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In the age of widespread fantasy sports and advanced analytics, the importance of data is greater than ever. Fans have an insatiable thirst for it in a sports context. And yet, despite the overwhelming demand, surprisingly few places exist that actually offer the average sports fan what they want: easily accessible and unique data in a user-friendly interface. One Boston-based company is trying to find an answer to this hole in the sports marketplace.
Stattleship, a sports data service that promises to bring information to the masses, is offering an intriguing and open-ended proposition. Essentially, it offers to tailor in-depth statistical analysis to whatever its users want. For regular fantasy players, sports writers or anyone else with an interest in numbers (but who doesn't hold a degree in statistics), it could prove to be a game-changing innovation.
"We're going to make the data that we've already become expert at building for ourselves available to the world," said Stattleship co-founder Josh Walker in an interview. Currently in available in beta access, it's scheduled for a full launch in January.
After a lengthy process of development, Walker and his co-founder, David Thyresson, have spent a long time building sports data sets.
Both Walker and Thyresson have long experience in the Boston startup scene, joining forces in 2013 to begin working on a new sports-related project. Walker was a founder at CityVoter Inc. in 2005. And Thyresson has been involved with several projects, including sports trivia app Spogo, which was sold to NTN Buzztime, Inc.
Based on code developed by Thyresson in his time at Spogo (a sports trivia app), Walker foresaw several specific projects that could come out of harnessing the power of specialized sports data. Ultimately, the duo arrived at a different conclusion: to use the basic data itself as a platform and offer it to consumers for whatever use they wanted.
"So instead of us doing every one of these great apps that we wanted to do, we said look, the best business idea is staring us right in the face," Walker explained. "It's to make this data available to everybody, and then those apps will get built."
What Stattleship wants to deliver is what other existing sports information services (such as Stats Inc.) already offer, but for a much cheaper rate and in a format that is not only customized to what individual users want, but presented in a way that is easy to digest.
"Think about Stats & Info tailored to each fan," said Walker, referencing the popular and always-interesting ESPN service. And it's exactly those type of offbeat stats that Stattleship wants to provide regularly, even potentially coining a few new ones.
Instead of simply providing users with traditional metrics (touchdown passes and passing yards), Walker said that he wants Stattleship to provide truly unique measurements that help provide context for the regular stats. Citing an example of punt blocks, he said that he would then provide users with stats regarding how infrequently they happen in games.
In all, it will potentially raise the general level of fan intelligence. And while no exact figure was given, Stattleship will provide its services for a much more modest price than the "thousands and thousands" required to have access to other sports statistics companies:
The bigger companies in this space do not make it easy for bloggers, sports analytics clubs, and fantasy leagues to get the data they need at a price that makes sense. We're going to tier subscription models to make sure our pricing can accommodate an undergraduate building his fantasy model as well as a professional media site that wants interactive charts and feeds. The more analysis work we do on our end to create value, the more we will charge for subscriptions. For the largest sites, costs may be tied to the volume of API calls. This is a well understood model, but we're going to monitor usage for a while before coming up with that cost.
Walker, given his experience in the Boston startup sector, has remained guarded about overcommitting Stattleship, in an effort to keep it free from constraints.
"I'm really trying to be as creative as possible with how we get this company up and running," he said. "We're doing data projects on the side and we're looking for consulting work to continue to build out this project. And we're talking to angels. So I don't want to commit too heavily to a big picture until we've got just everything cranking along."
He then offered a simpler explanation.
"I've learned a lot of lessons and I have a lot of gray hair."
On the specific subject of funding Walker offered a glimpse at his policy:
David and I have both raised VC in the past. Our approach this time is to continue to recruit powerful advisors in this space like Jason Robins of DraftKings and John West of The Whistle. These guys believe in what we're building and will help us raise money if we find that's the best approach.
Sports fans who are interested in the company's offer can "sign up for early access" on Stattleship's site. Those who do sign up will be given a free token (basically a free test) to experiment with the site, requesting information on whatever sports topic they're curious about.
"Anybody can move data around," Walker noted, "but the real issue here is how do you answer a question using data?"
With Stattleship, Walker and his colleagues hope to empower sports fans everywhere find their answers.
Image via Flickr
