Sports analytics centre proposed for Hamilton

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The city of Hamilton is looking to optimize its business opportunities during the Pan Am games.

As part of the Americas Investment Playbook initiative to promote Hamilton and Niagara during the Pan Am games, Brazilian businessman Richaro Sodre has announced that he is moving his business from Waterloo to Hamilton.

Sodre is creating technology that examines and analyzes how athletes move.

The plan is to create a sports analytics centre of excellence, which could generate billions annually in economic activity. Local entrepreneurs like Ron Foxcroft are on board to create the centre and make it a leader of sports technology around the world.

Investment consultant Harjeet Bajaj says, “Similar to Quantum Valley which is in Waterloo, or life sciences clusters in Toronto or digital media zones in places like Vancouver I think the sports analytics industry deserves a home as well.”

“That’s the concept that we built off of and with the guidance of Ron Foxcroft who assisted with the development of this whole centre of excellence concept, we built something in a very short period of time with some traction. It’s very early stages but we’ve got some results and we feel there is no reason why the Hamilton-Niagara region cannot be the location where something like this can develop.”

Project 1 CEO Ricardo Sodre: “I think a lot of investment will come to this because of lot of money from advertising, they figured out that sports is one of the top ways to engage consumers and viewers. So Hamilton saw the space in the stadium and can be close to the McMaster which has a big, centre in kinesiology which is important to me.”

“I think this is the perfect ecosystem for me to move here and develop this technology.”

A sports analytics centre of excellence could mean tech jobs, new investments and possibly draw in more sports teams.

CHCH’s Cindy Csordas will have more on this story tonight on the Evening News at 6.