Passion to Profession: My Journey in Sports Analytics

From Passion to Profession: My Journey in Sports Analytics

By Omar Chaudhuri (2009 cohort) | Chief Intelligence Office at Twenty First Group

Growing up, Omar was passionate in both football and math but never envisioned that these two interests could intertwine into a successful career in sports analytics.

Today, he works with teams, leagues, and competition organizers globally, using analytics to drive smarter decisions and sustainable success in football, cricket, golf, and beyond.

In today’s feature, Omar talks about his path into sports analytics, key projects that shaped his career, and discusses the prevalence of innovation in modern day careers.

I never imagined a career in sports analytics growing up. Like many, I was passionate about sport but hadn’t considered blending that passion with a data-driven approach to sport. Like any good sports team, my journey in the industry has combined luck with skills and opportunity.

It all began with my fascination for data—how numbers, when properly understood, could reveal underlying truths. This began at school, with a preference towards numerical subjects, and continued through to studying Economics at the University of Warwick.

My journey into analytics really kicked off with my role at a company called Prozone, who identified me through a blog I was writing as a student on football analytics. At that time, Prozone was pioneering the use of data to offer insights into player performance in football, a concept still in its early stages. It was a thrill working at a company that saw the potential to change how football clubs made decisions. We would gather data points across various metrics, giving football managers insights they hadn’t considered before.

After Prozone, I joined 21st Club – now Twenty First Group - where my focus broadened beyond individual performance metrics to encompass wider club strategies. Football clubs operate in a high-stakes environment. Decisions around recruitment and strategy can have long-lasting impacts, and each one requires a deep understanding of complex data. At Twenty First Group, we developed models that allowed clubs to make more informed decisions about player acquisitions and contract extensions, using data to assess a player’s potential longevity or adaptability. Clubs like Tottenham Hotspur, Ajax, and more began consulting us, looking to build sustainable strategies for success, both on and off the pitch. Through analytics, we could assist clubs in achieving their long-term goals, whether by spotting undervalued players or coaches, or planning for long-term success.

I’ve been lucky enough to work with a wide range of teams and owners in football on some fascinating projects. In the last few years, we’ve helped Tottenham Hotspur identify, evaluate and recruit Ange Postecoglou as their manager, and done the same for the US Women’s National Team, Newcastle United and Angel City. We’ve worked with INEOS to help them with their investment into Manchester United, and with the Friedkin Group’s acquisition of Roma and Everton.

As the business has evolved, my work has increasingly involved working with competition organisers, looking at complex problems such as the effects of Brexit on the Premier League. Brexit introduced regulatory challenges that limited player movement, affecting clubs’ abilities to recruit European talent. Analytics helped model alternative solutions, ensuring clubs in the league could still acquire talent that would maintain the league’s global competitiveness.

More recently, we’ve helped leagues and competitions such as Major League Soccer, the UEFA Women’s Champions League, Belgian Pro League and Women’s Super League evaluate competition formats to help increase the level of excitement and quality of the competition. These projects require a deep understanding of various stakeholder interests and ambitions and combining this with sophisticated modelling to forecast changes to a competition and how it might affect clubs and players.

Our business is not just limited to football. We’ve had great success in golf, initially helping Team Europe win the Ryder Cup and most recently Team USA the Solheim Cup by analysing player selections and pairings to optimise the chances of success. Alongside on-the-course performance analysis, our data is shared with fans through broadcasts and sponsorship activations.

We’ve also done extensive work in cricket – a long-term love of mine – working on Andrew Strauss’ High Performance Review in 2022 and on a restructuring of the women’s domestic game in 2023. Teams and competition organisers in rugby, tennis, boxing, padel, Aussie Rules and badminton have also all come to us for advice, providing me with a range of experiences we could barely have imagined when I joined Twenty First Group ten years ago.

Throughout my career, I’ve also had to stay adaptable. The landscape of sports analytics is constantly evolving. Data tools and methodologies that were revolutionary a few years ago are now standard practice. Our team is continually experimenting with new analytical approaches to provide fresh insights. We also work with data scientists who are as passionate about the game as they are about crunching numbers, which creates an environment where innovation thrives.

Looking ahead, I’m excited about the next frontier in sports analytics—artificial intelligence. The ability to ingest huge amounts of data and perform complex tasks to produce fresh and meaningful insight could be transformative for teams, investors, competitions and even fans.

I feel lucky to have been part of the sports analytics revolution from its early days to now, where it’s undeniably influencing every level of decision-making. Combining my love for the sport with data has been fulfilling, especially seeing how analytics can bring value to different parts of the industry and to different sports. Football in particular is a game of unpredictability, yet data gives us the tools to see patterns, understand performance, and, ultimately, make the game a bit more predictable. In a way, I’m proud that my career has been about creating that bridge—bringing science to the art of football. The journey so far has been unpredictable, but that’s what makes it all the more rewarding.