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#CoSIDA19 Convention Home Page
Oliver Wells, Executive Project Manager for NCAA LiveStats at Genius Sports, discusses the key successes and challenges from Year 1 of this landmark stats initiative and looks forward to another important CoSIDA Convention.
How did the first year of this landmark initiative alongside the NCAA progress?
One year into a 10-year project and we’re ready to follow up NCAA LiveStats for Basketball with the launch of two additional sports, Volleyball and Soccer. The NCAA is committed to providing leading technology for its members and we’ve worked alongside Dave Worlock, Jeff Williams, and the rest of the NCAA media and stats staff on a daily basis to deliver a solution that modernizes the collection, management and distribution of game statistics.
Although designing a solution that works for over 1,100 member schools with diverse needs presents its challenges, the conversations with NCAA LiveStats users and working groups have been the most rewarding part of the year.
The stats being collected by the SID and their teams are starting to make a real impact across collegiate sports. SIDEARM provides a premium gamecenter for those schools using NCAA LiveStats while coaching tools, such as FastModel Sports and Just Play for Basketball are beginning to provide additional insights.
Even Google Cloud used NCAA LiveStats data to enhance its predictive analytics during March Madness. This engagement will continue to grow, putting SIDs in a position to power next levels of fan engagement, coaching analytics, and media insights.
Overall, the response from the membership has been very encouraging. NCAA LiveStats for Basketball was embraced by the bold, capturing next level stats at over 10,000 games and being successfully adopted by more than 725 teams across all three divisions. The system was courtside all year from the first tip at the Champions Classic in Indianapolis to the last shot at all six National Championships Games. This capped off a successful first March Madness with NCAA LiveStats used across every game.
What have been the key challenges you have faced so far in delivering NCAA LiveStats?
Even though we at Genius Sports have over a decade’s experience delivering major technology projects for sports, we fully expected there to be some significant challenges in the first year.
We have high expectations for the NCAA School and Conference Manager (ncaamanager.com). As we continue to grow its capabilities, this will become the centrepiece of the NCAA LiveStats system and meet the expectations of its users.
At the start of the basketball season last year, the reporting functionality was quite limited, adjustments to the backward compatibility files were needed, and there were challenges with legacy scoreboard connections. We worked hand-in-hand to resolve these issues alongside an NCAA member working group to ensure we are delivering an intuitive interface that meets the needs of all three divisions.
We also know it’s important to keep a pulse on the membership as a whole and were encouraged by the feedback we received following a recent survey with over 500 SIDs and Statisticians. We’ll share the results with you at CoSIDA, but it was encouraging to hear 50% of respondents whose school or conference hadn’t adopted NCAA LiveStats for Basketball in Year 1, said they were very likely or likely to do so going into the new season.
We are also proud of the high marks received by our support staff, led by David Petroff and Allan Spear. More than half of the total respondents reported they were extremely satisfied with the support they received and this is vitally important to both Genius Sports and the NCAA.
How specifically does NCAA LiveStats support and enhance the role of SIDs?
Across multiple sports, we are building NCAA LiveStats for, and with, the member SID. The persistent question in our minds is: “Will this create value for the SID and make their lives easier?”
The system automates much of the pre-game set-up, including the uploading of rosters which removes the need to send XML files. During the game, NCAA LiveStats’ user-optimized interface and carefully selected workflows simplify the collection of rich and accurate data. Potential errors or missed data points can also be flagged and amended at any stage of a game.
We were very encouraged to hear that many SIDs were able to get up-to-speed with the new system in less than two games. This allows the SID to train up students quickly, expanding their potential workforce.
What are the NCAA and Genius Sports planning to showcase at this year’s Convention?
Last year’s CoSIDA Convention in Washington, D.C. was hugely important in introducing NCAA LiveStats for Basketball to the SID community. The excitement and momentum we gained last June and the ability to demonstrate our technology to so many different schools provided a crucial platform for launching us into the first season of NCAA LiveStats.
For this year’s Convention, we’re very excited to be introducing NCAA LiveStats for Volleyball and Soccer. We’re going to be running lots of demonstrations of both products, as well as NCAA LiveStats for Basketball, showcasing their ease of use and depth of stats. As well as our booth
(Booth #1), we have five speaking slots across the Main Stage, Product Theatre and Educational Lounge sessions so SIDs will have plenty of opportunities to ask questions, request more information and see the system first-hand.
NCAA LiveStats Sessions at the CoSIDA Convention
NCAA LiveStats by Genius Sports will have a booth in the exhibit hall. Additionally, the following sessions are available:
- NCAA LiveStats Product Theater – Sunday, June 9, 2:15 PM (Sabal)
- NCAA LiveStats Football Working Group – Sunday, June 9, 3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (West Indies)
- NCAA LiveStats Discussion, Monday – June 10, 11:00 AM - 11:45 AM (Harbor Beach/Marco Island)
- Multiple Educational Lounge Sessions on Basketball, Volleyball & Soccer (limited seating) – Check here for schedule and availability