Merger creates top Wigan data firm

Viscount Newport gives the key to the estate to Phil Clarke, Ian Lenagan and Andy Clarke, owners of The Sports Office, at the opening of Wigan Hall. The building and grounds were renovated and restored at the former Rectory, now the home for The Sports Office

Kitman Labs Ltd, the leader in sports performance analytics, has acquired The Sports Office, the pioneer in athlete data management based in Wigan Hall in New Market Street.

The combined company will now create the strongest data science and development capacity in the industry and forms the largest dataset from an advanced network of elite sports leagues, governing bodies and professional and development clubs across the globe.

The joint development power will be used to deliver innovations more rapidly to address the new, fast-changing needs caused by the skyrocketing growth of performance and medical data.

The Sports Office pioneered the creation of the digital infrastructure in sport for collecting and aggregating athlete medical and performance data when the use of sports data first exploded.

With the vision of improving the standards of performance and health in global sport, The Sports Office was the first provider to capture every aspect of an athlete’s progress from the day they enter the development system through their advancement at the elite level.

The Wigan firm supplies a range of high-profile organisations across the globe, including clubs in the Premier League and Italy’s Serie A as well as elite organisations and federations in professional rugby, cycling, tennis and equestrian sports

Stephen Smith, founder and CEO of Kitman Labs, said: “The sports data digitization wave led by The Sports Office established data management as a foundational layer of sports operations.

“Without their vision and their transformational approach to putting the pieces of the performance and medical data puzzle together, the analytics innovations we deliver to quantify the drivers of performance and health would not be possible. Together, we have the combined power to maximize the digital landscape of sports data and create the operating system for high performance.”

Andy Clarke, founder and CEO of The Sports Office, said, “We’ve been working for years to digitize the entire athlete lifecycle, and Kitman Labs has developed the first analytics solutions that finally harness all data to improve performance and health, and radically improve long term athletic development.”

Mr Smith added: “Together, we can revolutionise youth development by providing a set of capabilities that uses the learnings from the largest dataset about the greatest athletes around the world today to produce the greatest talent of the future.

“The benefit of a large, consolidated performance and medical dataset combined with analytics also applies to leagues and national governing bodies who want to advance the competitiveness and safety of their game.”

The combined company now represents the largest, most capitalized company in sports performance technology.

Andy said: “We’ve watched many trends in the performance market over the years and never have we seen a time when the needs of the industry have been so varied, complex and so quickly outpacing traditional technology.

“There is a clear need for more investment, better products, better support, more flexibility, and more knowledge versus just information.

“Now we have the resources to leverage what we have each built to date, accelerate product innovation and redefine customer experience.”