The highest honor at this weekend’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, the Alpha Award for best Analytics Innovation/Technology, was given to MLBAM for its new Statcast player tracking system which is set debut at across all 30 Major League Baseball ballparks on for Opening Day.
The award, which is given to recognize the best use of analytics in sports, was awarded this past Saturday at MIT. The tracking system that the MLBAM received the award for originally debuted in 2014 at Citi Field, Miller Park, and Target Field.
Winner of the Alpha Award for the Best Analytics Innovation goes to @Statcast #SSAC15
— Sloan Sports Conf. (@SloanSportsConf) February 28, 2015
It’s first-ever live data tracking video stream of the 2014 Home Run Derby drew 800,000 live video streams. Statcast drew even more attention as the technology was rolled out to ballparks a few months later in the MLB playoffs. MLBAM beat out SAP Match Insights, Zebra MotionWorks, and Vantage sports for the award.
MLBAM, the all things digital branch of Major League Baseball, also became the first professional sports league property to win this prestigious award in analytics innovation and technology.
Professional sports leagues are investing in analytics more than ever and this is just the latest example. We can expect to see more and more professional leagues and league owned properties to contend for similar awards and recognitions with analytics gaining a lot of attention lately in the world of athletics.