

Sports data giant Stats buys Bloomberg Sports - herman5
http://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/stats-llc-buys-bloomberg-sports-advance-its-predictive-sports-statistics-modeling-analysis

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robinhowlett
STATS was recently sold by Fox Sports and the Associated Press to the SF-based
private-equity firm Vista Equity Partners. The rumored sale price was around
$200M.

We work with STATS data daily and their products are excellent, albeit very
expensive.

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marrone12
I can't wait for the day when sports statistics are easily accessible to
amateurs. I'd rather not illegally scrape basketball-reference and just pay
somebody to get an api.

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clairity
as an amateur athlete, i want stats too (but not pro stats like you're talking
about), which is why i'm working on that for amateur sports. =)

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Abundnce10
Let me know if you need beta users!

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clairity
will do! which sport(s) are you interested in/do you play?

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cwal37
STATS is the company behind SportVU, and one of the fastest growing sports
analytics outfits out there. Despite knowing this, it still surprised me to
see them grab Bloomberg sports, particularly since Bloomberg only created that
business four years ago. I see this as a kind of acquiescence. They couldn't
see themselves challenging STATS, so they may as well may a few bucks off of
what they had created.

I think this also speaks to the network effects of entering into contracts
with a large number of sports franchises. At a certain point, if a number of
teams are benefiting from your analytics, everyone else is going to want them
as well. When it comes to sports statistics, the last teams to adopt are often
the most tradition bound and least advanced in terms of metrics. They're also
the last teams who would try an up-and-comer without having had major upheaval
in their ownership or front office situation. Rather, they'll run with what
seems to be working elsewhere, and probably half-ass the implementation.

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cwyers
SportVU was another STATS acquisition.

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cwal37
Right, I should have noted that, thanks!

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zorrb
Why do they make it so difficult to access the data? There's a single page
with a couple paragraphs about the API but nothing more. I'm assuming you have
to pay some money, but it doesn't say how or how much!

