July 9 – The US Soccer Federation is to hold its first football-specific hackathon on Chicago, July 14-15, at the 1871 – Chicago’s Centre for Technology and Entrepreneurship.
The 24-hour event is aimed to attract digital software engineers, developers, data scientists, and students from across the country to code new solutions for football business problems and share ideas that could make a commercial impact.
While in other hackathons part of the prize for the winning developers is generally to be given funding to further develop their prototype in return for equity in their idea, the USSF hackathon has made it a condition of entry that all intellectual property copyright remains with the USSF.
Attendees will be given access to data used by federations and professional clubs with U.S. Soccer providing via Opta its Official Live Match Data as well as providing match data from international competitions and domestic leagues.
Additional data also will be provided, and hackers will be allowed to supplement with publicly available data.
Hackers will be divided into teams of no more than five people and the USSSF is encouraging participants to be creative with their ideas, However, they have come up a starter list for developers looking for inspirations:
Back-End
- To what degree does on-field success drive commercial opportunity off the field?
- Geographic dynamics – what communities (zip codes) display the highest soccer engagement? Are there any common variables or correlations with other market factors?
- A new metric or model for valuing individual defensive performance
- How is performance affected by environmental factors like stadium, weather, elevation, travel, or rest days?
- A model for more accurately comparing players across different leagues
- Does age composition affect team performance? Is there a right mix?
- How have the most successful playing styles in the World Cup evolved over time?
Front-End
- Fan engagement solution to improve the second-screen experience
- A web or social app that uses data to connect Millennial and Gen Z soccer fans
- A solution for incentivizing and gathering more data from fans in the stadium
- A custom tool for scouting teams and individual players
- A web app for comparing team playing styles
A panel of judges will pick two winners with the grand prize-winning team receiving an Ultimate Fan Ticket to a U.S. Soccer-sponsored match of their choice in 2019, including airfare and hotel. In addition, they’ll receive regular tickets to all other U.S. Soccer-sponsored matches in 2019. The runners-up will also receive tickets to all U.S. Soccer-sponsored matches in 2019.
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