In sports, data is gold.
But, many athletes either don’t have access or don’t know what to do with it.
BreakAway Data is on a mission to change this.
Founded by former NFL Wide Receiver Dave Anderson, the app helps the best athletes in the world access, control, and use their data securely.
They aggregate and track everything from what an athlete did in a game, to what they did in training, to their medical history, and all of their activity for all 24 hours of the day.
From there, athletes can make adjustments, and considerations that increase performance, aid recovery, and create better results.
In this interview with Dave Anderson, we talk about how they came up with the idea, how he utilized data during his NFL career, and the role AI will play in data in the future.
Hello, who are you and what is the name of your company?
Dave Anderson: Hey there, my mom named me Dave Anderson and I am the co-founder and CEO of BreakAway Data.
I am a former NFL Wide Receiver turned data scientist and my co-founder Steve Gera is a Marine turned moneyball coach for teams worldwide.
We have spent our entire careers solving sports tech problems for the biggest leagues, teams, and agencies.
And we were fortunate that one of those projects was with the Los Angeles Dodgers and that ultimately led to BreakAway Data.
Like many teams, the Dodgers collected a lot of data and struggled to apply it like all teams.
More specifically, they were interested in getting more on fixing the buy-in from athletes.
And if this was the issue with one of the best “data” teams in the world, we knew this was a problem throughout sports and it fit right in with what Steve and I have always believed could be our difference – building a product for the athlete.
When we started to dig a little deeper into the opportunity, current industry trends, and potential business models it made even more sense.
Opportunity-wise, it was clear that the athlete, whether a professional or 14-year-old sports camper, had no real access to their information.
Information that everyone else was using or monetizing, but in no way was getting back to the athlete.
Solving a real problem was important.
Industry trends were also in our favor.
Data collection was becoming ubiquitous and mobile, as virtually every cool technology was putting their offering in an app.
Personalization of information and data security improvements were also plastered on every billboard by Apple, Google, and Amazon making the case for “your data.”
Most importantly, moneyball had made its way down into youth sports as little leaguers now think launch angle, high schoolers are jacking up fastbreak 3s, and footballers are monitoring load. All things pointed towards a need for an “athlete-centric” product throughout sports.
The business model, like almost every start-up, needed the most shaping. It was clear we solved a problem, but athletes don’t pay for anything.
Leagues, teams, coaches, and parents make all their purchases.
What we discovered is that we needed to make a product unique and valuable enough for leagues to pay for it so it’s free and immediately valuable for the athlete and then attach kick-ass features within the product so the athlete wants to pay for an upgrade.
Creating a sports data company for athletes has never been done.
There was not a product to emulate, not a business model to copy, we created everything from scratch.
But we assembled a team to solve it. It’s not always pretty, we aren’t always right, but there is not a company better situated to create this transformative platform in sports.
What was the process of getting the company off the ground?
Dave Anderson: We started right in the middle of 2020 aka Covid.
2020 and a lot of 2021 were just different. We had to be frugal and just figure it out.
Data collection, sports science, meeting athletes, going on campus, visiting customers, and getting live feedback weren’t an option.
We always knew BreakAway was going to be a platform. (Platform is an overused word so let me clarify.)
We have a uniquely constructed back-end database built for individual athletes, killer data + sports science on top of the unique athlete data, and an app that the individual can download and get direct mobile access to all of their information.
We built MVPs for the MVPs in sports.
Chris Paul, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Murray, Kelley O’Hara, and Joel Embiid all influenced our product.
We worked with them and their teams to better understand what data we visualized, the UI/UX components, what should, and more importantly what we shouldn’t do from a roll-out perspective.
We tried to take our inspiration directly from them and some stuff translated and others didn’t.
Like button location, which is a problem specifically for people 7 feet tall with giant hands.
Never before seen products are hard because you don’t know what you don’t know, it is just a lot of trial and error.
The number of designs that never made it off the Figma drawing table must be in the thousands.
How is the company doing today and what does the future look like?
Dave Anderson: We are focused on two things.
First, we want to continue to sign professional leagues onto our BA Pro App platform which ingests, stores and secures an athlete’s medical records, game stats, analytics, training information, and all wearable data in one place.
Second, we want to get our slimmed-down version of that product in the hands of as many young athletes as possible.
We have a dedicated team of 12 uncovering these opportunities, negotiating and signing leagues, and building this transformative layer in sports.
Sports software isn’t like Fortune 500 software.
It is a lot more relationship-driven so the sales take longer, budgets and business seasonality are wildly different from team to team, and everyone wants something custom.
That cuts into the year 1 and year 2 margins so the goal is to always sell something for around 5 years.
In the end, I want every athlete to see the BreakAway logo and know that their stats, results, metrics, and data are all properly accounted for and will be sitting in their account waiting for them.
Through starting the business what lessons have been particularly helpful or advantageous?
Dave Anderson: The “forest from the trees” is an important axiom to apply.
Because time is our most valuable asset we can’t waste days or even hours on decisions that should take minutes and you are only able to effectively do that if you can properly zoom out and recognize the impact of the decision.
As a former athlete my ability to hear “No,” has certainly been one of my better attributes.
The amount of time start-up CEOS get shot down is not for the faint of heart.
Start-up CEOs get beat up pretty good and you need to be willing to take a licking, get back up, and promote that vision over and over.
Starting a business is cool but it is also really really hard, no matter what business you are in.
What role is AI playing in the app and the company’s ability to collect data?
Dave Anderson: I am in the data business and AI runs on data, so I hope it is huge!
I will gladly sell the gas to millions of AI cars on the road.
AI is trending towards becoming more contextualized and personalized and probably more like some sort of Jiminy Cricket on your watch chiming in whenever you double tap your watch or something.
In our case, it would be a super athletic Jiminy Cricket wearing cleats and a sleeveless shirt.
What role did data play for you during your NFL career and did you realize how teams were leveraging it back then?
Dave Anderson: I was drafted in the 7th round and I was given minimal reps so I had to make every one of them count.
I spent tons of time watching film, pouring over tendencies, creating some of my own, and more than anything self-scouting.
When you get to the NFL all the players you idolized and modeled your game after are now your teammate or opponent, so you need to figure out who you are and what your game is as fast as possible.
For me, that meant self-scouting.
Why is athlete data so important today and do you think athletes know how to utilize their data?
Dave Anderson: Sports is a zero-sum game. You win or you lose.
And that is the same for the individual athlete.
You are either winning your 1 v 1 battle or losing.
Stack up enough wins and you might start on varsity, continue to lose and you might not make JV.
Data gives you an edge and athletes should be taking every edge they can get.
How do you see this applying/trickling down to youth sports?
Dave Anderson: As long as I have been in sports everything from the pros has trickled down into youth.
The rules, the plays, the gear, and the tech all get pushed downstream.
If the best do it eventually it makes its way to the rest. And that’s the way it should be.
What are some of your predictions for data within sports over the next 2 years?
Dave Anderson: Two years is tough.
The majority of money made from sports data is in sports gambling and the safe prediction is that that space is going to see more M&A and consolidation.
When you combine crazy customer acquisition costs, random state-by-state regulations, and growing but unloyal customers you are going to see a lot of action.
Are you currently hiring and if so, where can people apply and find out more?
Dave Anderson: We are. We will post something proper alongside this.
