Another Off Ramp: Working with TruMedia
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Reboot Motion’s mission is to help others (coaches, data scientists, other biomechanists) help athletes move better.
While this means a lot of energy devoted to movement analysis itself, it means just as much time creating onramps and offramps.
It is why we work with every motion capture company (or at least the ones we know about), as well as give users the ability to simply upload raw video.
It is why we are building an API and a Dashboard, so various users within an organization can interact with us in different ways.
Finally, it is why we love partnering with great companies that 1) share our mission and 2) excel in an area where we could use some help.
Over the past few months, we have been working with TruMedia- a leader in data analytics- to create new off ramps for MLB clubs to interact with Reboot’s proprietary metrics.
Together, we will make it easier for users to explore data, discover new insights, and share them throughout the organization.
TruMedia
We were initially drawn to TruMedia due to what they offer teams- the ability to conduct granular analysis…and do so 1) with ease and 2) what seems like a limitless menu of options.
Their success is obvious- 21 MLB clubs and several major media organizations work with TruMedia, and we expect their expansion into college baseball to not only be a success for them, but also a benefit for the industry.
At our very first conversation, we saw we had a shared vision:
We both viewed the ability to see Reboot’s metrics in the TruMedia dashboard as a win for teams- and shared the opinion that that is what mattered most.
We both believed the best sports tech- especially at the highest levels- does not output a single score as “the answer”, but rather gives organizations the tools to innovate.
We both knew we could go further together.
The First Step
After a few conversations, each side was confident there was something there. At least for teams that were both Reboot and TruMedia partners, we viewed this as a 1 + 1 = 3 scenario. These teams already want to see our analysis, and are already used to TruMedia’s dashboard for exploration and reporting.
Putting it all in one place was a no brainer.
At this point we had two questions:
How best can we create a V1 to test?
Was there something bigger we could do?
Some Background on MLB Data
Before answering those, let’s take a step back.
To fully understand how Reboot and TruMedia can work together, it is important to understand how body and ball tracking works in MLB.
In short, there are two types of data generally used.
Hawk-Eye Innovations has a deal with Major League Baseball to provide tracking and analytics services across all MLB ballparks, powering media and baseball operations. For our purposes, this includes ball tracking, player tracking, and a lot of other outcome data.
Hawk-Eye does this by installing cameras at every ballpark. For motion analysis, these cameras capture data thirty times per second.
This data is owned by MLB and, when compared to what follows, is generally considered Low Frame Rate or “LFR” data.
On top of that, most clubs look for better quality data to aid in player development. These teams have their own deals with with Hawk-Eye, or use competitors like KinaTrax and Simi, to capture video at 300 frames per second or higher (depending on the company) at their home stadium, as well as at minor league affiliates and spring training sites.
This High Frame Rate, or “HFR”, data is owned by the team and is superior for biomechanical analysis.
Testing
This data breakdown made testing a little tricky.
Both TruMedia and Reboot had access to Hawk-Eye’s LFR data for the purpose of bettering products that benefit MLB teams. While MLB data is not public, it can be viewed as public within the MLB ecosystem.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the “good data” for the purpose of biomechanical analysis. The good data- the HFR data- is owned by individual teams.
While we could have worked with a team or two to test how our metrics would look- and more importantly if this would make their lives better- we first wanted to try to answer the two questions above at the same time, by seeing if we could do some movement analysis on LFR data?
If we could, we would two key things:
Knock down the barriers to entry for movement analysis. Both within MLB and beyond, we are confident How Data is the future. Making it easier for coaches at all levels to analyze movement is key to our mission.
Make it easy to test our collaboration. By using LFR data, we can build with data we already have access to- as well as data that can be displayed for every MLB organization.
Getting Started
Now that we knew what we wanted to test, we had to get started. Here, the first thing to do was run LFR data through the Reboot Motion pipeline and judge the data quality.
A traditional Reboot report covers five main areas: Sequence, Rotation Planes, Momentum, Balance, and Range of Motion (more detail can be found here).
We expected LFR data to struggle in a few areas- specifically anything derived from evaluating momentum peaks.
However, our hypothesis was the rotation planes section- and the underlying data that powers it- would provide actionable insights.
After processing the data, we measured the correlations of metrics we found to be strong via previous research of HFR data.
