What Hub has done for us on a daily basis is bring clarity. Before, my mornings started with a handful of emails and phone calls just trying to get on the same page as my coaches and staff. Now, I open Hub and I have a clear picture of what’s happening across every program — schedules, updates, action items — all in one view.

Rob Mallory

Director of Athletics at Missouri Southern

Today’s student-athletes are more digitally connected than any generation before them. They are comfortable navigating technology, managing information on the go, and relying on mobile apps to organize their day. For athletic departments, the opportunity isn’t changing athlete behavior, it’s supporting it in a way that feels intuitive and seamless.

Teamworks Hub is designed to fit naturally into the student-athlete’s day, becoming the app they go to stay informed, connected, and organized. By supporting existing routines rather than changing them, Hub drives consistent engagement and clearer communication between athletes and staff.

As athlete involvement becomes more reliable, departments begin to feel the impact across daily operations. Coaches experience smoother communication with fewer follow-ups. Athletic trainers gain better visibility into schedules and availability. Academic advisors identify optimal windows for study halls by reviewing athlete schedules in real time, reducing conflicts and improving attendance. Administrators benefit from clearer coordination across teams and departments. All because athletes are showing up in one place, every day.

This pattern is already evident across college athletics. Teamworks works with over 250 athletic departments in the NCAA, and across those programs, student-athletes generate approximately 18 million logins per month.

Stepping Inside the Data

Data gathered in February, 2026 of student-athlete logins from programs who added Hub onto Teamworks C+R

The numbers tell a consistent story. Across six programs, comparing a representative month of athlete logins on Teamworks Compliance + Recruiting alone to the latest month on record since adopting Hub, January through February 2026, the difference is striking regardless of where a program started.

Some programs came in with very limited C+R engagement. Missouri Southern State had 14 athlete logins in their sample month before Hub, and 4,489 in the most recent month on record. Elmhurst University moved from 33 to 6,065. Lee University went from 50 to 4,987, and the University of North Georgia climbed from 67 to 4,363. These aren’t gradual improvements. They represent a fundamental shift in how athletes are showing up on the platform.

Programs that already had more active C+R usage saw the same pattern. The University of West Florida had 264 logins in their baseline month, which grew to 4,952 in the most recent sample. The University of Findlay went from 704 to 2,515. Even where some engagement already existed, Hub expanded it dramatically.

Meeting Athletes Where They Are

The jump in engagement isn’t accidental. Hub gives student-athletes a single place to manage everything that matters to them, and when a platform holds that much of their day, along with ensuring they are staying compliant, opening it becomes habit. Here’s what athletes find when they do:

• Calendars and Schedules: Practices, competitions, travel, and off days all live in one view.
• Messages and Files: Direct communication from coaches and staff, along with team documents, are immediately accessible and easy to act on.
• Forms: Athletes can securely complete and submit forms without leaving the platform.
• Travel Itineraries: Trip details, logistics, and schedules are centralized.
• Complimentary Tickets: Athletes can request and transfer tickets directly through Hub, including ADA accommodations and seating preferences.
• CARA Approvals: When Hub calendar events sync automatically to C+R’s rules engine, athletes can review and approve CARA-related activities right from the mobile app.

Together, Hub and C+R create a seamless experience for athletes and staff alike. Athletes stay engaged on a platform built around their daily routine, while compliance staff gain the visibility they need without adding steps to anyone’s workflow.

What Hub has done for us on a daily basis is bring clarity. Before, my mornings started with a handful of emails and phone calls just trying to get on the same page as my coaches and staff. Now, I open Hub and I have a clear picture of what’s happening across every program — schedules, updates, action items — all in one view.

Rob Mallory

Director of Athletics at Missouri Southern

Mallory added, “That’s been transformative for me personally, but the real value is what it’s done for our department culture. When everyone is aligned and informed, you spend less time chasing information and more time focused on what actually matters: supporting our student-athletes.”

As athletic departments continue to evolve, supporting athlete involvement means understanding how student-athletes already interact with technology and meeting them there. Hub does exactly that, creating a daily touchpoint that feels familiar, useful, and essential.

To learn more about how Teamworks Hub can impact your department, visit https://teamworks.com/hub/

The post Why Teamworks Hub Fits Naturally Into the Student-Athlete Experience appeared first on Teamworks.

As the 2026 World Baseball Classic (WBC) gets underway, all eyes are once again on Samurai Japan, the country’s national baseball team and defending champions.

The tournament officially began on March 5, with Japan playing its opening game on March 6. Since then, the team has made a powerful start to its title defense, securing three victories in their first three games and quickly establishing themselves as one of the tournament’s dominant forces.

While the impressive performances on the field have captured headlines, they also reflect the meticulous preparation happening behind the scenes.

According to recent reporting by Japanese business newspaper Nikkei, and sports writer Masayoshi Niwa, one of the lesser-known elements supporting the team’s preparation is advanced analytics technology, with Teamworks Game Intelligence described by Niwa as the “hidden force” helping the team analyze performance, prepare for opponents, and inform decision-making.

Read the full article here.

A New Layer of Preparation

Baseball has long embraced statistics, but modern analytics platforms now allow teams to go far deeper than traditional box scores.

Through advanced data models and game intelligence tools, coaching staff can study pitching matchups, evaluate opponent tendencies, and simulate potential scenarios before stepping onto the field.

This kind of preparation can be particularly valuable in international tournaments like the WBC, where teams must quickly analyze opponents and adapt strategies across a compressed schedule.

Platforms like Teamworks Game Intelligence help teams transform massive datasets into clear insights that coaches and analysts can apply directly to game planning and decision-making.

