Genius Sports, the sports technology and data company, has hired Mark Kropf from Google as its new group chief technology officer.
Kropf previously served as technical director at Google within the chief technology officer’s department.
In that position, he has been credited with playing an “instrumental role” in advancing Google's generative AI capabilities, improvising developer experience, and driving innovation.
His hiring will be pivotal for the development and deployment of the GeniusIQ sports data and AI platform which “leverages powerful machine learning and generative AI to deliver unmatched game analysis and ultra-immersive experiences.”
GeniusIQ was unveiled in early August, to enhance the company’s existing offerings by better facilitating the retrieval and collation of data and the generation of more accurate data insights and predictive analytics.
The platform is already in use by several major global sports competitions, most notably soccer’s English Premier League, with GeniusIQ powering its Premier League Data Zone viewing mode, integrating Genius Sports statistics and data insights into broadcasts of games from the league.
GeniusIQ is also aiding the company’s collaboration with US women’s basketball’s WNBA, to which it provides its Second Spectrum 3D optical tracking solution. The GeniusIQ tool is helping to collect more valuable insights for WNBA players and franchises.
Kropf said: “I look forward to supporting this continued growth and working with a remarkable team that has already positioned Genius Sports at the forefront of data and technology innovation in sport.”
Mark Locke. Genius Sports’ chief executive, added: “Our cutting-edge GeniusIQ platform is already driving the AI revolution in the global sports ecosystem and Mark’s expertise will play a key role in amplifying and accelerating that transformation.”
August also saw Genius announce its second quarter (Q2) financial results for the year. The group generated revenue of $95.4 million for Q2, which exceeded first-quarter guidance of $94 million. The figure was also up 10% year-over-year from $86.8 million in the same period in 2023.
Late last month, meanwhile, the sports technology and data company unveiled an NFL-centric partnership with social news aggregation platform Reddit.
The pair will work on making live NFL scores and real-time stats available on Reddit’s NFL-based pages. The information, which will be “powered by the highest-quality official data”, will be available on team-specific sub-Reddit pages.
This deal has been put together with Genius as the provider of official NFL league data, through a deal running until the end of 2027-28 that was last renewed in July 2023.
