Jake's Road Report is Gemini Sports founder Jake Schuster’s weekly update from professional football's frontlines. He travels globally, meeting club executives to share candid insights on AI's role in football. These raw, actionable thoughts are delivered weekly, with meeting details kept confidential and specific intel omitted.
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Last week’s Road Report, “The Problem Is The Process”, seemed to resonate with a lot of people. I guess you could say it struck a nerve, and admittedly, I’m not surprised.
This week is a bit of a continuation of that sentiment.
Like I’ve said before, most clubs are not suffering from a lack of talent. They’re suffering from a clear, simple, smooth, nimble way of working together. One where everyone is in sync and collaborating in real-time.
Essentially — when you fix the process, you reap the results.
Case in point, I recently heard of a club buying a player that was recommended by the “AI company” their owner had invested in, which has nothing to do with football. A couple staff at that company send player names to the sporting director, and they decide from there.
One particular player was sent to the scouts, who were not big fans, but they scrambled to find elements they liked; a few whispers in the wind of data on the player which said they might be a hidden gem. Then, because another team was bidding for this player and the agent had manufactured scarcity, the team abruptly paid between 2-3x what they should have.
Ouch.
I’ve seen a lot of conference talks about clubs being holistic, integrated organizations. Yet their technology and processes tell a different story, and they often operate like the above example. Each group speaks a different language, uses different tools and operates on different timelines.
Does anyone think this “method” is functional or effective in the long run? Despite the best intentions, when insights never meet in the same room — or even the same system — until it's too late, teams will fail over and over.
Top clubs have cracked this code. They've put together processes where information flows seamlessly between departments, where insights build on each other rather than compete, and where everyone is literally (and figuratively) working from the same page. They’re unafraid to work with great technology partners who allow them to focus on football, rather than software. They leave their egos at the door.
Here's a reality check you likely already know — sporting directors usually don’t make decisions at a desk. They’re on planes, in stadiums, in cars. And scouts aren't filing reports from office chairs. They're typing notes on cramped press box benches and hotel room desks. All the while, data analysts are creating long and short lists manually and sending them back and forth to everyone for more research.
Yet most clubs still design their systems like it's 2005. Reports that only display properly on 24-inch monitors, so visualizations become meaningless when compressed to an iPhone screen, and each department using their own disparate tools that are often a black box to each other.
I keep meeting executives willing to make hard choices with their tech stack, systems and staffing. Yet, there are headwinds.
In football, as in most things, perpetual problems require intentional solutions. I reckon the clubs winning tomorrow are the ones fixing their processes today.
