Euroleague Basketball brings STATS SportVU advanced player tracking to the Final Four

Euroleague Basketball will introduce advanced player tracking to Europe’s premier basketball competition by bringing the STATS SportVU optical tracking system to the 2017 Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four in Istanbul, Turkey. STATS SportVU will monitor the players, referees and ball for each of the Final Four games played at Sinan Erdem Dome, being the first time in European basketball history that such tracking takes place.

The STATS SportVU system features six cameras, which in real time track the position of the players, referees and basketballs with 25 points of data per second. When analysed, this information can be used in a host of ways both for basketball analytics and sports science purposes. The data breaks many different metrics down for coaching staffs to learn how players performed in various settings, from specific spots on the floor and in different on-court uses as well as against specific defenses and defensive matchups. Not only does it help improve overall team performance, it is also useful as a scouting aid for coaching staffs to learn opponents’ tendencies, strengths and weaknesses and assist in making better basketball decisions. Such information can also be used by team’s medical staff to measure physical characteristics of players in games, such as distance run, average speed and acceleration to assess the strain and physical load for each player. This information can be used both to limit injuries brought on by fatigue and to monitor players returning from injury.

The data taken from STATS SportVU can be used to better explain some aspects of the games to fans. Accordingly, some of the data recorded will be made available to members of the media and the public after the event is over, as part of EuroLeague Basketball’s constant efforts to make the game better for our fans.