The primary goal of this Center is to bring the rigor of scientific approach to sport from physics as well as data analytic perspectives. The specific objectives of the Center are:

• to be an intellectual hub for sports analytics and science that is first of its kind.
• to use the insights gained for improving athlete performance as well as fan engagement.
• to use experimental resources for primary ground-truth validated data generation.
• to work with the sporting clubs, media and sports encouragement community to create an ecosystem encouraging sports-tech research and start-ups.

This CoE proposal is on the development of a Center for Sports Science and Analytics at IIT Madras. Sports as a field has undergone significant changes with increasing adoption of technology cross-cutting all aspects of sports such as:

• Player performance analysis and improvement.
• Team performance analysis and improvement.
• Rule enforcement.
• Sports administration.
• Fan engagement.
• Human endurance and limit.
• Safety.
• Sales, marketing and advertising.
• Betting and its influence on sports.

A list of project areas:

1. First principles modelling:

• Develop a fluid mechanics model to calculate spinning ball trajectory
• Develop a model for bounce of a ball on a general surface to characterize pitch performance.
• Develop an experimental apparatus in IIT Madras’ sports facilities to accurately measure the spatiotemporal ball flight in football, tennis and cricket. Both visual and IoT based measurements of ball flight shall be made for establishing ground truth.
• Validate computer vision and image processing models against ground truth data.
• Validate the fluid mechanics model against the experimental measurements.

2. Data Science:

• Develop interpretable models for sports data. This is important for both fan engagement as well as player performance improvement.
• Develop Monte Carlo models of sports performance to understand the minimal parameter set that has a strong bearing on the end result.
• Develop network-based models of sports performance.
• Develop hybrid models, combining data science and first principles models. This class of models are important to developing explainable models.
• Develop a model to propagate uncertainty through both physics based, Monte Carlo as well as data based models.
• What can sport betting markets teach us about factors determining team performance?
• Prediction of extreme events in a game
• Player, State and Action evaluation through Reinforcement Learning

3. Internet of Things (IoT):

• Develop a set of smart sports equipment using implantable sensors and IoT devices, which are capable of generating data streams during a game.
• Player position data using beacons coupled with visual imaging to map out a rich data stream of a football or tennis match.
• Shot mechanics data from tennis and cricket shall be analyzed from textile implant sensors
• Computer Vision in Sports

4. Data Repository:

Another under-served need in sports analytics is the collection and curation of datasets for multiple sports that are relevant and reproducible. For sure, many organizations are likely to have data that is collected on-field and/or during training. However, this data hardly ever finds its way into the public domain due to many reasons such as competitive pressures, sensitive nature of the data and so on. As a result, while there are algorithms that are published and papers presented in conferences, the research can never be reproduced and objectively evaluated as the underlying data is not available.

The proposed center will generate a large repository of highly curated data in multiple sports that can then form the benchmark for comparing algorithms in an “apples-to-apples” fashion and also in further development of the core technologies that are pursued.

• Publications and Visible output:

  • High impact publications and top notch conference presentations
  • Prototypes, technologies and start-ups

• Manpower development:

  • Minor course and IDDD programs:
  • Associate Faculty from other institutes
  • Outreach and capacity building
  • Industrial collaboration

    Current status

International Collaborations

• The Center is being jointly in partnership with Northwestern University which is one of the strongest sports science groups in the world.
• Two Co-PIs of the proposal are faculty at Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Tarragona, Spain
• A collaborative project on experimentation in sports is currently underway with faculty at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

International Education Programs

• The Centre envisages joint degree programs between IITM and NU in this field leveraging academic programs that are already in place in NU in the field of sports analytics.
• Two international workshops and one Showcase Colloquium is planned to be conducted with quality speakers.

Industrial Collaborators

• Industrial Collaborators who have already expressed support:
  • IPL Team-Royal Challengers Bangalore
  • Tamil Nadu Olympic Association
  • Aspire Tennis Academy- Aspire boasts of most of the top professional players in India as users of its services.
  • ESPN

    Societal impact

Sports, especially Cricket in India carries the aspirations of 1.3 billion people. The social impact of this center is natural to the very purpose of the center - to bring a scientific paradigm to coaching and analysing sport, thereby improving outcomes. While we are initially focused on four sports, it is our desire to impact the outcomes in the Olympics. We have initiated a partnership with Olympic Gold Quest, an organization in the space of impacting Olympic outcomes in India.

The heady mix of sports and technology areas that are in the public radar (AI, IOT) can inspire K-12 students to get exposed to the STEM areas. The Center will catalyze this through regular outreach programs.