Japan’s opening game performance, including the record-setting offensive inning, offered an early glimpse of how preparation and execution can come together when players and staff have access to the right insights at the right time.

For Samurai Japan, this analytical layer complements the experience of coaches and scouts, allowing the team to blend traditional baseball expertise with data-driven insights.

More Than Technology — A Partnership

One of the differentiators highlighted in the Nikkei coverage is that the support behind the team goes beyond the technology itself.

Leonard Yang, Technical Product Manager (Baseball) at Teamworks, has been working directly with the team and is also traveling with them to ensure the tools are fully integrated into their preparation process.

“Our goal is not simply to provide software,” says Yang. “We work closely with the coaching staff to translate complex data into practical insights that can support decisions on the field. Whether it’s preparing for opponents or reviewing performance trends, we aim to ensure the technology fits seamlessly into the team’s workflow.”

That hands-on collaboration reflects a broader philosophy behind the platform: Teamworks doesn’t just deliver analytics tools, it partners with teams to help them get the most value from them.

The Pressure of Defending a Title

Samurai Japan enters the 2026 tournament carrying both momentum and pressure.

The national program, which brings together top professional and amateur players under the banner of “Samurai Japan”, has built a strong reputation internationally and currently sits among the world’s top-ranked baseball nations.

But success in tournaments like the World Baseball Classic requires more than talent.

Teams must navigate unfamiliar opponents, limited preparation time, and intense national expectations.
Japan’s emphatic opening win shows how quickly a tournament can shift when a team finds its rhythm, but maintaining that momentum across the entire competition will require continued focus and preparation.
In that environment, every marginal advantage matters.

For Japan, combining elite players, experienced coaches, and advanced game intelligence tools could provide exactly that.

A New Era of Baseball Preparation

As baseball continues to evolve, analytics and technology are becoming increasingly embedded in how teams prepare, compete, and evaluate performance.

The Nikkei article highlights a broader shift happening across professional sports: technology is no longer just a back-office tool, it is becoming a competitive asset on the field.

For Samurai Japan, that transformation is already underway.

And as the team continues its World Baseball Classic campaign following its historic-setting opening victory, the preparation behind the scenes, including the “hidden force” of data, may prove just as important as the action between the lines.

Interested in learning more about Teamworks Game Intelligence?

Learn more about Teamworks Game Intelligence here or get in touch with our team to explore how leading teams are using data to gain a competitive edge.

The post The “Hidden Force” Behind Samurai Japan appeared first on Teamworks.

Drawing from his transformative work in professional cycling and now applying those lessons in football, Zeeman offered a candid, practical look at how clubs can outsmart, not outspend, the competition.

From Cycling Crisis to Culture-Driven Success

Before joining AZ, Zeeman helped rebuild Team Jumbo-Visma (formerly Rabobank) during one of the most turbulent periods in cycling history. After losing its main sponsor and operating on one of the smallest budgets in the WorldTour, the team had two options: shrink or evolve.

They chose evolution.

The transformation wasn’t purely tactical, it was cultural. The team rebuilt from the ground up, establishing core values, removing ego from decision-making, and committing to innovation. Data became central not as a trend, but as a necessity.

A defining example? Signing Jonas Vingegaard, a rider no other team wanted, based on data signals others had overlooked. Three years later, he won the Tour de France.

The lesson: Competitive advantage isn’t always about resources. It’s about conviction in your process.

Translating Lessons to Football

At AZ Alkmaar, Zeeman is applying the same philosophy.

Rather than trying to change everything at once, the focus has been on identifying the two or three areas where the club can truly differentiate. For AZ, operating without the financial power of Europe’s elite, that means being sharper, more objective, and more disciplined in decision-making.

One area of particular focus: recruitment.

Data vs. The Eye Test

Every club today has scouts. Most have analysts. But Zeeman argues the real edge lies not in having data, it lies in how decisively you commit to it.

He described the common tension: a scout passionately recommending a player after live viewing, only for the player’s data profile to disappoint. These moments create friction, but they also create opportunity.

Quoting behavioral psychology research (inspired by Daniel Kahneman), Zeeman emphasized how human judgment is susceptible to bias, narrative, and emotion. Data, when used properly, introduces objectivity.

That doesn’t mean removing humans from the process. Instead, AZ has clearly defined roles:

• Data informs player quality and predictive value (using Teamworks Player ID)
  
• Live scouting evaluates personality, behavior, and team fit.
  
• Final decisions follow a structured, transparent process led by the technical director and leadership team.

The key principle: data is the foundation. The human layer is additive, not overriding.

Why Work With External Models?

A natural question followed: if AZ has its own data team, why partner with a platform like Teamworks Player ID instead of building everything internally?

Zeeman offered a simple analogy.

Playing recruitment without robust predictive models is like playing poker against a professional. You might win once or twice. But over 100 hands, the professional will win more often.

Recruitment decisions are multi-million-euro bets. Over time, a disciplined data-led approach produces a higher success rate than intuition alone.

Crucially, Zeeman stressed the importance of transparency. If a club is going to base transfer decisions on predictive models, leadership must understand them. Education and clarity build trust, and trust enables alignment.

“If you are going to spend millions on players, you need to understand why the models are surfacing these players.” – Merijn on Transparency vs. Black Box Model.

“Data-Driven Is Not Romantic”

One of the more striking points raised was cultural resistance.

In football, being openly data-driven can be perceived as “not romantic.” Fans and media often prefer traditional narratives: instinct, character, passion. For larger clubs under intense scrutiny, leaning too heavily into analytics publicly can create backlash.

For clubs like AZ, however, operating intelligently is non-negotiable.

Without the commercial power or global fanbase of bigger clubs, AZ must find marginal gains wherever possible — and data provides that leverage.

