and Recruitment departments were given a re-cap on their key areas and began using system tools including drill diagrams and The Match Hub.

The first team and academy Medical staff also received a full medical overview and were shown key injury surveillance and reporting functions.

Day Three:

The Molde FK administration team received their overview of the system and focused on scheduling, player management and staff management.

Video and Analysis elements were also demonstrated. These included use of XML files, video uploads and analytics fed from The Sports Office App, to aid player development and review processes.

The Sports Office Key Client Manager Carl Pomfret commented: “Overall the visit went well and we look forward to continuing our work and providing support for the performance team at Molde FK.”

If your club or organisation could benefit from a support day to improve your use of our systems, contact your client manager now.

Also, for more information on The Sports Office Athlete Management System for elite football, get in touch here.

New version of The Sports Office Systems for 2020

A new and improved version (V3) of The Sports Office performance management system will be released in 2020. This will offer a significantly enhanced user experience and provide a range of powerful, new functions. The new version of our system will offer even greater support for all athlete management processes and optimising performance in elite sport.

It will support seamless, collective working for each department in any organisation. The Sports Office V3 will be launched by the Summer of 2020.

Also, new features will be strategically released to enhance The Sports Office App. The App will soon include a newsfeed of the latest notifications for users. A newly created CMS system will allow clubs to share specific personalised content, and much more, to aid communication between club, staff, and users.

The Sports Office team are excited to bring these developments to our clients across all our multi-sport systems. We will keep users informed of the latest updates and enhancements.

Teaser video will soon be released for the first look at V3 of The Sports Office systems.

Learn more

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The Sports Office receive ISO27001 re-certification

The excellence of The Sports Office in data security and quality management has once again been formally recognised.

Last month, the company achieved ISO 27001 re-certification. The standard was initially awarded in 2016 and the business has recently passed its three year re-certification audit through UKAS certified British Assessment Bureau.

UKAS ISO 27001 certificate

The International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 27001 certification is the globally recognised Information Security Standard. It specifies best practices and the constant improvement of an organisation’s Information Security Management System. Certification provides assurance to customers that the data they store within our systems is secure and that our systems have the capability to avoid and mitigate risks.

Craig Bailey, Director of Development stated, “We are really pleased to achieve re-certification on what has become the de-facto standard for Information Security. This certification continues to provide our customers with confidence that their data is protected by processes and technology conforming to best practice security standards.”

The Sports Office have these standards in place to provide the most secure system for athlete management. For more information, please contact us now.

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.

PMA Coach Engagement Days hosted by Premier League and The Sports Office

A series of engagement days have been staged to support coaches’ use of the Premier League’s Performance Management Application (PMA) and assist all practitioners and clubs to gain the greatest possible benefit and value from the system. 

The PMA:

The PMA is the powerful IT platform which has been developed to support the Premier League’s Elite Player Performance Plan (EPPP) and help academies to produce more and better homegrown players. 

Coach Engagement Days

Three separate days were staged in the North, the Midlands, and London. Club representatives including coaches, analysts, and fitness trainers attended the event nearest to them. They were also joined by representatives of our partners from EFL. The events were hosted by the Premier League, with education content delivered by The Sports Office team.

The Sports Office designed and built the PMA and provide ongoing support and servicing. Each day was broken-up to different elements which provided excellent insight and guidance for all users.  These included practical ‘how-to’ sessions about: 

  • Coaching Session Management – how the PMA can enhance Planning, Reviewing and Reporting of coaching sessions.
  • Fixture Management 
  • PMA tools to support the Player Review Process  
  • Custom reports – how best to use the PMA to create a wide range of custom reports 

The first event was held in Manchester, with guest speak Gavin Levey providing insight into Aberdeen FC’s Academy and match operations.

The following day Client Managers, Premier League staff and coaches gathered at Villa Park to hear insight and guidance on the system. Joe Lydon, Head of International Talent ID & Development for the Irish Rugby Union discussed his experience with ‘The Rugby Squad’ and on the parent/child relationship Irish Rugby adopts with its provincial teams and clubs. 

 

At the London-based engagement day, Inter Milan’s Head of Academy Roberto Niccolai and Southampton’s Academy Data insight Technician Ben Creswell each made presentations about their use of the system.

In Roberto Niccolai’s case, this related to Inter’s use of an entirely separate but comparable system, The Football Squad, which is also supplied to them by The Sports Office.

Andy Gorski commented, “These collaborative events are a great way for the coaches using the PMA to understand the many options for using and benefitting from the coaching program on the system.”

Support Available:

Excellent and user-friendly support for coaches, analysts, fitness trainers, and sports medicine staff is available from The Sports Office client team, on an ongoing basis. Our client managers can be consulted on the above areas and many other important aspects of maximising usage of the system. 

Get in touch with The Sports Office team now for any support or information on the athlete management systems for elite sport.