Opta Sports


Opta Sports, formerly Opta Sportsdata, is a British sports analytics company. Opta provides data for 30 sports in 70 countries, with clients ranging from leagues to broadcasters and betting websites. The company was founded in 1996, and acquired by Perform Group in 2013. In turn, it was acquired by Vista Equity Partners and STATS LLC in 2019.

History

Opta Index Limited was founded in 1996 to analyze Premier League football matches and was contracted by Sky Sports for their television broadcasts of the 1996–97 season. The following season, Opta became the official statistics provider for the league itself and became sponsored by Carling. In June 1999, Opta was acquired by internet betting service Sports Internet Group for £3.9 million. BSkyB acquired the Sports Internet Group in 2000 and sold Opta to Sportingstatz Limited, a data service co-founded by Aidan Cooney.
Opta debuted its current real-time data collection process for football matches in 2006, leading to an expansion in new data offerings across different sports. In 2011, the company entered the US market when it opened an office in New York and partnered with Major League Soccer.
The company was sold to Perform Group in 2013 for £40 million. Perform, in turn, spun out its sports data business in 2018 and sold it to Vista Equity Partners in 2019, merging it with STATS LLC to form Stats Perform.

Clients

Opta data is used in the betting industry, the print and online media, sponsorship, broadcasting and professional performance analysis. Clients include Sky Sports, ESPN, Arsenal F.C., Oulala Fantasy Football, The All Blacks, Manchester City F.C., William Hill, Major League Soccer, The Guardian, BBC Sport, and Castrol.

Offices

Opta is headquartered in London and has a satellite UK office in Leeds. Additional offices in Europe are located in Munich, Bassano del Grappa, Milan, Paris, Madrid, and Amsterdam. The company opened offices in New York City and Sydney in 2011, followed by a new branch in Montevideo in 2012.