Process Over Ego

What gives Zeeman confidence that the approach works?
Not short-term results. Not individual signings.
Process.

He emphasized the importance of:

• Removing blame culture.
  
• Reviewing decisions honestly.
  
• Learning from every transfer window.
  
• Trusting the long-term signal over short-term noise.
  

Even when a player underperforms initially, AZ maintains conviction in the data. Adaptation periods vary. External factors exist. But if the profile is strong, belief in the process remains.

“We have so much confidence in the data that we believe if a player falls short in the first year, in the end he will succeed.”

The Bigger Challenge: Balancing Value Creation and Winning

AZ has generated significant transfer revenue in recent years. But Zeeman was clear: financial success alone is not enough.

The ongoing challenge is balancing:

• Developing and selling players to sustain the club financially.
  
• Building a mature enough squad to compete for trophies.
  

It’s a debate happening inside the club right now, and one that many development-focused clubs across Europe face.

Final Takeaway

The webinar made one thing clear: data is not just a tool. It is a mindset.
It requires:

• Cultural alignment.
  
• Transparent processes.
  
• Education across departments.
  
• Courage to resist external noise.
  
• Long-term conviction.

For AZ Alkmaar, recruitment is not about chasing hype. It’s about reducing bias, increasing probability, and making better decisions more consistently over time.

As Zeeman put it, you may not win every hand. But over 100 hands, the disciplined approach wins more often. And in modern football, that edge compounds.

If you’re rethinking how your club approaches recruitment, alignment, and predictive modeling:

Connect with Rich Byrne to continue the conversation or explore how Teamworks Player ID supports data-driven recruitment.

The post Data-Driven Isn’t Romantic — But It Wins: Lessons from AZ Alkmaar’s Model appeared first on Teamworks.

At the 2026 Winter Olympics, Teamworks is proud to support six Olympic national organizations, working with hundreds of athletes, coaches, and performance staff across elite winter sport programs.

While the world sees podium moments, taking home gold depends just as much on coordinated operations as athletic execution. Teams must manage travel logistics, credentials, training schedules, medical oversight, and daily communication, all within a compressed and high-pressure environment. Teamworks supports that complexity by centralizing communication and performance data into one connected ecosystem. 

On one side, Hub serves as the central operating system for coordination, streamlining schedules, travel updates, and operational logistics while keeping athletes, staff, and extended support networks connected in real time. On the other side, AMS provides the performance backbone, consolidating athlete monitoring, training loads, wellness data, and medical insights so staff can make informed decisions under Olympic pressure. Together, they create a trusted source of truth when it matters most.

Over 2,100+ people at the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics are supported through Teamworks Hub and AMS

The diversity of winter sports adds another layer of complexity. For 2026, Teamworks is helping facilitate workflows across hockey, alpine skiing, curling, snowboarding, freestyle skiing, cross-country skiing, figure skating, speed skating, bobsleigh, skeleton, and biathlon.

Each discipline brings unique demands. Sliding sports require meticulous coordination and risk management. Endurance events depend on detailed performance monitoring and recovery planning. Ice sports operate within tightly controlled shared schedules, while snow events must adapt to changing weather conditions. Across every sport, streamlined communication and centralized performance insight remain essential.

“I spent 12 years and three Olympics as an athlete,” said Nick Malouf, Account Executive at Teamworks. “You rarely notice the people getting everything right behind the scenes — the logistics, the communication, the programming. You don’t see that work. You just feel it. When it’s right, you arrive ready. When it’s not, you arrive carrying weight you shouldn’t be.”

The Winter Games also stretch beyond competition. Teams live inside Olympic Villages for extended periods, coordinate across multiple venues, and manage international travel logistics, all while balancing recovery, media obligations, and connection with family. In this environment, miscommunication isn’t just inconvenient; it can disrupt preparation.

By bringing communication and performance data into one connected system, Teamworks helps reduce uncertainty so organizations can operate with confidence. That foundation allows athletes and staff to focus on execution when the moment arrives.

To learn more about Teamworks Hub visit https://teamworks.com/hub/. To learn more about Teamworks AMS visit https://teamworks.com/ams/.

The post Milano Cortina 2026: Supporting Teams on the World’s Biggest Winter Stage appeared first on Teamworks.

University of Utah Athletics runs its performance operations on Teamworks Performance – including High Performance (AMS), S&C, and Nutrition – creating the connected foundation behind its integrated model.

In a recent webinar hosted by Luke Barthel, Senior Account Executive at Teamworks, Utah’s leadership shared how they built an aligned performance team.

What stood out wasn’t just their structure. It was their commitment to consistent communication, transparency, and trust.

Utah didn’t approach integration as a buzzword or a technology rollout. They approached it as shared responsibility across strength & conditioning, sports medicine, sport science, nutrition, and sports psychology.

As Anna Cruse, Assistant Athletic Director for Applied Health & Performance Science at Utah, said during the conversation:

“When you look at everything holistically instead of in silos – everything changes.”

That mindset defines Utah Performance.

A Shared Model Across Departments

Utah organizes each sport around a dedicated Sport Performance Team (SPT), bringing together strength & conditioning, sports medicine, sport science, nutrition, and sports psychology.

These groups don’t function as separate departments –  they operate as one team, communicating consistently and sharing responsibility for athlete outcomes.

Cody Lockling, Assistant AD of Sports Performance for Olympic Sports, described it clearly:

“When we’re aligned on the shared outcome, you can feel it day to day. We’re not chasing different goals, we’re working toward the same one.”

That alignment is visible to athletes and coaches. They hear one message and they see one coordinated team. And that clarity builds trust, which ultimately drives buy-in.

