Stats Perform

STATS was founded in April 1981[4] by John Dewan,[5] who became the company's CEO. The company name is an acronym for "Sports Team Analysis and Tracking Systems". STATS was an outgrowth of the grassroots non-profit Project Scoresheet, a volunteer network created to collect baseball statistics.[6]

In 1996 STATS and Motorola won on appeal a court case brought by the NBA. The case was barring STATS from distributing in-game information via a special wireless device created by Motorola. The victory in this case has played a large part in other cases where professional sports leagues have tried to suppress live in-game information being distributed by other outlets.[7]

In the 1990s, STATS expanded to the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the Women's National Basketball Association, in addition to other sports.[4]

STATS operated as a private company from 1981 to 2000. STATS was purchased by Fox Sports in 2000 and became a joint venture between News Corporation and the Associated Press in 2005.

In 2009, the company acquired the PA SportsTicker wire service from Press Association, a UK news and information company. SportsTicker had previously been owned by ESPN.[8]

In June 2014, Fox Sports and the AP sold STATS to Vista Equity Partners, a private equity firm.[9][10]

During 2014, the platform created over a billion articles and reports for customers such as The Associated Press, Yahoo!, and Comcast.[11] In September 2014, STATS acquired Bloomberg Sports.

In early 2015, STATS acquired the wire service The Sports Network and Prozone. Vista Equity Partners also acquired Automated Insights, a company involved in using natural-language generation based on big data (including in particular, generating wire reports on sporting events from raw statistics).[12]

In April 2019, Vista Equity Partners announced its intent to acquire Perform Content, the former sports data subsidiary of Perform Group.[13] The company was selling the property to focus more on its sports streaming service DAZN. It was stated that DAZN Group would retain a "significant minority stake" in the surviving entity, which was to focus strongly on the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning.[14][15][16]

On July 15, 2019, it was announced that the merged company would be known as Stats Perform, and operate under STATS CEO Carl Mergele. He stated that the company would "[harness] the power of immense amounts of sports data with unparalleled AI technology".[17][18]

STATS provides several products to leagues, teams, and the media.

The X-Info system provides NFL, college football and MLB teams with detailed statistics and information to help them interpret the various metrics.[19]

Their SportVU system uses an array of cameras and image processing software to provide real-time player tracking and ball positioning data, as well as statistical analysis of that data. SportVU is used by FIFA, UEFA and a host of flagship European soccer teams.[20]

Nearly every franchise in three of North America's four major professional sports leagues (NFL, MLB, and NHL) uses products from STATS.[2]

With the acquisition of The Sports Network, STATS took over publication of that company's NCAA Division I FCS football poll.

Elias Sports Bureau

• Official website