St Johnstone’s summer recruitment is being supported by a tie-up with a leading American sports analytics operation.
Perth club owner, Adam Webb, has revealed that a Samford University intern met with he and Simo Valakari in the States last month.
The student’s data expertise has been part of the process which has already brought five new signings into McDiarmid Park, with several more still to come.
Samford work with several top sports businesses, including LA Dodgers in baseball and FC Dallas in the MLS.
Webb believes this level of cooperation better suits a club of St Johnstone’s size, as opposed to putting full-time employees on the payroll.
And he’s optimistic that Valakari will see the benefit of the research – in terms of the transfer market and Championship opposition analysis.
“There is a really high-end sports analytics program in the States that we are quite close with,” said Webb.
“They are contributing a full-time, dedicated intern for our club, doing a lot of analysis on potential players and recruitment, as well as upcoming opponents.
“He was in Atlanta with us when Simo was over.
“He’s a really smart kid – up and coming.
“He will be coming over to Scotland this summer to meet the players in person.”
‘Space-age’
Webb added: “It’s an impressive operation.
“Samford have an incredible facility.
“It’s pretty space-age and with one of the best sports analytics programs in our country.
“We have a really good set of resources helping us.
“It’s a work in progress.
“We are working on figuring out what is the perfect use of those resources while keeping the most important things in-house.
“It’s one of the tools we will use to try to compete with the big guys without going out and hiring multiple additional analytic experts for our staff.
“It’s a great addition to our limited resources and, for them, they benefit from a close affiliation with a Scottish club.
“We can benefit from people who are training to be the best.
“Hopefully we can be part of that training and make them excellent by helping them improve a club such as ours.”
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