Activities related to “training to promote rural sports, nationally recognised sports, paralympic sports and olympic sports” is permissible under the Corporate Social Responsibility mandate of the Companies Act. Several start-ups that are likely to emerge from the Center could be funded initially through CSR grants. It is envisaged that CSR will form a significant source of support to sustain the Center’s activities, once it has established its credibility as a serious player in this space.

The center, through its AI/ML driven gamified activities will weave itself into the fabric of sporting growth in India. There is no entity that is ready to do this currently in India. We feel that the center will spin out a whole ecosystem of start-ups that will leverage technology developed in the Center for translating into products and games that various sports can use and benefit the country. A primary social objective of the center is to therefore sow the seeds of creating such an ecosystem in India.

Sustenance Statement

IIT Madras, with the RBC-DSAI, has a culture of translating high quality analytics research in India. Some of the Center faculty members have had funded research projects with ESPN, which has agreed to explore future opportunities as well. In addition, we have already had interest expressed from Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) to work with the Center.

The Center will develop a consortium model to onboard industry interest. This will allow all sports corporate entities to gain visibility of the research in the Center at a non-compete level. Subsequently, it is conceivable that the corporate partners would develop IP-guarded relationships with the Center faculty through sponsored consultancy projects.

The Center will position itself to attract CSR funds from a wide variety of corporate organizations, which has already been enabled legally. Therefore, sustainability plan will involve some funds secured from CSR which will continue to fund the translational aspects. In addition, the prospect of converting this Center into a named CoE with donor funds shall be explored. The Center will own equipment for gathering data from sports videos and other data. This equipment will be used by various sporting organizations, but operated by Center personnel for gathering high resolution spatiotemporal data. This data will be of value to the sporting clubs and therefore, they will pay for gathering the data. This will form one source of revenue for supporting Center equipment. Besides, the Center equipment will also be used for research.

New works done in the project

Infrastructure Development

1. Purchase of Clusters, High speed cameras and Servers are in progress
2. Sports Science Club has been started and regular meetings have been conducted. This initiative as inter-club will be managed by the CFI. Nearly 50 students are actively participating in this club. Problem statements will be shared to the students of the club.

Workshops, Papers, Webinars, Media coverage etc

IRIS Webinar was conducted on 22 July 2021. Prof Mahesh Panchgnula, Prof Raghunathan Rengaswamy, Prof A N Rajagopalan and Prof Nandan Sudarsanam gave away lectures. Title was Sports Science Analytics – AI and Data Science.

International Collaboration, Visits planned for PIs and Co PIs

1. MoU is in progress with Kansa University, KS with Dr. Bala Natarajan Clair N. Palmer and Sara M. Palmer Professor, Steve Hsu Keystone Research Faculty Scholar Director, CPSWin group Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS

2. International faculty visit and collaboration with Prof Noshir Contractor, He visited IITM on Dec 7-8, 2021. Dr. Noshir S Contractor, Jane S. & William J. White Professor of Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University President-Elect, International Communication Association

Industrial Engagement

• IIS – Prof. Babji Srinivasan & Dr Ranganathan Srinivasan along with post graduate students visited IIS, Bellary on 8-9 Dec 2021. Prof Ravi Hegde, Professor of IIT Gandhinagar, also joined the IIS Visit. IIS Shared their problem statements with our team. Now our sports science team have been working on it. We will be having a long term future collaboration with them and benefit mutually.

• Royal Challengers Bangalore – We have initiated MoU with RCB, Bangalore. The following criteria will be.

Carried out in the collaboration.

1. Development of course material to go on the RCB Innovation Labs platform. These courses will vary in size from 2 hours to 20 hours and be on topics that are relevant to sports in general - sports analytics etc.
2. R&D to develop a data analytics tool to provide insights from the sensor data streams on the athlete management system. This tool will be developed by IITM using data provided by RCB.
3. New sensor development: New sensor technologies developed by IITM will be piloted by RCB on their platforms. Rajesh V Menon, VP & Head RCB, Royal Challengers Sports Pvt Ltd has promptly agreed to have MOU with IITM.

University Engagement

1. MoU is in progress with Kansa University, KS with Dr. Bala Natarajan Clair N. Palmer and Sara M. Palmer Professor, Steve Hsu Keystone Research Faculty Scholar Director, CPSWin group Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS
2. Prof Ravi Hegde, Electrical Engineering, IIT Gandhinagar

Relevant Updates: