Sport talent platform offers smart scouting

A new scouting platform has been designed to help talent scouts find the perfect player for their sports team.

Professional sports team scouts are responsible for finding new talent. By choosing the best players for the team’s needs, a talent scout can help make the difference between a winning team and a losing team. To find players, scouts must watch a large number of games and keep track of a huge amount of information. This is why today’s scouts and professional sport clubs are becoming more reliant on computer programs to assist them in evaluating individual players. Dublin start-up Profile 90 aims to make this easier with a smart talent identification platform for scouting. The system has been developed for almost any sport. However, the company is initially focusing on football markets in the UK, US and China.

Profile 90 helps scouts and teams to identify the characteristics that contribute to the development of a successful professional player. Using data analytics and 360-degree profiling, it produces a digital profile of the four main elements of a player’s performance. These are: physical skills, tactical/technical abilities, and psychological and social aspects. The platform uses social media accounts and evidence and research-based questions to gather data for a psychological profile. It also captures and analyses games in real time. According to CEO and co-founder Dr Jagdish Basra, Profile 90, “is the first scouting technology to combine a multi-focus on the physical attributes, mental fitness and social behaviour of players.”

As well as analysing players, Profile 90 is also an administrative tool for clubs. It enables them to maintain accountability, audit trails and manage the schedules and work of their scouts. Profile 90 launched in November 2017 and has already signed agreements with several soccer clubs and agencies. Springwise has previously covered platforms designed to apply data and evidence-based science to other types of businesses. For example, this digital tool for supply chain management and this e-commerce platform. What other types of businesses could benefit from a platform like Profile 90?