March 15 – The use of match stats in broadcast and turning the betting experience into a more immersed entertainment activity will be discussed at the Betting on Football conference, March 20-23, at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge stadium.
Duncan Alexander, Opta chief analyst, is speaking about the exponential rise in the popularity of stats among football fans in a ‘Betting on Innovation’ session with Sky Bet’s Head of Trading Andy Wright, who will be shedding light on what this trend means for operators. Opta is the Premier League’s official stats supplier.
Speaking to SBC News, he said he had noticed a change in fan and media use of stats in the past couple of seasons.
“What’s remarkable is whilst fans have been watching professional football for 150 years, it’s only in the very recent past that we’ve been able to talk meaningfully about anything other than goals. That’s despite something like passes happening approximately 300x more per match than the average goal!
“Now, for reasons we’ll discuss in the session, it’s as if our eyes have been opened to a whole new subplot within each game, and the media are telling different stories about individual players and underlying team performance trends, which has got those stats firmly into the fan conversation,” said Alexander.
“It’s a brilliant feeling to be helping to reinvent the way fans follow football and I can’t wait to see where bookmakers will take this.”
Shane Gannon, SVP Perform Betting, said: “You only have to take a quick glance at Twitter to see how engaged bettors are with stats betting already, but we’re only at the start of it… We’re all very excited about how engaged bettors seem to be with this level of content and genuinely think football may never be watched the same way again.”
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