World class hackathon to open exclusive insights on player performance
Manchester City’s #HackMCFC is the first football hackathon to be organised by a football club and will provide participants with access to world leading performance analysis systems, as well as detailed player and match data, to help them uncover new insights on player performance.
With the objective of generating new insights and innovation, Manchester City (MCFC) are inviting experts and students from the fields of tech, data and digital product design to take part in a free weekend hack event like no other. With the support of the Premier League, OptaPro and ChyronHego, MCFC will be providing participants with exclusive data insights from ten of the Premier League fixtures they played during the 15/16 season.
The event will take place from the 29-31 July at the City Football Academy, Manchester City’s elite training and youth development facility, and over the course of the weekend, participants will be able to access rarely released data sets provided by OptaPro and ChyronHego to help them catalyse new ideas and insights about player and team performance.
Expert teams will compete for a cash prize and ‘money can’t buy’ experiences, plus the potential to develop their solutions with Manchester City. Students could win once in a lifetime experiences and internships at the Club, which prides itself on delivering exciting and innovating content and technology.
Anyone over the age of 16, who can demonstrate their curiosity, technical skills and passion for football and/or data, is invited to register to attend. Places to take part in this unique event are limited and all applications will be subject to a selection process.
Meals and two nights’ accommodation are available for all participants free of charge, giving them the added opportunity to experience several aspects of what the life of a professional athlete is like.
Edward Sulley, Head of Research and Innovation for City Football Services, commented:
“At Manchester City, we proactively strive to be at the forefront of innovative technologies that can help enhance our performance on and off the pitch. This vision is shared by our sister clubs New York City FC, Melbourne City FC and Yokohama F-Marinos, who are all supported by City Football Services, a unique part of the wider City Football Group business model that allows us to share innovative IP and insights across all four of our clubs.
“This Hackathon enables us to engage fans of both sport and technology in this process, and the support of the Premier League means we can provide them with a unique opportunity to access exclusive data they can use to develop creative ideas. We look forward to working with the participants and seeing what ground-breaking technologies they can bring to the table that could potentially benefit all four clubs across the City Football Group.”
Ben Mackriell, Head of OptaPro, added:
“The application of advanced analytics within professional football has progressed significantly over the past 18 months and is an area where OptaPro has strived to help teams begin to understand its value.
“We are proud to work with a club as forward thinking as Manchester City. Having worked alongside them in the ground-breaking MCFC Analytics project, #HackMCFC is the perfect evolution of this. The event offers an exciting opportunity for participants to generate innovative data-driven insights from what is an extremely detailed dataset and is an excellent demonstration of Manchester City’s commitment to driving this growing industry forward.”
David Eccles, Account Manager-Sports at ChryonHego, who provide the world leading optical tracking solution – TracAb, also said:
“ChyronHego provide accurate positional and statistical information in real-time allowing more opportunities than ever before in the tactical analysis space. It is great to be working alongside clubs like Manchester City, who have the hunger and desire to extrapolate meaningful insights from the data. It is important to us that everything we do with data can positively impact the on-field performance of the players and teams.”
For more information and to register, click here
Venue: The City Football Academy, Etihad Campus, Manchester
Summary of Schedule:
Friday 29 July, 6pm – #MCFCHack kick-off event and social meetup.
Saturday 30 July, 9:00am – Hacking begins with (‘like a player’ experiences and treats throughout).
Sunday 31 July 12.30pm – Hacking ends and teams present their prototypes.
Sunday 31 July 1.00pm – Hackers are invited to attend the Manchester City Women’s first team match against Sunderland, enjoying access to their exclusive Academy Stadium hospitality zone before the game.
Sunday 31 July 4.00pm – Award presentations.
