A football player recently negotiated a record contract with the help of an analytics consulting company.
Data Science in sports is emerging all over the industry. Often used by sports’ organisations to enhance their players’ performance, it now turned to be a powerful science used by the players themselves, especially during contract negotiation phases.
In April 2021, Kevin De Bruyne, a key figure in the football landscape announced he negotiated a contract extension with his club. A 4 years extension came along with a 30% increase (21M€ / season) that made him Premier League’s best-paid player.
The interesting part?
Kevin De Bruyne working with an analytics company might seem like a surprise now, but it won’t in the future. In fact, it has already been repeated over by other players, and the use of big data analytics as a negotiation tool could be applicable to other professional fields. “How would an HR professional handle an employee who comes with hard data on their performance? And if you turn this around, how does an HR team start to quantify performance and compensation in a more objective and data-driven way?”
