Read on the Interview with Francesco Bruni, Co-Founder of N3XT Sports and Director of High Performance at A.S Pistoia Basket.
1. Francesco, as a Director of High Performance at A.S. Pistoia Basket 2000, can you tell us more about your role?
Last year I had the chance and the privilege to start working with A.S Pistoia Basket as the Director of High Performance, where I manage the training and analysis of sport performance of the team and I lead innovation strategy through the use of new sports technology.
In my first year in this role, we have started a digital transformation process by collecting data to improve players performance, and to find an effective communication process between the various departments based on the data collected.
Pistoia is not only a basketball team of the first Italian basketball division but also my hometown team! I’m not only an employee but also a real fan of Pistoia!
2. As a co-founder, what’s your role at N3XT Sports, and in which projects have you been involved in?
I am the Head of High Performance and a co-founder of N3XT Sports. N3XT Sports is a strategic consulting firm specialized in innovation, data and digital, technology, and investments, we provide services to sports organizations covering many different departments, and one of them is High Performance. Sports performance is an ever-changing domain within sports, and requires an open mind and a thirst for research, knowledge and innovation. My job is to develop structures within sports organizations to build a sports performance team capable of sustainably improving their athletes’ competitive edge. For example, one of our clients is a National Olympic Committee and we have helped them understand the power of data and digital tools in the training & competition space. Here we looked at priority sports, the data and technology requirements of each, trained coaches, trained athletes, developed data dashboards and a mechanism to source best-in-class technology suppliers within the sports performance space. With the rapidly changing landscape, it is important that athletes, coaches, and the whole performance staff is up to date with the latest and can develop long-term development strategies that use data, digital and technological solutions.
3. What is the importance of data and technology to improve athletes’ performance?
The acceleration and proliferation of technology has led to more data generation than ever before. Data is generated from everything we do, from movement to commerce, and of course, sports is no exception. Data is the foundational component in supporting fact-based judgments, including around valuation, commonly known as data-driven decision making. With the use of data and technology, we can analyze our own game and train more deeply, analyze our rivals but also analyze each player from game strategy to their physical conditions.
Technology is essential to solve the daily problems that athletes or coaches have to face in order to achieve maximum performance. Those problems can be solved thanks to the use of technology as it provides a much quicker and effective solution. Technology is the tool that allows us to evolve.