Opta vs StatsBomb

Verdict

Opta and StatsBomb both build event data by having trained analysts watch match video and code every pass, shot and duel, increasingly assisted rather than replaced by computer vision. The difference is scope and depth rather than method. Opta, under Stats Perform, covers football, cricket, American football, basketball and more across hundreds of competitions, with an archive running back decades and delivery through Stats Perform's wider AI and broadcast products. StatsBomb is football-specific and goes deeper on that one sport: its StatsBomb 360 data adds full player-positioning context — a freeze-frame of where everyone was — to every on-ball event, and it publishes derived models like expected goals and possession value directly on top of the raw data.

Buyers who need one feed across many sports and territories, particularly for broadcast or betting-adjacent products, gravitate to Opta's breadth. Buyers focused specifically on football recruitment and tactical analysis, who want positioning data and ready-made analytical models rather than raw events alone, gravitate to StatsBomb's depth.

Choose Opta if

• You need coverage across multiple sports, not football alone.
• You want the longest historical archive for context and trend analysis.
• You're a broadcaster, sportsbook or media company that needs data tailored for graphics and betting products alongside raw stats.

Choose StatsBomb if

• Football is your only sport and you want positional context — not just what happened, but where everyone was when it did.
• You want expected goals and possession-value models built in rather than building your own on raw event data.
• You're doing recruitment or scouting through the StatsBomb IQ platform, which pairs video with the same event data.

What they share

Neither vendor uses wearable or optical player tracking as its primary source — both rely on manually coded event data checked for accuracy, which is a real differentiator from vendors like Second Spectrum that extract data from installed cameras instead. Both license data per club, league or media account rather than publishing self-serve pricing, and both serve professional and broadcast customers rather than individual analysts.

The honest caveat

Neither company publishes prices, and coverage depth varies by competition for both vendors — a lower-tier league might have thinner data from either. If your shortlist comes down to these two, ask each vendor for a sample export of the specific competitions you actually need, not their flagship league, before comparing quality.