Orreco Signs Multiyear Data Partnership With The National Basketball Players Association

Just earlier this month Irish-based sports technology company Orreco, one of the leaders in the bio-analytical space, announced that they had signed a “significant” multi-year partnership with the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks. It turns out that that wasn’t the only news for the biomarker and performance company, as the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) announced, earlier this week, that they will also be making Orreco their official bio-analytics provider.

As part of the deal, the two companies have signed a multi-year exclusive agreement that will allow Orreco to provide the professional basketball players’ union with expert consultancy with regard to player data, biomarking and performance analytics, as the data arms race extends beyond just individual teams.

In the partnership previously announced with the Atlanta Hawks, Orreco will provide the Hawks with bio-analytical services, in order to analyze the health of their players, and eventually to use the data to provide actionable solutions to accelerate player recovery. In addition, Hawks’ athletes will be monitored, with the objective of prolonging their NBA careers by maintaining their bodies more effectively.

In the NBPA agreement, the consultancy will focus on athlete blood testing to support and accelerate members’ recovery, to optimize longevity and in-game performance as well as health. An immediate goal, noted in the announcement, is to keep more players available on the court throughout the grind of the NBA season by reducing the number of games lost specifically due to illness. 

"We are thrilled to partner with Orreco and give our players access to their knowledge and expertise in sports performance science,” said Michele Roberts, Executive Director of the NBPA. “Our members go to great lengths to take care of their bodies and this partnership will provide them yet another tool to help maintain their health and perform at the highest level."

The Hawks were just the latest team in a long line of athletic partnerships announced by Orreco in recent years.  The company also works with the US Women’s Soccer Team, that just won the World Cup in France, as well as Newcastle United of the English Premier League, USA Swimming and the New Zealand senior women’s rugby team. The company also works with Formula 1 drivers, Olympic athletes and PGA Tour golfers. 

Orreco was founded in 2009 by sports scientist Brian Moore and consultant hematologist Andy Hodgson. It currently has operations in Galway, Ireland, London and has a United State headquarters in Los Angeles. Orreco has raised over $4.5 million to date, including a recent $2 million funding round led by venture capital firm True Ventures.

“At Orreco, we work with some of the best athletes on the planet, deploying our cutting-edge machine learning capabilities to help answer complex performance questions,” said Orreco co-founder and CEO Dr. Brian Moore. “We are always looking for progressive, forward thinking partners and we have certainly found that with the leadership and performance team at the NBPA. We are incredibly excited about this partnership and look forward to bringing Orreco’s collective world-class expertise to bear to help NBA athletes optimize performance, accelerate their recovery and reduce the number of days lost to illness.”

As a part of the newly announced partnership with the NBPA, Orreco scientists and performance experts in athletics will also work closely with NBPA performance staff to provide educational workshops at the NBPA medical symposium. 

“This partnership is a natural fit, given that many of our players are already utilizing Orreco for their world-class resources,” said Joe Rogowski, NBPA Director of Sports Medicine and Research. “We now look forward to providing all of our members with access to Orreco’s cutting-edge science so that they can better educate themselves on their biochemistry, a goal that we are deeply passionate about.”

One of the least-discussed aspects of these partnerships is how to deal with the accumulation of vast amounts of data that will become available to an NBA player’s team/employer, after that player moves on to another team. Access to this information may become problematic during contract and other negotiations. The NBPA’s partnership with Orreco demonstrates a commitment to providing players with access to this information, instead of leaving it solely in the hands of individual teams. 

With Orreco working on both sides of the figurative coin here, it will be interesting to monitor how this data collection will impact the negotiations every summer for player contracts and the collective bargaining agreement, set to expire at the completion of the 2023-24 NBA season. 

Source: Forbes.com

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