12 May 2025 — Stats Perform has won the award for “Best Business Serving Football (over 350 employees)” at the prestigious 2025 Football Business Awards in London. 4k3l55
The hotly contested award recognises the significant impact of Opta data and OptaAI-powered services in helping clients around the world enhance their football analysis and storytelling capabilities to win audiences, customers and trophies.
During the past 12 months, Stats Perform’s Opta products have significantly expanded their data-driven live football coverage, investing in collection for new leagues as well as the creation of new metrics, tools and technology.
This includes significant investment in covering more women’s competitions with trusted live data to enable more sophisticated live analysis – an effort commended by the awards’ judging .
Coverage of many of these new competitions is a direct result of new official data partnerships, including collaborations with Northern Super League in Canada.
In addition, the introduction of new AI-enriched Opta Vision metrics has enabled teams, leagues, broadcasters and digital publishers to generate memorable new insights into player and team performance, creating new conversations and talking points to enhance their coverage of major matches and tournaments. Now available for more than 60 competitions, Opta Vision combines tracking data and AI to deliver new metrics such as off-ball runs, which will be part of Stats Perform’s coverage of this summer’s FIFA Club World Cup and UEFA Women’s EURO 2025.
In addition to coverage expansion, the Football Business Awards also recognised how Opta data has enhanced football fans’ digital experiences through innovations like the Opta Supercomputer, which leverages AI to simulate and predict the outcomes of matches and competitions.
“We are delighted to receive this prestigious award,” said Charles Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer at Stats Perform. “Football is one of the world’s most competitive industries, both on and off the pitch. Broadcasters and media companies need fresh ways to engage fans and clubs seek cutting-edge insights to gain a tactical edge. The challenge is to meet these diverse needs while maintaining the highest standards of accuracy, reliability and innovation. This recognition by the Football Business Awards is a strong validation of our ongoing investment into our data collection and AI capabilities, which means that Opta continues to be the trusted data and AI powerhouse behind global football storytelling and analysis.”
Several fellow award recipients on the night were also Stats Perform clients, including numerous English Premier League teams.
Stats Perform’s success at the 2025 Football Business Awards follows its recent recognition at the 2025 Sports Technology Awards, where OptaAI Studio and Opta Vision were named Broadcast Technology of the Year following their use by BBC Sport to deliver new AI-powered insights and metrics to its audience during its record-breaking coverage of Euro 2024.
For further information about Stats Perform’s and Opta’s football coverage, please visit https://product.statsperform.com/media.