While the results do lag what we see in HFR data, they were strong enough to give us confidence teams can use this data to gain actionable insights.
(As we’ve talked about before, while these are just correlations, they match what we would expect via first principles of physics, which gives us confidence in a causal relationship.)
Next Steps
At this point, we answered our two preliminary questions:
Create a V1 to test in the market? Check
Open up the possibility for something bigger? Check
The next step- the more important step- is seeing if the integration is something the market actually wants.
In the long-run, we expect to deliver two products to two groups:
Our partners (who are TruMedia customers as well) will have the option to view all the metrics they are used to with HFR data within the TruMedia platform. Enabling this functionality will be another avenue for teams to explore data, hunt for insights, and share them throughout the organization.
Non Reboot partners who work with TruMedia will have access to some metrics gathered from the LFR Hawk-Eye data.
The Pre-Mortem
In order to best position our first attempt to showcase this integration to the market, we wanted to do a pre-mortem and think about how we may fail:
Why It Won’t Work for our Partners
In terms of the product we are delivering to our partners, we see very little that will not work. For them, the TruMedia integration is another option. If they like Reboot data and they like working inside the TruMedia ecosystem, hopefully this makes their lives easier.
And, if they want to keep them separate (or if they are not TruMedia customers), they can continue using Reboot as they always have.
Since we do all-in pricing for our partners, we see little downside to offering more optionality.
However, just because we see little friction in terms of the product, does not mean there won’t be any pushback.
Up until now, there has only been one way for a club to see anything Reboot has to offer- be a Reboot partner.
As much as possible, we view ourselves as an extension of a club’s R&D department, doing whatever we can to help them hit their goals.
Obviously these team’s understand we work with multiple organizations, but until now everyone who has interacted with Reboot Motion in any capacity has done so with the same general deal.
We understand it is possible our limited package could cause some friction. And, since our MLB partners are our lifeblood, we need to be as transparent as possible in our goals, listen to their thoughts, and move forward together.
(And yes, we’ve already talked with them before hitting publish.)
Why It Won’t Work for Non-Partners
In addition to ensuring our current partners our happy, we are thrilled about the possibility of bringing more people into the world of momentum based biomechanics. And while we believe in this integration, here are a few reasons it may not catch on.
Teams do not believe LFR data can be used for any type of biomechanical analysis.
Despite the fact that we are confident there are takeaways to be had via LFR data, we are fighting the stigma that 30 fps data cannot be trusted for biomechanical analyses (and even fighting some who don’t believe any markerless data is good enough).Team do not get comfortable with Reboot metrics unless they have the full support of the Reboot Motion team.
We do biomechanics different than most of what is out there. We rarely talk joint angles and velocity, and we believe momentum is a superior metric to evaluate movement.While we think our metrics are much more intuitive than what is out there, we’d be lying if we said there wasn’t a learning curve.
Teams will not want to be limited to LFR data.
In the first roadblock, we were concerned with the false perception that actionable insights cannot be gained through LFR data.
In this one, we are fighting the hard reality that, when compared to HFR data, the metrics and takeaways at 30 fps are limited.
Our Goals
After thinking about the ways this could go wrong, it becomes easier to figure out our goals for 2023 and beyond, which we can keep in mind as we release V1 this year and gather feedback.
Right now, we want to:
Create a product our non partners with TruMedia can use so they can 1) learn what momentum based biomechanics is about and 2) pick up a few key insights they can take to the field.
We want the LFR product to be good enough to stand on its own, but also leave people wondering what a true partnership with Reboot- one with HFR data, unlimited support and education, data validation, API access, clean skeletal data for further biomechanics research, and more- could look like.Ensure our partners are treated as…partners. Being 100% aligned with our partners clubs (while still operating as a for profit company) has always been hugely important to us.
We need to create a world where the full Reboot partnership is still a 10x better value proposition than anything else.Aid TruMedia in their goals. We hope the TruMedia integration is the start of a long-term relationship. We deeply value partnerships, and hope working with us 1) makes their product stickier for their customers, 2) helps them expand in college baseball, and 3) grows their already large presence in other sports.
Our mission is to help others help athletes move better. This is another push towards making life better for coaches, R&D teams, and more, allowing them to do the hard stuff and drive player development.