Pro Football Focus (PFF), the omnipresent player performance tracking firm owned by NBC Sports lead NFL analyst Cris Collinsworth, is being sold to software and analytics company Teamworks, according to a report by Arif Hasan in his Wide Left Substack. Teamworks is reportedly paying between $130 and $140 million to acquire the company.
The sale is moving forward after PFF initially opened itself up to private investment several years ago, securing a $50 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake. Collinsworth purchased a majority stake in PFF back in 2014. Per Hasan, Silver Lake’s investment valued PFF at $160 million, with one source saying the company was valued at $223 million at its peak.
PFF’s player tracking data has been the subject of much scrutiny in recent years. The player position rankings, which are shown directly next to a player during NBC’s Sunday Night Football broadcasts, are regularly a target of criticism for players, many of whom question the methodologies used by the company.
“You can’t watch film on TV copy and create a grade,” CBS NFL analyst J.J. Watt said in an appearance on The Pat McAfee Show last season. “You can’t break down a person’s grade and know what they’re supposed to do if you don’t now their exact assignment. I know defensive line play unbelievably well. I could not go and grade a game for a player and give him a definitive grade without speaking to him, his coach, the scheme, everything. It’s a fact. PFF has a ton of great stuff. Player grading sucks. Stopping putting it out.”
It’s unclear whether Teamworks’ acquisition will change how NBC Sports decides to utilize PFF grades on its broadcasts, or if the network will even be authorized to use such grades. One could presume that the network will have less incentive to utilize PFF data if the company is no longer owned by Collinsworth, especially given the blowback the inclusion of PFF rankings has caused recently.
It’s also unclear whether PFF will continue to produce its own content, as it has under prior ownership. While the bulk of PFF’s business is predicated on professional and college football teams subscribing to its suite of data and analytics tools to evaluate player performance, the company had developed a fledgling content arm as well.
Per Hasan, “It seems as if Teamworks, which does virtually nothing on the content side themselves or with any of their acquired properties, doesn’t have a media plan at the outset. There’s no clear understanding of what may happen to the fantasy/gambling sides of PFF either.”
Hasan continues, “What seems to be clear, however, is that Pro Football Focus management — who seemed to be aware of the imminence of the deal weeks ago — only informed those working for PFF’s business-to-business side. Those working on the content or consumer side weren’t given much information from the company and learned second- or third-hand.”
That isn’t necessarily a good sign for the future of those working on PFF’s content verticals.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.