Menlo Park, California, and Iwaki, Fukushima, Japan, January 31, 2024 – Kitman Labs, the global enterprise SaaS platform providing the only single, centralized operating system for performance intelligence in Sports, has today announced a new partnership with Iwaki FC. This partnership represents Kitman Labs’ first in J2, the second division of the Japanese Professional Football League. This deal sees Kitman Labs partner with one of the nation’s most exciting and progressive football clubs who secured promotion to J2 after winning the 2022 J3 championship.
Iwaki FC will deploy the full suite of solutions in IP: Intelligence Platform across the Men’s First Team and U18 Team. Additionally, the Men’s and Women’s Academy U15 teams will also utilise the technology. This will include the Performance Medicine, Performance Optimization and Coaching and Development Solutions in the Intelligence Platform, combining player-related medical, performance, and development data in one fully integrated advanced operating system, providing a complete, real-time view of each player.
iP: Intelligence Platform will unify all data in one system, including data from third party sources like GPS and wearable technologies. By integrating all data in a singular platform, the Club will now be able to run the advanced analytics necessary to inform decision-making around player welfare, training and development strategy. In addition, all relevant Club personnel, including medical practitioners, coaches and performance staff, will be able to effectively collaborate using a shared system with the reporting and visualisation tools necessary to monitor and communicate quickly and efficiently, ensuring all stakeholders have immediate access to the insights and actionable intelligence necessary to address challenges related to injury treatment and prevention, player readiness, availability, progression and more across all teams.
Iwaki FC will also utilise the Intelligence Platform to establish performance indicators and benchmarks in order to monitor and track player progress within the Men’s and Women’s Academy programs. This will help support the development of the club’s younger players, enabling Academy staff to identify and nurture promising talent earlier in their development lifecycle and optimise their player pathways for the advancement of talent to the First Team or commercial market.
“The collection of data is crucial in modern day football; however, that data is only as valuable as the insights and intelligence that it can generate. It is also essential that those insights be shared and available to all members of the team responsible for making decisions around player health, performance and development in an accurate and timely manner. The information must be accessible to all relevant parties and used to inform decision-making across the entire organisation. This can only be accomplished with a centralised data and analytics platform that unifies data and people around one source of truth. The Kitman Labs Intelligence Platform has been proven by some of the biggest teams and leagues in Sport and we feel this partnership has the ability to help play a key role in our continued growth and progression on and off the pitch,” said Satoshi Okura, CEO, Iwaki FC.
“We are thrilled to be working with Iwaki FC – they are clearly making a commitment to their players, practitioners and fans that they will use data, technology and innovation to drive progress and advance the level of play and performance across their club. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with them to help accomplish that goal. The Intelligence Platform will enable all relevant parties within the Club with the actionable insights and intelligence necessary to unlock player welfare and performance outcomes and help ensure the professional development and progression of players to come.” Stephen Smith, CEO and Founder, Kitman Labs.
Kitman Labs has an established track record of working with top teams and leagues across a variety of sports, including soccer, basketball, rugby, and American football. The company’s technology is in use by some of the world’s most elite soccer organisations, including Bayer Leverkusen, Ipswich Town F.C., Fulham F.C., Chelsea F.C. and Liverpool F.C. Kitman Labs recently announced the launch and deployment of The Football Intelligence Platform across all Premier League Academies.
iP: Intelligence Platform represents the industry’s largest dataset of talent, performance, and medical data for all stages of the athlete lifecycle.
About Kitman Labs:
Kitman Labs is the world’s leading sports science and performance intelligence company. Kitman Labs powers IP: Intelligence Platform, the advanced operating system used by the largest and most innovative leagues, teams and regulatory bodies in elite Sport and Defense. Our software solutions – Performance Medicine, Performance Optimization, Coaching & Development and League Operations – have been designed to optimise human performance; enhance overall health, wellness and longevity; reduce injury risk; and drive operational efficiencies and value. Kitman Labs is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices in Dublin.
Media Contacts:
Iwaki FC
Rin Yanagisawa
ryanagisawa@iwakifc.com
Kitman Labs:
The PHA Group
kitmanlabs@thephagroup.com
