BreakAway Data & NFLPA Empower NFL Players With Their Own Athlete Data

The NFLPA is acquiring an equity stake in BreakAway Data to help move the chains of innovation in football

LOS ANGELES — Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2022--BreakAway Data and the NFL Players Association (NFLPA) are partnering to put athlete data in the hands of all NFL players via the BreakAway mobile app. The NFLPA is also acquiring an equity stake in BreakAway Data, with the goal of advancing innovation in football.

For NFL players, data is collected from multiple sources during games, practice and training. The BreakAway app can ingest any form of athlete data and give players the ability to visualize trends and patterns that reveal comprehensive insights when it comes to performance, recovery, and return-to-play scenarios following injuries.

The BreakAway app is a centralized place for athletes to track advanced and traditional game stats, as well as practice and training data—including GPS/tracking data, sensor data, biomechanics data, wearables data, sleep/recovery data, and more.

“Professional athletes understand the power of data to unlock performance insights,” says Sean Sansiveri, General Counsel and Head of Business Affairs at NFL Players Inc., the marketing and licensing arm of the NFLPA. “When athlete data is put in the hands of the players who create it, you’re putting it in the best context to optimize and lengthen careers, and we’re excited to help players do just that through our partnership with BreakAway.”

The partnership between BreakAway and the NFLPA is an evolution of the current collective bargaining agreement, which was ratified in March 2020 and runs through the 2030 season. The CBA stipulates that players own their data and the process by which teams may collect and access it. Teams, however, store the data and don’t have an efficient, modern way to deliver it to players in near real time. BreakAway solves that infrastructure problem.

BreakAway was co-founded in 2020 by a former NFL player (Dave Anderson) and a former NFL coach (Steve Gera). Prior to BreakAway, they had founded the sports tech consultancy Gains Group and worked with more than 100 teams globally across all sports.

Anderson, a wide receiver, played the majority of his six-year career with the Houston Texans and was one of the first players in league history to be tracked with a wearable device. Gera, a former U.S. Marine, coached with the San Diego Chargers and Cleveland Browns for a total of eight seasons.

“It’s important to understand the difference between a team’s proprietary analytics and athlete data,” says Gera, who took a Moneyball approach to coaching during his time in San Diego. “Players shouldn’t get a front office’s algorithm that helps the team draft players, but players should get their own athlete data—things like heart rate, force production, GPS tracking, whatever is being tracked.

“The defending champion Los Angeles Rams are one of the best teams at using data,” Gera adds. “We’ve all read in The Athletic about how the Rams discuss data insights with players before practice to manage load and health. Putting athlete data in the BreakAway app empowers all NFL players to connect with their data on a deeper, more personal level.”

BreakAway Data also provides biomechanics insights by assessing Real Positional Movements. Using eight cutting-edge cameras and markerless motion-capture software, BreakAway measures RPMs that are specific to each athlete’s ability to execute their on-field demands: the reaction time (in hundredths of a second) and speed (in MPH) of a cornerback responding to a receiver’s cut, for instance.

Last summer in Nashville, BreakAway collected biomechanics at Tight End University and delivered those reports to pass catchers and quarterbacks via the BreakAway app.

“This is the athlete app and the approach to athlete data that I wish I’d had as a player. It would have extended my career,” Anderson says. “Putting athletes in control of their data is the right thing to do. But it’s also the smartest thing you can do. Modern players are digital-first natives. They speak and understand the language of athlete data.”

“Everyone in football knows the importance of film study to understand your opponent,” Anderson adds. “The sport has evolved. The future of football is athlete data and using it to understand yourself. When I was a player, I would write everything I did down in a notebook. The BreakAway app is the modern way to know everything about yourself.”

About BreakAway Data

Based in Los Angeles with a global reach, BreakAway puts actionable data insights in the hands of athletes via the BreakAway mobile app. BreakAway also offers biomechanics evaluations that measure Real Positional Movements. BreakAway is utilized by the NFLPA, XFL, Tight End University, Power 5 football programs (including UCLA and Boston College), the East-West Shrine Bowl, Elite 11, the WNBPA, Athletes Unlimited, NBA players, Olympians, track athletes, pro golfers, pro tennis players, EPL players, college athletes, high school athletes, and others who keep moving the chains of innovation. For more information, please visit breakawaydata.com.

About the NFLPA

The National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) is the union for professional football players in the National Football League. Established in 1956, the NFLPA has a long history of assuring proper recognition and representation of players’ interests. The NFLPA has shown that it will do whatever is necessary to assure that the rights of players are protected—including ceasing to be a union, if necessary, as it did in 1989. In 1993, the NFLPA again was officially recognized as the union representing the players and negotiated a landmark Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NFL. The current CBA will govern the sport through the 2030 season. For more information, please visit nflpa.com.

About NFL Players Inc.

NFL Players Inc., the licensing and marketing arm of the NFLPA, connects businesses to the power of NFL players. NFL Players Inc. creates customized business solutions for partners, through licensing, marketing strategy and player activations. For more information, please visit nflpa.com/players-inc.

Contact

Matt Gagne
BreakAway Data
mg@breakawaydata.com