The Turning Point: Centralized Visibility

As Utah continued strengthening their collaboration, they recognized an opportunity to elevate it further: bring their performance ecosystem into one connected environment.

Performance data, medical documentation, nutrition metrics, and readiness insights all carried value. Centralizing that information would make collaboration even more seamless.

Associate AD for Health & Performance Patrick Jenkins described the moment clearly:

“We had to centralize all this information that was living in different places. It took too much effort to gather it, synthesize it, and bring it somewhere we could all see it. We had to get rid of that.”

That commitment led Utah to implement Teamworks High Performance (AMS).

With shared context available in real time, conversations became more efficient. Adjustments happened sooner and alignment became easier to sustain across all of their teams.

Mental Health Integrated, With Guardrails

One of the distinctive elements of Utah’s model is how mental health is included intentionally.

Sports psychology isn’t siloed or treated as an isolated service. It’s embedded within the performance ecosystem. Mental performance and wellbeing are part of the broader conversation. At the same time, privacy remains paramount.

Sensitive information is protected through structured access and clear boundaries. Mental health isn’t overshared, but it isn’t hidden either.

Dr. Jonathan Ravarino, Assistant AD of Sports Psychology & Wellness, explained:

“We’re able to stay ethically sound while still collaborating in ways that support performance. It’s about knowing what needs to be shared and respecting when it doesn’t.”

That balance reduces stigma, strengthens care, and reflects the reality that performance and wellbeing are deeply connected.

The Right Information, At the Right Level

Centralizing information doesn’t mean everyone sees everything.

Within Teamworks High Performance, access is structured intentionally so individuals only see what they need to. 

Coaches receive streamlined, actionable reports that eliminate information overload. Practitioners access deeper dashboards relevant to their discipline. Clinical and mental health information remains appropriately restricted.

This structure reinforces transparency while protecting privacy across the entire ecosystem – from athletes to coaches to practitioners.

Integration works because visibility is thoughtful, not unlimited.

High Performance in Action

During the webinar, Meredith Price, Assistant Athletic Director for Performance Nutrition, shared how High Performance transformed her team’s workflow.

Historically, nutrition data – DEXA scans, hydration testing, lab markers, weigh-ins, consultation notes –  lived across separate tools.

Now, that data lives in one centralized view within Teamworks High Performance.

Their dashboard allows the team to layer:

• Body composition trends
• Lean mass symmetry during return-to-play
• Hydration history
• Iron levels
• Consultation documentation

By bringing nutrition data into a single environment, dietitians can seamlessly move between clinical and performance responsibilities.

As Meredith shared:

“It’s improved our workflow, but more importantly, it’s improved how we care for our athletes. We can see the whole picture before we ever sit down with them.”

When nutrition insights are viewed alongside training and medical context, interventions become more precise and individualized.

The Foundation and the Future

Throughout the conversation, one theme surfaced repeatedly: consistent communication.

Leadership meets regularly and their Sport Performance Teams operate with defined checkpoints. Questions are encouraged and perspectives are shared openly across disciplines.

As Anna Cruse put it:

“The systems help, but the foundation is communication. That’s what allows us to actually function as one team.”

That foundation –  communication, transparency, and trust –  is what makes Utah’s integrated model sustainable.

And it’s also what makes it scalable.

For Utah, integration isn’t a finished initiative, it’s an evolving standard. The next phase isn’t about adding more tools. It’s about strengthening the relationships and systems they’ve built –  across campus, across disciplines, and across performance environments.

As Patrick Jenkins shared:

“We want to keep removing barriers so our teams can focus on what matters, our student-athletes.”

Utah’s approach shows what’s possible when performance teams truly operate as one. They are a coordinated system – grounded in communication, transparency, trust, and collaboration.

Want to see how Teamworks Performance can support a more aligned performance team at your organization? Reach out to Luke Barthel at [email protected] or reach out below to learn more.

The post What Happens When a Performance Team Operates as One: Utah Athletics appeared first on Teamworks.

Earlier this year, Teamworks acquired hockey analytics leader Sportlogiq, bringing its AI-powered player-tracking and advanced insights into the Teamworks platform to further strengthen our presence in hockey and sports performance. Today, Sportlogiq’s analytics are deeply embedded across the hockey ecosystem, trusted by 31 of 32 NHL teams and professional leagues worldwide, including the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) and the Swedish Hockey League (SHL). As a result, many of the coaches, executives, and analysts preparing for the Olympics are leveraging our technology, long before international competition even begins. 

A Common Language Across Leagues and Levels

The technology transforms game video into objective insights on puck management, scoring chance creation, defensive pressure, off-puck movement, and more. Because those insights are used consistently across the professional and elite hockey landscape, national team management groups enter Olympic preparation speaking the same analytical language.

When federation staff and coaching groups come together from different leagues and competitive contexts, our technology provides continuity. Player profiles, tactical tendencies, and performance benchmarks are already established, allowing teams to focus on alignment rather than translation.

Informing Roster Construction and Line Combinations

Olympic hockey is not about building a roster for a long season. It’s about assembling the right mix of players who can perform immediately, in clearly defined roles, and helps national team staff make those decisions with confidence.

Using video-linked analytics, teams can evaluate:

• How players drive offense or suppress chances, independent of league or competition level
• Which player types complement one another most effectively in specific line combinations
• How individual strengths translate to tournament pace and opponent style

This allows coaches to build lineups based on how players actually impact the game, not just reputation or surface-level production. When margins are thin, understanding fit can be just as important as identifying talent.

iCE’s line combination tool enables coaches to evaluate lines, defensive pairings, and special team’s units

One Connected Performance Platform

As part of the Teamworks ecosystem, the hockey technology integrates seamlessly with video, scouting, and collaboration tools used by national teams. Data, insights, and clips live in one connected environment, making it easier for staffs to share information, align on strategy, and communicate with athletes.

