Member focus

BreakAway Data

Guest piece from Ben Smith, Head of International Business, BreakAway Data

This edition's Northridge TRACK member focus looks at BreakAway Data, a sports tech business enabling athletes globally (Football, NFL, NBA, Tennis, Rugby & Cricket) to access, manage and generate more value from their performance data.

Background

BreakAway’s founders, a former wide-receiver and coach from the NFL, truly understand sport’s most important stakeholder, the athlete. They started BreakAway to help athletes such as Chris Paul and Andy Murray access and control their performance data (e.g. GPS, testing, match data, personal wearables, videos, etc) in the best, most convenient way - on their phone.

What BreakAway do

We combine and centralise an athlete’s preparation, match, recovery and personal wearables data from every environment (club, national team, loan, private consultants) into a single, easy to understand perspective that an athlete, and their support group, can then unlock new performance insights and/or commercial opportunities.

BreakAway enables athletes to tailor their App, so they only engage with what they care about, but still store everything securely in their ‘data locker’.

For example, an athlete could see club Catapult GPS data, personal Oura sleep data, England match stats, alongside a private consultant strength programme.

James Moore - Performance manager for Andy Murray

“The BreakAway app has enhanced communication between Andy Murray's coaches and his staff. We now objectively understand movement quality, and movement intensity. This aligns us to maximise his preparation.”

Why does that matter?

Well firstly, certain athletes really care about their data as they look to push their personal performance boundaries.

Young professionals breaking into a team look for every advantage they can get to improve. Similarly, players entering the latter stages of their career want to elongate their time at the top and want to understand how to get the most out of their ageing bodies. There’s also the ‘ultimate professional’, looking to be the best, and be seen to be the best.

We support them all to better understand what ‘great looks like’ for them individually and how to achieve their goals.

But that doesn’t mean every athlete cares about their data, and that’s ok. Players who don’t engage with their data still want the best possible support from the staff around them.

That’s where Breakaway’s player-centred approach allows athletes to share their performance data with any of their support team, in effect, creating a real-time data sharing network between club, country, private consultants, etc.

Everyone can then see what the athlete is doing across each environment, creating alignment, understanding and ultimately better support for the player.

Lastly, as BreakAway allows athletes to control their performance data, it can move with them from level-to-level and club-to-club, creating a career-long ‘performance passport’. And once you’ve got the data, there’s so much you can do with it: better understand and manage a player going into a new club; create an evidence platform for contract negotiations; a whole world of new commercial opportunities across personal/team branding, sponsor activations or media deals.

What's next?

We’re working hard to improve what data can do for athletes and their support teams. Over the next year our primary goal outside of the U.S. is to redefine what’s possible across the performance and commercial landscapes of the Premier League & IPL, supporting even more Premier League, Franchise & International players on App.

We have a secondary push into tennis and rugby, as we look to wrap our arms around an entire sport ecosystem and showcase BreakAway's value.

If that’s of interest to you, then you can read more on our website, or get in touch through the links below.

With thanks to Ben for providing these insights into Northridge TRACK member BreakAway Data.

Ben Smith - Head of International Business, BreakAway Data