Information is being exchanged inside the SeatGeek Stadium office.
It’s not between players and coaches, it’s between analysts and coaches. This analyst is more of a mathematician than an athlete, but his influence on the Chicago Fire’s wins and losses is significant.
“It was pretty cool, especially considering growing up as a Chicago Fire fan,” the analyst said. “It feels really effective to be able to work with clubs and help them make better decisions.”
Kevin Minkus is his name and analysis is his game.
The Glen Ellyn native is the Fire’s director of analytics, which uses advanced technology, including forms of artificial intelligence, to gain an edge in performance, scouting and recruiting.
What difference will his help make on the pitch?
“We made the goal by leveraging work that taught us that machine learning modeling in particular was an area of attack for us,” Minkus said.
Wearable GPS devices help the Minx and Fire collect vast amounts of valuable data during training and matches. The device is distributed by a company called HUDL, which works with elite teams around the world.
John Wirtz was one of the three people who helped found the company.
“We are able to really understand a player’s load live during practice and during a match, optimizing every training and practice session to match the pace of the match and deliver the optimal level of load without overshooting or starting. “We can make sure we can deliver. We’re getting into the realm of soft tissue injury,” the company’s chief product officer said.
At Northwestern University, five athletic programs are using similar wearable devices, including the Wildcats women’s soccer team. Lindsay Perkins, his assistant director of Olympic sports performance, uses the device to prepare athletes for a grueling season.
“We want athletes who are fast, strong, resilient and healthy. And to make sure we get them to that point so that they’re ready as soon as they get into the season. What can I do?” Perkins said.
NU women’s soccer head coach Michael Moynihan believes showing players the data generated by wearable devices will help them perform their best.
“We were able to tell them, somewhat subjectively, ‘I don’t think I’m running enough. I need to run more.’ And they said, ‘Oh, I’m working, I’m like, ‘I’m really working, I feel like I’ve covered quite a bit of ground.’ Well, you can pull up the data and think, “Look, the opposing team’s players covered this much.” That’s all we covered. There’s room to make up.’ And they’re like, ‘Oh, I get it. The light goes on and they start changing their training methods to meet the physical demands,” Moynihan explained.
Step into one of the school’s weight rooms and you’ll see players on the men’s basketball team using a different piece of technology: force plates, which measure jump height, speed, force, and more. They can also tell Brendon Ziegler, one of the school’s assistant directors of Olympic sports performance, whether an athlete is biased to one side of their body.
“This actually gives us some insight into what’s going on,” Ziegler said. “This allows us to extrapolate the data to the subjective measurements we’ve previously taken. Rather than just asking athletes how they feel, we have data to back it up.”
Ziegler can show that data to men’s basketball head coach Chris Collins, who can use it to determine how much stress to put on his players in practice.
While some teams and athletic departments are willing to talk about how they use AI and advanced technology, others are not. NBC Chicago asked all of the city’s top pro and college teams to show us how they strive to stay ahead of the competition, but most teams turned us down. Ta.
Is it because they are hiding what they think are secret benefits? It’s impossible to know for sure.
At least at the professional level, we know that analytics departments that collect and interpret data are common and often large. Of the Chicago pro teams that have reported to us that they have an analytics department, the Cubs are the largest with more than 30 people, followed by the Blackhawks with 11. The Bears reported while the Fires, led by Minks, had five players. There are four of theirs. The White Sox and Bulls acknowledged they have analytics departments but declined to say how big they are, while the Sky and Red Stars told NBC Chicago they don’t have formal analytics departments.
The teams we spoke to agree that advanced technology in sports will continue to grow and evolve.
“One of the things that I see as the emergence of AI in this field is that it will be able to interpret the data that we have, and maybe be able to see things that humans can’t see. ” Ziegler theorized.
Minkus expects the team to invest even more resources than it currently does.
“We’re going to see the sector get bigger and probably more data-driven processes across the board because everyone is in an arms race that continues to find an advantage over the rest of the competition.” said the analysis director.
Collins can hardly imagine how things will change over the next decade.
“It’s almost scary to think about what it’s going to be like 10 years from now,” Collins said.