ShotTracker Raises $11 Million With Sights Beyond College Basketball Analytics
ShotTracker parent company, DDSports Inc., has secured $11 million in funding amid basketball’s analytics revolution. Two strategic investors, Evertz Microsystems and Verizon Ventures, led the round.
After deploying its system of court, player and ball sensors in the Mountain West Conference last year, ShotTracker is now partnered with more than 60 Division I men’s and women’s programs, including relationships across the Big Ten and Big 12. CEO Bill Moses said the new funding will help the company continue installing its hardware across the country.
The data the system provides is made available to coaches looking for deeper stats on players and is also sold to broadcasters and media companies. As an example, Moses pointed to the NCAA’s use of ShotTracker data, collected across practices and games, to study the effects of moving the three-point arc for men and women. ShotTracker clients have received NCAA waivers to access real-time data on the bench.
“I think the stakeholders of college basketball are now committed to really investigating the use of technology on our benches for men’s basketball,” NCAA men’s basketball rules editor Art Hyland told ESPN in 2019.
With TV infrastructure provider Evertz on board, ShotTracker is also working on using its data to improve automated broadcasts. “We can create a system where the camera follows our sensors, including our sensor in the ball,” Moses said. “We can produce and direct a basketball game with no cameraman present.”
Meanwhile, Verizon is contributing to ShotTracker’s machine-learning analysis, among other initiatives. “ShotTracker is engaged across our business units, which fits into the investment thesis,” Verizon Ventures managing director Michelle McCarthy said. “It’s not a simple, single commercial relationship.”
Moses said the company’s new investors share his vision of expanding the use of their technology beyond basketball—possibly to college football as well as European sports. He said ShotTracker will target areas where the data ownership structure would allow ShotTracker to continue being the point of connection between teams and data buyers.
Previous ShotTracker investors include late NBA commissioner David Stern and Hall of Famer Magic Johnson, as well as SeventySix Capital and Elysian Ventures. The company was founded in 2013 in Overland Park, Kansas.
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