In the compressed schedules of Olympic and international tournaments, efficiency matters. Coaches and analysts spend less time managing technology, and more time preparing game plans to refine execution.

With all data linked to video, iCE’s video filtering empowers coaches and decision makers to get instant context to any of Sportlogiq’s 4,000+ datapoints captured for every game. 

Olympic hockey brings together the best players, coaches, and executives from across the global game, on both the men’s and women’s sides. Teamworks widespread adoption across professional and amateur hockey ensures that when those groups unite under a national crest, they do so with shared insight and trusted data.

The post Powering Olympic Hockey Performance appeared first on Teamworks.

Presenting at TGG’s Big Data Webinar, Jennings – who is the former Technical Director of the UAE Pro League and Academy Director at Stoke City – explained how the Harburg Group use data not only as a tool, but as a culture. 

Gareth Jennings: I first met Ben Harburg in the UAE. I was Technical Director for the UAE Pro League and had gone to visit a facility there. Ben was looking at the facility too, as a potential training camp for Cadiz, the Spanish club he holds a minority stake in.

We started talking about data in clubs and how it’s used. Ben recognised the size of the industry but also how inefficient it was. I shared some insights from my experiences and it seemed we had a common theme around how you could make clubs a lot more efficient in the use of data and how you could influence, recruit and develop using data.

Then we got onto talking about how you could use data to help develop a culture within a multi-club environment.

Ben sent me a Cadiz shirt and a few weeks later I sent him a Grimsby Town shirt, because I sit on the Board there. The friendship took over from there and Ben offered me the opportunity to come on board with the Harburg Group as part of the multi-club group, firstly as part of the leadership board and then as Group Sporting Director, which is the role I hold now.

From my side, data is not just a tool, it’s a culture and a behaviour. It’s not just how we recruit players, it’s how we develop players, how we make performance decisions, how we structure our operations, how we build trust in our environment.

Crucially, it supports our business goals and our cultural identity and that’s what this article is going to be about.

The Harburg Group: A background

Ben Harburg is a global institutional investor who has worked in private equity for a number of years. If you Google him, you’ll see someone who is very comfortable talking in public and who has a really strong passion for the game.

When we go to games, he sits with the fans, because he wants to be with them and understand them.

Harburg Group has 100% ownership of Al-Kholood in the Saudi Pro League. We’re the first foreign-owned and 100% privately owned club in the League.

We also have a minority stake in Cadiz in Spain, where we play an influencer role, particularly around data. Then we have three African clubs, which is mainly around a talent pipeline.

Those clubs have different histories, different cultures, different budgets, different expectations and different football realities. The bit where we’re really trying to unite them is through data.

How data reinforces core values

Our core values underpin everything we do. They are the foundation of our strategy.

Our core values are to be ambitious, innovative, credible, collaborative and human-centric.

1. In terms of being ambitious, we’re able to use data to set specific global benchmarks and standards in terms of what we want to achieve, so we can be realistic around the goals and objectives we’re setting within our organisation. Then we can evidence them to people, through an onboarding process and as they go about their day-to-day jobs.
2. We want to make sure we’re innovative. This is a responsibility on us as the Senior Leadership Team: to make sure we are tech-first, but also that we’re doing research around the future models that are available to us in terms of data, being able to use it more effectively and efficiently and also recognising where technological advances can add value to us in future.
3. Credibility. What we want to do is make sure we’ve got an evidence base that’s really clear and removes risk, but also adds a layer of trust. At the moment, I feel we’re still telling the story a lot within our organisation. Although I’ve worked in data-driven organisations previously – and so too have our owners – we want to try and build that credibility even more and be able to use it as an evidence-based in the work we do.
4. Being collaborative: Making sure we’ve got tools available to us that allow us to share data and information. This is about making sure your decision-making is based on data so it’s true and removes risk.
5. If we’ve got data and it’s supporting decision-making, can we use it as a tool to identify and support individuals in their roles, so we have a really clear strategy? Can we recognise when there are uplifts in specific areas of work? Can we recognise where there are dips in performance, so we can make sure we support and develop people? Can we use predictive data to look at what the future is going to look like in terms of what skillsets these individuals will need? That human-centric piece is really important. And then making sure that individuals in our organisation know how we’re using data.
   
   

Teamworks

When we did analysis about individuals working in the organisations and their data challenges, one of the biggest data challenges that emerged was the number of data providers for different elements of the organisation.

So we’ve really tried to streamline it as much as possible. We know there are going to be other forms and sources of data that we’re going to use implicitly, however, what we felt was really important was to have a data partner for some core areas of our business.

Teamworks have been super helpful to us. They manage and administer a lot of our data through their platforms – in terms of using Teamworks Player ID for recruitment. A key part of that is being able to integrate our game model.

Although we’re using data through a number of APIs, we also wanted to make sure our game model was embedded. Also using Teamworks Hub and Teamworks AMS to make sure that we were centralised in core parts of the business as well.

Teamworks Athlete Management System and Hub – they’re very new to us within the organisation, but we are looking at how to expand that across the group, not just in Al-Kholood.

In terms of being a data influencer in other areas of the group, we’ve used the performance intelligence that we’re taking for the recruitment of players in the Saudi Pro League and are using it to influence our other clubs. That’s been a key tool for us.

Leadership setting the culture

Leadership sets the culture within an organisation. I’m hugely fortunate, because I had a relationship with Ben Harburg prior to coming on board.

I’ve had a management meeting this morning with our Board and I couldn’t just go in and list a number of facts. I had to bring evidence and use data to make decisions.

