Hudl & Wyscout Join Forces

Our acquisition of Wyscout sent shockwaves through the performance industry. But with the largest database of global football video and data now connected to Hudl’s end-to-end analysis platform, it promises to revolutionise performance and recruitment workflows.

“Without having an army of data scientists, clubs of all sizes will be able to make impactful, sophisticated, data-driven decisions every day,” said Hudl’s Chief Product Officer John Wirtz. “Hudl and Wyscout coming together means coaches, analysts and the football community will have unprecedented access to all the video and data they need to drive improvement and unearth talent from all over the world. And they’ll have all of this at their fingertips, which lets them focus on their core roles, not navigating across multiple systems. It’s going to dramatically change lives.”

With more than 1,000 professional football clubs, 1,000 player agencies, and 60 national teams and federations using their platform, Wyscout provides tools that make it easy to understand the game, identify and assess talent, and evaluate performance.

“It was very clear to us early on that they were just as passionate as we are about helping members of the football community reach their potential through technology and collaboration,” said Matteo Campodonico, CEO at Wyscout. “For organizations to reach their full potential, they need to recruit the best talent. For athletes to reach their full potential they need to be seen. Connecting our content to Hudl’s video analysis and distribution platform means clubs won’t just have access to a local pool of talent, they’ll have access to a global network of players. This ‘super system’ will provide this access in a way that saves everyone hours of time.”

Despite reputations for providing industry-leading technology, Wirtz is firm in his view where success actually lies.

“From the beginning, it’s been critically important to us that our people really understand our customers, and that’s meant the team we hire here at Hudl are people that have worked in the industry, including former analysts and coaches. They really understand the pains of our customers and they can see when our products solve that pain. And we felt that exact same thing as we got to know Wyscout. They place a huge value on their people deeply understanding their customers, and their people coming from the same place as their customers.”

With technological innovation at the forefront of providing competitive advantage to sports teams around the world, Wirtz believes the acquisition will only be beneficial for the market as a whole.

“Some of the biggest breakthroughs are going to be powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence. Clubs can take advantage of camera systems that don’t require operators and can produce highly accurate physical data from optical player tracking, which is accessible and usable with just a few clicks of a button. Not only will all this be a part of the Pro Suite, but it will also be connected to the new Hudl Sportscode.

“However, this isn’t about an acquisition. This isn’t even about two companies. It’s really about solving the toughest problems we see in our industry, the hardest problems that clubs and teams face every day. To do that in this case, we believe it requires two platforms coming together into one.”