Twenty3’s best of 2023

As the curtain closes on another year in the ever-evolving sports data industry, we, like any sports team at the end of the season, are in reflective mode. 

Every campaign consists of the highs and the not-so-highs, and 2023 was no different for Twenty3. But once again, it was a year in which we continued our upward trajectory in the fascinating world of sports business.

To close out our namesake year, we thought we’d round up five of our best bits from the 12 months just gone.

Content Kings

Many of those will be familiar with the data side of our business – namely our beloved Toolbox and other popular professional services – but our ‘sister service’, that is Content Production – sometimes flies under the radar. 

Our mighty-talented, versatile Content Team – consisting of writers, editors, videographers, animators and one particular presenter – enjoyed another year of diverse work. 

We’ve produced a plethora of thought-provoking editorial for LiveScore across their 25th anniversary year, edited a range of insightful, entertaining videos to engage Squawka’s sizeable social audience and completed a diverse mix of ad-hoc projects for brands across the sports media landscape.

In 2023, the Twenty3 team also continued their hugely rewarding work for one of the world’s most iconic Formula 1 teams, as well as delivering hundreds of handy Stat Packs – which help pundits better prepare for matchday – for one of the industry’s award-winning broadcasters.

Congratulations to all of our Content wizards for, once again, knocking it out of the park.

Championing the Toolbox

Product development never sleeps and the Twenty3 Toolbox continues to go from strength to strength, with 1.2 million insights now generated and over 130,000 smart graphics exported since the product’s inception.

In 2023, we completed 10 product releases to further develop our product – all named after (mostly) iconic footballers (we’ll drop the full list below). You can read about our Product Manager Tristan’s five favourite Toolbox features here.

It was another year which saw big names join the party and opt to sign up for a data-agnostic SaaS product which continues to maximise value from data. 

But it was an incumbent that stole the Toolbox headlines, as Sparta Praha saw off city rivals Slavia to secure a record 37th top-flight Czech title with the Toolbox at the heart of their analysis.

At the end of the campaign, we had the pleasure of sitting down with the club’s Head of Analysis, Stephen Foyston, who explained the impact Twenty3 has had at the epet ARENA since July 2022. 

You can read all about it here, but we’ll leave you with the following quote from Stephen – it’s always rewarding for our team to hear such praise and see another year of hard work pay off. 

“We found the right partner with Twenty3 and after almost two seasons of collaboration we have complete trust in their handling of what is a complex data architecture, but moreover, their attention to customer service was impeccable, something we greatly appreciated.”

Twenty3 product releases in 2023: Henry, Inzaghi, Juninho, Kaka, Lineker, Michu, Nedved, Okocha, Pirlo, Quaresma

Betting on Twenty3

While bet-leaning brands such as the aforementioned LiveScore and Squawka have long been avid users of our products and services, 2023 saw Twenty3 gain a firmer foothold in the sports betting market. 

With the popularity of player prop betting increasing the relevance of detailed match statistics, our Toolbox allows content creators to produce complex, data-inspired insights that are easy on the eye and simple to digest in a matter of seconds. Better still, they’re customised to each customer’s specific branding. 

As our Co-CEO, Andrew Cox, put it: “Content strategy is an increasingly important consideration and point of difference for sports betting operators, allowing them to creatively increase turnover through any combination of improved customer engagement, marketing or search engine optimisation.

“The convergence of media and betting organisations in terms of their content creation activities, allied to the global appeal of football, makes Twenty3 the perfect enabler of improved data-led storytelling and customer acquisition.”

In 2023, we picked up some of the industry’s biggest names, with William Hill and Betway both betting on the Toolbox.

With 2024 set to be an even bigger year for Twenty3 in the sports media and betting world, who knows what we’ll accumulate? Watch this space.

An industry titan

While Premier League clubs spent a record £2.36 billion in the 2023 summer transfer window on names like Moises Caicedo and Declan Rice, we also made a big signing of our own, though we didn’t splash the cash quite as liberally. 

Industry titan Andrew Cox, who spent more than a decade with sports data pioneers Opta, joined Twenty3 as Co-Chief Executive Officer back in July. 

Andrew, who has also worked as a consultant to various sports governing bodies, federations and leagues was a marquee signing at a key moment for Twenty3. 

And he was welcomed with open arms by Co-CEO Simon McMillan, who described the news as “a fantastic boost to our business and a great endorsement of how far we have come.”

Andrew himself praised the company he was walking into, both for the “technology and expertise” that enables our products and the “extremely talented data and content specialists” that bring them to life. 

We’ve loved having Andrew here so far, with his deep industry expertise and friendly Yorkshire twang proving popular already. We can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store for this burgeoning new partnership.

Sky high with Street League

After our 25-person team collectively ‘travelled’ a whopping 4,201 miles on foot and bike to Qatar in 2022, raising all-important money for our official charity partner, Street League, our fundraising continued in 2023.

Back in September, our trio of brave Twenty3 souls – Boris Addae, Kyle Joseph and Tristan Minall – faced their fears and completed an epic skydive, bringing home close to £3,000 for our friends at Street League.

Boris, Kyle and Tristan threw themselves out of a plane from 13,000 ft in the sky, reaching speeds of up to 125 mph, entering themselves into Twenty3 and Street League folklore in the process.

When the dust settled, Boris described the experience as “the craziest thing I’ve ever done”, Kyle reflected on “an amazing day that I will never forget”, while Tristan summarised the two-mile drop as “a unique combination of terrifying and exhilarating”.

We were so happy to raise more money for the fantastic cause that is Street League – an organisation that uses the power of sport and education to tackle poverty, and support young people into employment, education and training – often with life-changing results.

We’re also delighted that Street League will continue as our official charity partner into 2024.

That completes our round-up of the best of Twenty3 in 2023. We wish a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all, and we’ll see you next year.