There can’t be an expectation within the organisation that we use data for player recruitment or player development, but it’s not used at the top.

Part of that is making sure we’ve got an Executive Dashboard for our owners and that data is readily available to them, so we can look at squad-cost modelling, player evaluations and pathways, availability trends, performance, KPIs, market and risk insights and make sure we’ve got good decision-making opportunities within the group, but also that we’re reducing risk around some of those decisions.

I’ve spoken about making sure data is part of our values, which underpins our strategy. So we have a number of areas that we focus on with our strategic plan but also a number of conditions for organisational success that we focus on.

When we speak to staff within the organisation, when we tell the story, we always make sure it’s centred on how strategy is linked to data and how the conditions for our organisational success are also linked to data.

We’re very fortunate that Robert Eenhorn, who was previously at AZ Alkmaar and is a really close friend of Billy Beane, is part of our core leadership team.

And our leadership culture is definitely set from the top. There is an expectation from Ben that I will make sure data is used to evidence our decision-making. 

The Group was developed with this in mind, so we knew what that looked like from day one. And we make sure that the staff and people we bring into our organisation have a data-first mindset as well.

What I think is really important is that everyone is part of that story. It can’t just be that it comes from the top – we want to make sure it’s all the way through our organisation.

And that’s everyone, so even our players – we want them to understand why we’ve recruited them, where they fit within our data model, where they fit in terms of their development and the growth of the organisation.

Do pathways exist for them internally within the club or externally?  And that’s the same with all  the staff. We want them to understand why they’ve come into the organisation and what data we used to identify them when they came in.

Des Buckingham

Our Head Coach at Al-Kholood is Des Buckingham. A number of you will know who Des is. He worked at City Football Group for a number of years, at Melbourne City, then won the Indian Premier League and went onto Oxford United and got them promoted from League One to the Championship.

His win percentage is fairly good and his character profile was a really good fit for us. He could also evidence – and we could use data to evidence as well – how he played football and this was reflective of our game model.

We used our performance partner to look at the individual profiles of players who had played under Des and there was a consistent spike in performance data when they played under him.

This was really important to us, because we are a multi-club group that wants to identify undervalued players, develop them and trade them. We want to bring them into the Saudi market and ideally sell them at a big return on investment.

What we want to do is make sure players are developing in our environment – and what we could recognise from our data provider was that there were big performance spikes in a large number of the players that had played under Des.

Undervalued talent

How do we use data to identify undervalued talent? How can we evidence it and communicate it to staff? How do we make sure it’s used for our talent and development pathways?

We have development plans, not only for the players but for all individuals within our organisation. All of that is done via data and metrics.

We need it to be really meaningful and make sure the strategy is lived and that data sits at the heart of our ability to do that.

This is about objective decision-making, integrated and transparency standards and making sure data is visible to everyone in the context of their role.

What I don’t want  is for that data to disappear, or for people within our organisation not to understand how decisions have been made. It’s really important that we are able to translate that to them, so they’ve got a clear understanding of their job role and the context in which decisions are made.

We are also transferring our club from Ar Rass to a Riyadh Campus. As part of that, there will be an Innovation Hub, where we’ll look at innovative methods around technology and the use of data, to make sure the future growth of our organisation is data led.

Unified game model

As part of our initial onboarding process for staff, certainly in a technical and performance context, it was almost a blank sheet of paper.

We felt it was a really important part of our data culture to make sure we had a game model and tactical philosophy around how we play, how we train and then being able to link this into other areas of the business.

Although the game model was written by myself and our Sporting Director at Al-Kholood, Alex Garcia, we made sure it was documented and that there was data aligned to every element, so our decisions could be really well informed.

Part of that process was enabling our technical and performance staff to have input around how our game model should be developed – not just for Al-Kholood but for the broader group as well.

We’ve got some shared principles and tactical anchors that will be core across the group. However, some will also be based on the context of the league, with some tactical flexibility allowed within that, because we want to get specific performance outcomes based on the results of games and individual players.

This is for player development and also to get return on investment, because we want to sell players into specific markets.

The game model was a really big piece for us and continues to be developed. We have some blocks of time where we have game model monitoring, so a specific number of games where we use the data to tell us whether our performance is reflective of the game model.

We have a reporting process that goes back into the Board around that. We also look at training data to whether it is reflective of the game model data and our monitoring of performance on the pitch.

Player profiles & metrics

Linked into this, we have specific role profiles.

This is just a snapshot of some of the data that we’ve pulled out of the Teamworks Player ID. We have a number of different parameters that are really specific to us. Our intelligence data uses onboard event data and we also have an API for physical and tracking data.

What we’ve also done is put an additional layer on top of that: our specific game model for the Group. And we’ve added templates for each role-specific profile. We have some other data that feed into us around character profile as well

Key takeaways

In terms of the multi-club group and making data the heart of our culture, what is really important is making sure it comes from the top while not neglecting everybody else.

Culture starts with leadership, but staff and players are part of that ecosystem.

What’s really captured my imagination has been that when we’ve shared broader data with players, they have been really interested and have wanted more information. That has been a key part of them buying into us as a club and also as a Group.

Our data partner Teamworks has been absolutely key to us getting a level of consistency, so we breed familiarity in terms of what we do across a number of core areas of our business.

We’ve also done a number of years’ research around which different providers can provide us with specific tools, who we work with and who is the best fit.

And then the most important bit is how data reinforces your values, strategy and long-term goals.We want to protect our staff and players and use data as not just a tool on a daily basis, but something that is going to inform their decision-making, support their development and help them grow with the organisation.

If you’d like to watch the full webinar, or learn more about Player ID, get in contact with us.

The post Why Data Is a Culture, Not a Tool – By Gareth Jennings appeared first on Teamworks.

