Data: "Our aim is to enable players to have fun using statistics" (S. Ract, Footbar)

"Our aim is to enable players to have fun using statistics. In the past, players took a dim view of GPS beacons, feeling that they were being spied on. Our aim is precisely to motivate them to equip themselves with sensors so that they can have their personal statistics at the end of each match, a bit like a video game," said Sylvain Ract, CEO of Footbar, to News Tank Football on 26/06/2023.

Founded in 2014, Footbar is a solution that trains artificial intelligence to understand football based on data from a tracker (Meteor) placed on players' legs.

"We've made it into the Top 5 activity trackers on Amazon, across all sports. So we're competing with Garmin and Fitbit, which are two well-known trackers in the running world," said Ract.

"We've come a long way, particularly with the Covid-19 transition. At the time, we were much more on a B2B model, with partnerships such as with 5-a-side football centres. During Covid, all these practices came to a halt, so it was up to individual players to continue training alone in their own backyard. That's one of the reasons why we switched to this…