Getting ahead of the game: athlete data in professional sport

A new discussion paper, Getting ahead of the game: Athlete data in professional sport by the 12-member Expert Working Group convened by the Australian Academy of Science and the University of Western Australia’s Minderoo Tech & Policy Lab reveals that Australian professional sports are collecting more personal information about athletes than they can meaningfully deal with. Concerningly, this data—which is personal, unique, and intimately revealing about individual athletes—amounts to excessively more information than has been proven to be useful.

RegNet Director Kate Henne, a member of the expert working group was quoted on ABC News on the use of athlete data in Australia. She said the integrity around data collection, retention and use is not unique to either Australia or sport and is a challenge faced in many industries globally.

“I think there is an opportunity to make this a space where Australia leads, but also learn from some of the short comings from other places.”

Read the article here.

View the new report, Getting Ahead of the Game – Athlete Data in Professional Sport here.

Image credit: Billy Jack11, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons