A Manchester-based sports data company is turning the focus onto players’ performance off the pitch rather than on – and they’ve just received new funding.
Manchester City footballer Rúben Dias is relied upon for towering headers, last-ditch tackles, and playing out from the back. But beyond his responsibilities on the pitch, the Portuguese defender also maintains a world-famous brand on social media.
In September 2024 Dias reached over 41 million people through his social media presence, garnering over 7 million interactions from fans – and the football industry is starting to realise the value of figures like these.
Dias even has a branding agent, Paulo Malva do Vale, who is a regular user of the off-the-field metrics platform ProDataStack – because with this data on hand, the player and his agent are in a strong position to negotiate bigger contracts with his club and sponsors.
Malva do Vale said: “I consult Rúben’s dashboard every other day or every time there’s something coming up, an interview that he’s done or a match that he’s played, or a post that he’s posted on his social media.
“This is super important for us to know that our brand strategy is effective.”
ProDataStack is making a name for itself in collecting, maintaining, and analysing these off-the-field metrics – and it was announced today that the business received a grant from the government-funded Greater Manchester Business Growth Hub.
Harnessing AI for player prediction power
The grant will help Manchester-based ProDataStack to continue developing its artificial intelligence (AI) tool. This application will use anonymous athlete data to help players understand how much they should be earning, and predict how much they could be earning in the future.
The company’s founder Fiona Green gave the example of a 19-year-old centre forward who’s breaking into the first team. How much will he be earning at 25? What targets does he need to meet to get there? Their AI technology will be able to answer these questions.
To make this a reality, the company will need many agents, from diverse parts of the professional sports world, to share contract details with the company. From there, ProDataStack will anonymise this data and then provide the personalised predictions it promises.
But what’s in it for Greater Manchester? Yvonne Grady, head of innovation at GM Business Growth Hub, explained: “We decided to support them because of their clear plan for growth, their focus on innovation, and their commitment to creating high-quality jobs right here in the North West.”
Sports data but not as we know it
Football fans will be more than familiar with sports metrics such as assists, take-ons, and ‘xG’. But what professional sport has not yet grasped is measuring the off-the-field metrics of its elite athletes.
Big companies such as Barclays or Virgin have teams of people tracking the public’s sentiment towards their brands, looking at social media engagement and interactions. Why shouldn’t global icons such as Rúben Dias get the same treatment?
“None of what we’re doing is rocket science”, Green told me.
“The only innovation we’re doing is that we’re applying the standard practices and principles of brand tracking from the non-sports world – to athletes.”
In the example product shot seen above, ProDataStack measures the net sentiment towards footballer Jack Grealish. It highlights the daily opinions amongst fans and shows which social media platforms this data originates from.
With this understanding, branding agents can better organise a player’s social media strategy. And with the numerical evidence of how large or diverse their online following is, players can go into contract negotiations and demonstrate their value as brands.
This could play an important role in the mission to achieve financial equality between men’s and women’s sports, according to Green.
While it may not be feasible yet to charge higher ticket prices for women’s matches, or increase the money that TV broadcasters will pay for the rights to show these games, helping to get bigger contracts with sponsors is a step forward in achieving this financial equality.
Green said: “We all know that women’s sports is not as commercially advanced as the men’s game.
“But research shows that female athletes make 10 times more money out of their sponsorship deals than they do from playing contracts.
“What ProDataStack can do is turn that 10 times into 20 times, or 30 times, because of the power of this data.”
Fight for your right to data
Green, who has decades of experience in the sports industry after founding sports consultancy Winners FDD, was inspired to create ProDataStack because of two crucial events.
Firstly, a lawsuit was started by hundreds of professional footballers in the UK over the rights to their data. They looked to gain more control of their performance information, which was being used by betting agencies and other companies with no input from the players themselves.
Called ‘Project Red Card’, this initiative was spearheaded by former Cardiff City Manager Russell Slade, according to law firm Norton Rose Fulbright.
Secondly, Green found out that in 2021 Kevin De Bruyne had used sporting performance data to negotiate a 30% increase in his Manchester City contract.
Combining these two events, Green was determined to create a hub where agents could consistently access salary-boosting data, and have this information in the players’ hands and under the players’ control.
What next?
As well as the public grant, ProDataStack also recently received its first external investment. Danny Saunders, a manger-turned-investor, backed the company after reading about it in an article from The Athletic.
Saunders said: “Data is absolutely everything in sport, but nobody’s looking at off-field data. ProDataStack does that so well, combining it with performance data to create such a powerful proposition.”
With this financial backing (and more expected soon), Green is looking to grow the company’s staff by bringing in salespeople, marketers, and even more tech developers.
“Like many founders, we’ve bootstrapped the business so far. Our concept is proven, our software is working, our first clients are onboard, and now we’re looking to put our foot firmly on the pedal.”
Feature image: Rúben Dias and other Manchester City players at Tokyo National Stadium; image by pantkiewicz (CC BY-SA 2.0)
