SYDNEY – August 22, 2019 – Stats Perform, the revolutionary leader in sports AI and data, announced that Dr. Patrick Lucey, chief scientist, and Tom Worville, senior data scientist at Opta and OptaPro, will present at the Australia Sports Tech Conference at the Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre on Friday, 23 August. Worville’s session begins at 10:40 a.m. AEDT, while Dr Lucey’s begins at 11:40 a.m. AEDT.
Dr Lucey’s session is titled “What is the Value of AI in Sports?” As the head of the artificial intelligence team at Stats Perform, Lucey will describe the technological advancements in AI that are opening new insights in the global sports market.
“For quite some time, we’ve been hearing about how artificial intelligence is going to change the world around us, but it isn’t until recently that modern technology has caught up to make this a reality,” said Lucey. “In sports, we have entered the age of recommendation where AI is generating new insights or ideas that would typically take humans hours or days to come up with. Already, we are seeing the impact of AI on team and game analysis as machine learning is breaking down complex patterns of a match through the click of a button. We are entering an exciting time in sports and AI is going to have a huge impact on its future.”
Worville’s session is titled, “Data-powered Football Stories – English Premier League.” Worville serves as a senior data analyst at Opta and OptaPro, a part of Stats Perform, and has spent most of his career analysing advanced data in football. As part of his session, Worville will discuss how data analysis is opening up new insights on the game that can quickly turn into interesting stories that engage a global fan base.
“Through technology, fans today are more connected and engaged with their favourite team or player than ever before,” said Worville. “Over the years, data science has been able to give new context to the sport, how a team or player is performing, and how they can improve. Advanced metrics like ‘expected goals’ have become commonplace analysis with fans wanting even more insights in their match coverage. I look forward to sharing some of the exciting data-driven stories from the Premier League today.”
In addition to speaking roles at the Australia Sports Tech Conference, Opta data also powered the Sports Tech Cup Hackathon over the weekend (17-18 August). The Sports Tech Cup focused on performance data from the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup and was won by team “Five Hot Encoders”.
The Australia Sports Tech Conference brings together over 1,100 attendees, including industry professionals and executives interested in the role of data, digital and technology in the Australia and global sports, media and entertainment industry. For more information, visit https://sportstechworldseries.com/australia/.