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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I've been thinking a lot about speed lately.

Earlier this year, I watched two clubs chase the same player. Club A had perhaps 5% better metrics, courtesy of a bevy of PhDs on staff. Club B had something more valuable: the ability to make decisions quickly.

While Club A scheduled meetings to discuss their 20-slide presentation with three different formats from disparate departments, Club B had already discussed key contextual matters asynchronously, communicated with more clarity to the agent and gotten a bid at the right price to the selling club. Same player, same window, same opportunity. Different processes, different speeds, different outcomes.

Speed is a double-edged sword. If you have it, it can kill for you. If your rival has it and you don’t, it can kill you.

Here's what I see folks online obsessing about: a relentless pursuit of ever more sophisticated metrics and more niche or trendy markets to shop in. NASA-level heat maps. Calling basic ML models AI.

But I’d much rather see executives get the info they need 10x—or 100x—faster.

What's more valuable? Knowing a player's progressive passing accuracy under pressure in the final third during away matches against teams ranked 8th-12th, delivered after 3 hours of analysis? Or knowing they’re a strong fit for your system, priced fairly and is available now — in your own hands in 3 clicks? Of course you need both, but more than anything, you need them at your fingertips.

The market isn’t sitting there waiting for your analysis to be perfect.

It’s waiting for your decision to be made.