Artificial Intelligence

New FC Dallas Shirt Sponsor Brings Artificial Intelligence To Player Development Operations


In the last 15 years, Major League Soccer’s addition of clubs like Toronto FC, the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, Atlanta United, LAFC and others has dramatically raised the level of spending across the league. But it has also led to the creation of another class of club that is less glamorous, though often as successful.

Last year’s MLS Cup Champions, the Columbus Crew, are an example of a club that has punched above its weight financial for most of the last decade, as were Supporters’ Shield winners the Philadelphia Union. In 2013, so were MLS Cup champion Sporting Kansas City and U.S. Open Cup champion D.C. United. And 2016 Supporters’ Shield winners FC Dallas have been one of the league’s most consistent clubs despite a relatively low profile.

That’s what makes their newest corporate partnership so interesting.

On Monday, FC Dallas announced that local information technology firm MTX Group would be their new jersey sponsor, just the second in team history. That a club that struggles for attention nationally in MLS and locally in the crowded Metroplex sports landscape secured a new sponsor during the Covid-19 pandemic is notable in itself. But the other aspects of the partnership are what’s particularly interesting — especially that Dallas will begin using the firm’s Artificial Intelligence capabilities in its player development and talent identification operations.

The Dallas academy has already been a staggering success, producing 29 Homegrown Player signings in total, including a sizable chunk of its current first-team roster. Juventus’ Weston McKennie, Roma’s Brian Reynolds, Hoffenheim’s Chris Richards and Boavista’s Reggie Cannon are all American academy players who have made the move to Europe (though McKennie never signed with the first team.)

There is an echo of Moneyball to it all. But unlike baseball, where every Major League club has full analytics departments, the sport of soccer as a whole is still relatively newer to the quantitative game. The metric of “expected goals,” which essentially suggests how often a player or team would’ve been expected to score over a given time frame considering the chances that were created, is still less than a decade old. American Soccer Analysis announced the creation of a new metric, “goals added,” just in the last year. And while some elite European clubs may be diving deeper into the data, analytics operations at the MLS level are still relatively small.

FC Dallas are probably a long way away from having nine people on the full-time payroll who have “systems,” “analyst,” “analytics” or “developer” in their official title like baseball’s Texas Rangers do. But the partnership with MTX and use of their artificial intelligence capabilities could give the club an outsized analytics reach relative to their club profile.

To be fair, it’s not yet clear exactly how that might be achieved. MTX don’t appear to have substantial experience in sports — their most recent achievements include providing services in the spheres Covid-19 vaccine distribution management and election canvassing. And Dallas certainly isn’t alone among clubs using a business partner to enhance an aspect of their day-to-day operations. The San Jose Earthquakes, for example, rely on jersey sponsor Intermedia for their business communication needs.

Still, Dallas have proven themselves as one of the league’s smartest clubs and a trend-setter since they were one of 10 founding league members. Toyota Stadium was one of the first soccer-specific grounds in the country, completed at a time when the financial viability of the league remained very much in doubt. Nearly ever MLS club is now trying to accomplish what Dallas has on the academy level, realizing the potential to ultimately safe money by developing young talent, and possibly even create more revenue by selling the realization that producing the next McKennie’s, Richards’, Cannon’s and Reynolds’ onto Europe. The club even stepped up to become the new home of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, opening that facility on the Toyota Stadium campus in 2018 after the previous facility in Oneonta, N.Y., closed in 2010.

If this partnership with MTX leads to a greater understanding of how to use analytics to build a Major League Soccer roster and sparks yet another league-wide trend, no one should be surprised.



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