Following up on last year’s partnership with Major League Baseball, Sage is announcing a different type of sports partnership, with Sportable, a global data collection and analytics platform, which is designed to bring deeper, AI-led insights to major sports. 

Today accounting software firm Sage is announcing a new partnership with Sportable, a global data collection and analytics platform, to extend AI insights to major sports through the Sportable platform.

The strategic marketing partnership follows up on a deal last year with Major League Baseball, through which Sage is able to brand itself as an ‘Official’ and ‘Insights’ Partner to MLB, and spread its message of its commitment to unleash potential through data.

“Every single Sage product in the next two to three years will have a Copilot manifestation to it,” said Cath Keers, Chief Marketing Officer at Sage. “This is one of those.

“We will use Sportable’s use of data in sports to show what Sage does in a different way from what we normally do, Keers continued. “With their amazing data collections and analytical platform, you can track the movement of the ball and players. We will use it to cover rugby, Aussie Rules football, U.S. football and soccer. We can use AI and Machine Learning to help players understand their positions, inform coaches, and help fans engage in another way in a sport that they love.”

Sage and Sportable will develop a global sports index, bringing together millions of AI-led insights generated across the sports world by Sportable technology. Sportable’s proprietary hardware is underpinned by AI and ML, which turn thousands of data points into real time, and provide automated insights on how players and the ball move during a game and in practice. It will provide open access for anyone to identify trends and better understand key indicators of high performance and game strategy.

The Gilbert x Sportable Smart Ball, for example, used in elite professional level rugby games since 2022, works with wireless beacons around the field to show live game data, such as how far the ball is kicked or passed, and how much territory a team gains as they attack. The technology helps players, coaches and teams use these insights to make performance improvement, tactical and recruitment decisions, while broadcasters and fans benefit from immediate game analysis.

Sage will present the vast amount of data gathered by Sportable’s expanding presence in the sports world and add to its existing portfolio of sports brands, as it helps to deliver business and sports analytics at scale.

Dugald Macdonald, Co-Founder and CEO of Sportable, said that “we are proud to announce this collaboration between Sportable and Sage. We first worked with Sage in 2022 after deploying the Smart Ball with our partners at Six Nations Rugby, which Sage went on to present during the 2022 Autumn Nations Series and beyond.”

“Since we started this, England has probably has had probably their worst rugby ever in terms of results, but at least we now have the data to see why the results are bad,” observed Steve Hare, Sage’s CEO.