Competitve Edge, a new digital platform, will be providing Big Data insights into the world of Fantasy Football from August onwards. Beyond the traditional approach of picking players based on past performance metrics, Competitive Edge will allow users to make informed decisions based on mental, physical and environmental factors which could impact a player’s performance.

Michael Wilson, a Co-Founder of Competitive Edge, discussed the advantages of using behavioural psychology when picking the perfect team. “We believe the saying that football is 10 percent physical and 90 percent mental holds true, and using data to make smart fantasy picks is an untapped advantage. We’re providing insights and information that has not been seen before with the purpose of guiding fantasy players to make more informed decisions. This will, in return, provide positive measurable results in your fantasy sports picks.”

Factors the system will aggregrate will include:

Physical- Not just up-to-date injury reports, but also information on historical injuries which could affect performance

Mental- ‘Intangibles’ which could affect a player’s state of mind

Environmental- Data on weather, altitude, region, types of offence & defence

Competitive Edge will become available in time for this year’s Fantasy Football season and will cost $5 a month. They are already working on extending their platform to include baseball, basketball, soccer and boxing. With 32 million people playing fantasy sports each year in any industry that’s worth $4 billion, companies exploiting performance metrics like Competitive Edge could prove highly successful.

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(Photo credit: Johann Schwarz)