Through this long-term partnership, SCIAC institutions will leverage Teamworks technology to streamline compliance workflows, enhance recruiting organization, and promote consistency across the conference, all while supporting the unique operational realities of Division III athletics.

As regulatory requirements continue to evolve, SCIAC leadership sought a solution that could reduce administrative burden for staff and coaches without sacrificing accuracy, accountability, or education.

“For our member institutions, everything was becoming more complex while staffing models still remained very lean,” said Jennifer Dubow, Commissioner of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. “We were looking for a platform that would help us be less time intensive while still meeting everything our institutions need to track.”

SCIAC chose Teamworks based on its understanding of collegiate operations, shared compliance responsibilities, and the need for flexible, intuitive technology that coaches and administrators can adopt with confidence.

“Teamworks understands the realities of Division III,” Dubow said. “Our compliance model is a shared responsibility, and we need a solution that supports collaboration and education across campus, not just for compliance officers, but for everyone involved.”

Supporting Coaches, Strengthening Standards

For Division III coaches, who often balance recruiting, coaching, and administrative responsibilities, Teamworks provides tools that bring clarity, organization, and efficiency to daily workflows. By simplifying recruiting documentation and compliance expectations, C+R helps coaches spend less time navigating the process and more time focused on student-athlete development.

At the conference level, the partnership reinforces shared standards and reduces disparities between institutions by providing access to the same technology and resources across SCIAC.

“When everyone is working toward the same goals on the same platform, it strengthens our shared expectations and reinforces a culture of education and accountability,” Dubow said.

Through this partnership, Teamworks continues its commitment to supporting conferences and institutions with technology that enhances operational efficiency, improves collaboration, and ultimately elevates the student-athlete experience.

To learn more about the SCIAC, visit https://thesciac.org/. Or to learn more about Teamworks Compliance + Recruiting visit https://teamworks.com/compliance/.

The post Teamworks Announces Five-Year Conference-Wide Partnership with the SCIAC appeared first on Teamworks.

“The acquisition of Sportlogiq strengthens our hockey offering by adding the critical foundation for advanced analytics—automated, video-based player tracking that uncovers insights invisible to the human eye,” said Zach Maurides, CEO and Founder of Teamworks. “We’re combining Sportlogiq’s industry-leading video and data infrastructure with our predictive Intelligence models to deliver a complete data and analytics platform for talent evaluation, game preparation, and player development. This acquisition reinforces our commitment to AI and data innovation, and demonstrates how we’re building vertically integrated solutions that help teams win.”

Sportlogiq is trusted by 97% of  NHL teams and serves 220+ clients worldwide, including professional hockey leagues across North America and Europe, 42 NCAA hockey programs, IIHF federations, and US soccer and global football organizations.

“Sportlogiq was built by athletes and data scientists who understand how elite teams operate,” said Mitchell Wasserman, CEO of Sportlogiq. “Our computer vision technology and the iCE platform have become the gold standard in hockey analytics across the NHL. Joining Teamworks enables us to accelerate innovation, expand our capabilities, and deliver even greater value to the teams and leagues that depend on us. Together, we’re defining the future of intelligent sports technology.”

As part of the acquisition, Sportlogiq’s team of 80 employees, including 10 AI researchers, backed by over 180 published research papers and patents, will join Teamworks, significantly expanding the company’s industry-leading AI, computer vision, and data science expertise. 

Successful collaboration between Teamworks and Sportlogiq is nothing new. Sportlogiq has provided player tracking and event data that powers Teamworks Intelligence models, delivering position-specific hockey metrics that serve as leading indicators of future player performance and value. Now part of Teamworks, Intelligence metrics will flow seamlessly into Sportlogiq’s intuitive iCE platform, enabling teams to move from video to advanced insights with just a click. Teamworks recently executed a similar playbook for American Football through the acquisition of Telemetry Sports.

“Sportlogiq expands Teamworks’ game preparation and talent acquisition offering by bringing best-in-class video analysis, automated tracking, and analytics,” said Blaine Patterson, Chief Commercial Officer at Sportlogiq. “Together with Teamworks’ predictive Intelligence models and robust operations and performance products, hockey organizations can now manage all their core workflows in one integrated system.”

About Teamworks

Teamworks is the leading operating system for high performance, powering more than 6,500 sports teams and military organizations around the globe. Its suite of best-in-class products drives winning by enabling data-driven talent acquisition, seamless operations excellence, holistic performance development and game preparation. Founded in 2004, Teamworks has strategically broadened its platform through acquisitions including Smartabase, Zelus Analytics, and Telemetry Sports, giving modern high-performance environments the unified tools they need to succeed.

In 2025, Teamworks closed a $235 million Series F funding round that values the company at more than $1 billion and continues to grow its global presence as a trusted market leader, with employees across 11 countries. Headquartered in Durham, North Carolina, Teamworks remains at the forefront of innovation in sports and human performance technology.

About Sportlogiq

Sportlogiq specializes in advanced analytics and tracking data services for various sports, focusing on ice hockey, soccer, and American football. Using patented computer vision technology, Sportlogiq extracts data from every frame of game video, offering teams, coaches, and analysts a deeper understanding of player performance, team strategies, and game dynamics through comprehensive data, insights, and visualizations.

The post Teamworks Acquires Sportlogiq to Expand Its AI-Powered Intelligence Platform appeared first on Teamworks.

At the University of Memphis, Deputy Athletic Director for Regulatory Affairs and Senior Woman Administrator Kathy Sulentic and Assistant Athletic Director for NIL Camie Cole lead the institution’s rapidly evolving NIL and revenue-sharing environment. Their roles span daily NIL operations, contracts, budgets, compliance, rev-share execution, and multi-sport oversight, all with a lean administrative staff and a commitment to delivering a consistent, transparent, athlete-centric experience.

