We are very excited to announce the first ever StatDNA Soccer Analytics Research Competition.  Perhaps the most exciting facet of the competition is we will be providing free of charge access to over 300 games of the world's most detailed soccer data: 190 games of 2010 Brazilian Serie A games, and roughly 120 games of 2010 EPL games. We will likely also include 190 games of 2010 Brazil Serie B games to allow for some interesting comparative research.  The data is collected at the touch-by-touch level and includes some data types never collected before such as defensive pressure level on each touch of the ball.

We will finalize the details of the competition in the next couple of weeks, but here are the basic details.

1. You apply by emaiiling research@statDNA.com.  Please include your name, your affiliation and a few sentences about your interest and experience in soccer analytics.

2. Data will be made available April 1.

3. The research deadline will be August 1.

4. Papers will be judged by a board of reviewers including members from academia.

5.  First prize is a presentation spot at the 2011 New England Symposium on Sports in Statistcis (NESSIS) to be held September 24, 2011, as well as $500 +hotel + airfare. For more information see: http://www.amstat.org/chapters/boston/nessis11.html

There will be a few limitations on entry:

1. You may not currently be employed by a professinoal soccer team or a company that sells sports data.

2. The data or the results of your analysis from our data may not be used commercially.

3. The first post on all results should be on the StatDNA blog and can be posted simultaneously to your blog.  After this initial post you may post however frequently you like and on the forums that you choose about your research.

4. The raw data set may not be posted or shared.

5. Online discussions of work (colloboration) should be conducted at forum.statDNA.com. You will be given a username and password for the forum when your contest application is accepted.

6. StatDNA may use findings from your research in development of new products.

Hopefully these requirements will not be to cumbersome.  Also it should be know that you'll be getting the data in absolutely raw format, and its about 8 million data items so it may be useful for researchers to collaborate on parsing the data (python scripts, etc).  We'll also provide a data dictionary and support on the forum.

Our goal with this contest is to help spark further development in soccer analytics.  We feel by creating a way for the research to move forward by making statistics more openly available that there will be both more professional opportunites for soccer analytics professionals, and this in turn will help us grow as a company as well.  One key thing we are looking for from the researchers is what the next wave of useful data will be to collect.

Please send your applications and questions to research@statDNA.com.