As Memphis prepared to implement revenue sharing across multiple sports, the team knew they needed more than spreadsheets, emails, and manual workflows. They needed a centralized system that could manage budgets to the penny, streamline high-volume contracting, coordinate payments, and support sport-specific strategies without creating silos.

Despite having a lean team, Memphis aimed to create a rev-share process that was efficient, compliant, coach-friendly, and reliable for athletes. They needed a system that could scale without adding headcount or complexity.

Teamworks General Manager (GM) and Wallet became the foundation for that system.

The Problem: Fragmented Processes and No Scalable System for Revenue Sharing

Before adopting Teamworks GM, the Memphis athletics department was operating without a unified structure for NIL or revenue-sharing workflows. Much of the early planning occurred across spreadsheets, shared documents, and manual updates.

Camie described the challenge succinctly:

“You can only send an Excel sheet back and forth so many times before someone sends a version that’s two edits ago versus three edits ago. And those edits make a huge difference, believe it or not.”

Beyond logistics, the department struggled with knowing where to begin:

“We didn’t know where to start… we knew we needed a contract… we knew we needed a budget. But after that, then what?”

Without a clear framework, airtight tracking, or an integrated contract-to-payment workflow, scaling revenue sharing to dozens or hundreds of athletes, each with their own schedules, agents, and payment structures, posed a significant risk.

Memphis needed a system that was accurate, flexible, repeatable, compliant, and easy to navigate for staff, coaches, and athletes alike.

The Solution: A Seamless, Supported Rollout of Teamworks GM + Wallet

The implementation of Teamworks GM and Wallet delivered exactly what Memphis needed: structure, efficiency, and a partner-driven rollout that reduced stress and uncertainty.

Camie shared how unexpectedly smooth the onboarding process was:

“The rollout of Teamwork’s GM was so seamless… in an hour it’s completely synced… it was very easy.”

Critically, Memphis highlights that the value wasn’t just in the platform, it was in the people behind it. Kathy explained:

“We don’t buy products, we buy people… yes, we love the product… but the thing that we love most are the people attached to it.”

Teamworks staff provided on-site support, fast turnaround on questions, and hands-on guidance during a critical transition period. The combination of technology and responsiveness positioned Memphis to not only launch revenue sharing effectively but to manage it confidently across multiple sports.

Results: A Unified Revenue-Sharing System That Delivers Accuracy, Efficiency, and Athlete Trust

With Teamworks GM and Wallet, Memphis now operates a streamlined and transparent ecosystem that supports sports’ autonomy, administrative efficiency, and dependable athlete payments all from one integrated platform.

A More Strategic, Transparent Budgeting Model

Memphis can assign budgets sport-by-sport and allow programs to operate with clarity and autonomy. Kathy explained:

“Each sport can see how much money they’ve been provided and they can spend it accordingly.”

Coaches choose what aligns with their sport’s culture – scholarships, revenue share, or Alston –  without administrative bottlenecks. The technology reinforces Memphis’s philosophy of empowering each sport while maintaining university-wide consistency.

Operational Efficiency That Frees Staff Capacity

Time savings were one of the most immediate outcomes. As Camie put it:

“I don’t ever have more work put on my plate because of GM. If anything, it takes things off.”

Contracts can be drafted, sent, forwarded to agents, and tracked stage-by-stage in minutes rather than hours. Weekly updates that once required tedious manual checks now happen instantly.

This efficiency allows a small staff to support a large-scale NIL and revenue-sharing model without increasing headcount.

Built-In Oversight Without Administrative Drag

For Memphis, finding the balance between necessary oversight and operational flow was crucial. Teamworks GM struck the perfect middle ground:

“There are checks and balances… but it’s not to the point where you feel overwhelmed by the approval process.”

Unlike other platforms that slow operations with heavy approval chains, GM gives Memphis confidence and compliance without sacrificing speed.

Cross-Sport Learning and Collaboration

Rather than siloed decision-making, Kathy highlights how Memphis now benefits from organic collaboration across programs:

“It enables the women’s soccer program to go over to men’s football and say… how are you spending your money?”

Football served as the beta program, giving other sports a blueprint and accelerating best practices across the department.

Wallet Ensures On-Time Payments — Every Time

Teamworks Wallet turned a complex payment operation into a predictable, trusted process for athletes:

“We are not late on our NIL payments… they are on time, sometimes they’re early… that’s happened largely because of Teamworks Wallet.”

For Memphis, this reliability is more than a metric, it’s a promise kept:

“When we make youngsters a promise, we always want to make sure that we fulfill our end of the bargain.”

Together, GM and Wallet give Memphis a cohesive contracting-to-payment pipeline that benefits staff, coaches, administrators, and student-athletes.

The University of Memphis transformed its NIL and revenue-sharing operations by adopting Teamworks GM and Wallet not just as software, but as a strategic partnership. With a small staff and an ambitious vision, Memphis built a scalable system that reduced administrative burden, strengthened compliance, empowered coaches, and ensured athletes were paid accurately and on time.

Kathy’s advice for other schools, especially those with limited bandwidth, reflects the lasting value of the transition:

“The time saving, the efficiency, the ease to our student athletes… I would argue that in many respects it’s invaluable.”

Memphis now operates with clarity, consistency, and confidence, proving that with the right technology and the right support team, even the most complex operational challenges can become seamless, repeatable, and impactful.

If you’re ready to see how GM and Wallet can transform your rev share operations, reach out to our team anytime.

The post How Memphis Built a Scalable, Transparent NIL & Revenue Sharing Framework With Teamworks appeared first on Teamworks.