chainlink baseball fieldApex146 on Chainlink Q&A Enabling New DApps with Sports Data

wwii us military sweetheart chainlink bracelet mastercard chainlink chainlink baseball field Apex146 on Chainlink Q&A Enabling New DApps with Sports Data

hello everyone we have another great guest here we have scott robinson here the ceo of apex 146 recent integration with chain link we are really excited to have him to learn about what new types of data are now being able uh to integrate with your dapps and things like this within the broader web3 ecosystem so scott super happy to have you again welcome to the q a thanks for having me i appreciate it awesome so just uh to get things rolling a little bit um for for those who may not be super familiar with uh apex 146 uh can you tell us a little bit about you know what you guys operate with and what you oversee yeah so were were basically an analytics firm um and so you know i i spent my whole career in the capital markets and commodity industry and you know heavy analytics work uh technology um for what the last 25 something years and and so ive always been pretty fascinated by really forecasting difficult events right especially in the commodity space so um im also a very avid sports fan especially in action sports so what we decided to do is do a fun project and it was really started as a university of california santa barbara internship program and we were taking a lot of the methodologies and things i was doing in the commodity space physical movement and geospatial work and we wanted to apply it to some of the sports that we liked especially myself and so im also an avid motorcycle road racing motorcycle red racing fan im still the coach i still coach road racing with n2 uh and the east coast and so we decided to basically do a predictive analytics project around motogp which is the top level of motorcycle racing its very similar to formula one if people are typically more familiar with formula one but very large global audiences for these sports so were really an analytics firm right but our analytics itself um you know if you think about what we do it was inspired by uh things like money ball right moneyball and baseball with oakland as were pretty much moneyball for motogp formula one mxgp which is world motocross downhill mountain biking world tour cycling and skiing alpine skiing were now moving into things like downhill super g and um giant slalom so the the the common element on our business model is these are all timing based sports and unlike moneyball which is stick and ball sports which is very easy to measure performance of athletes in our sport its actually very difficult its all based on timing and so you dont have the same statistics with these sports that you do in some of the other sports which is one of the reasons why sports betting has not really taken off with these sports because its actually very hard to do probabilities around predictions on events everythings down to thousands of a second so we really embarked on this as a fun project and it just turned into a business um and its really pretty exciting work were doing very cool so as youre saying its a its maybe a different type of measurement in terms of how we collect this data so can you elaborate a little bit in terms of where does apex get this data uh how do you collect it and you know do you have any kind of standards for ensuring the high quality data that you find about well this is the thing thats unusual about what we do is we actually dont republish data we actually create data right so our data is really created through um a unique skill set that weve assembled to do what we do you actually have to have domain expertise around the topic so that means professional athletes people like myself others that are experts in these sports that were involved in and we actually have a great you know cadre of people that are experts across the different sports that we cover but that is combined then with statistics and mathematics thats combined with software development and so what were doing is were basically modeling how an athlete makes decisions and how they increase and decrease in performance in these sports over time and so as an example in moto gp we have 17 proprietary indexes weve created around performance of athletes that basically we use a variety of different reference data pieces to do back testing and build our algorithms out but in general everything that we actually publish out to the world is unique to us and proprietary and thats in a sense in the chain link side thats why were considered a sole source oracle essentially right because we are the ones that actually create the data and were the ones that can verify what happened verification of our embeds is pretty straightforward because you know the order people come in in events so from verification its actually its like its very its very accurate but what were really doing is were building probabilities around whats going to happen and so its not just what happened in an event its where it happened and why it happened right which is really important concept to understand when youre looking at the kinds of data sets that we produce so aside from you know these domain expert software mathematics we also have meteorology we have graphic design work were doing in the nft space so theres a really interdisciplinary team that weve built over time to really be able to accomplish what were doing nice and so you know as you guys are creating this this data this new information really to to be applicable in different ways like when you source this stuff like what kind of challenges come up um that maybe you know the average user may not necessarily think when they start to interact with the information you collect yeah i think the inner the information is fairly straightforward to understand once if youre if youre involved in esports give me an example in motogp we created some indexes that had never been done in these sports predator prey indexes which lead to efficiency and volatility around efficiency white predator prey well because when youre racing doesnt matter whether its in you know on motorcycles in cars whatever youre either a predator or youre prey and youre youre both typically in a race because people are passing so youre chasing youre being chased and so theres a whole set of indexes weve created like i said 17 and moto gp about 14 for formula one which are really kind of theyre really mapping how an athlete in that sport is thinking and you know milliseconds essentially because the speeds are so great and so what were doing is were modeling the the scent in a sense how how the thought process works um and that allows us to then understand better where the weaknesses are where the strengths are with any given athlete on a specific track on a sector of that track in certain weather conditions with different track temperatures so when you say data well theres a lot of ill call it theres theres um theres reference data we use to create our algorithms but that reference data typically is public information but is pretty diverse so we have our own teams that actually handle everything inside on the data side and so if were using reference data were doing those collections ourselves were then actually going through and were doing indexing work and creating indexes with the expert athletes then were actually then doing statistical models and were doing a lot of back testing work the back testing work is done on historical events that have happened right because we can go back in history and we can understand the performance of these athletes and over time um very high resolution and been pretty high frequency so the the ability to actually then go back and back test these things is really important to be able to get it right right and then our probabilities uh work out really pretty well especially in things like sports betting oh yeah i mean like the um the beauty of sports is that to what you were saying earlier with moneyball that so much of it is quantitative when you look at the outcomes right and so in terms of the back testing uh it makes the the verification process potentially a little bit easier in some instances where you know you have precedent of outcomes and you could kind of benchmark too potentially exactly the outcomes are very very clear right and so basically what our job is is to really help people understand why things happen where things happen not just what happened right what happened is pretty easy but its kind of more its more of why these things happen and what that means for the future so all of our indexing we do we do trajectories on things we look at performance of athletes over time so if someone switches teams that means theyre switching machinery that means that theyre going to actually have an impact of their performance they might actually slide down performance curve a little bit and they plateau and come back up so youll see that you know whether its the weather conditions the type of track its on you know all that data that we use on reference data say around track right where were collecting elevations distance to breaking distance to you know for acceleration points and so all of these data sets really come together to help us basically build out these indexes and then test them properly does that make sense yeah no i think its super cool and i think you were even talking about some things maybe it wasnt even intentional but in terms of potential games that could even derive from this stuff in terms of the chase dynamic within so i think a lot of enthusiasts are i mean as youre talking could probably foresee you know different types of things especially if youre like a developer within the industry uh different types of use cases potentially to to make stuff but before jumping into maybe some of the the potential creativity uh that we can see within the ecosystem just curious from your perspective and from your teams perspective um what inspired the team to bring this type of information to blockchains through the chain link network well its its a really great question um it actually started with uh us looking at a variety of different um partnerships out with with um vet tech companies or with sports books and i come from the exchange i spent so much time in the capital markets and commodities i spent a lot of time in the exchange world right and so i i was really fascinated by some of the new exchange models that are being put out there for things like sports betting or political events or whatever that is and it just so happens that some of the more innovative ones i think are on chain so we were first attracted to chain link because we were super interested in thales and agar turbo the new sports book that auger is putting out not that theyre necessarily a great success yet but we think that could be part of the future of where sports betting is going to go so we wanted to be an early entrant into on chain sports betting with the sports that we actually are involved in to do that we needed to be an oracle right you have to be able to in the in that world um as you know those are both aligned with chain link for us becoming essentially a single source oracle is the way that would work um and that way we can actually be a market creator because not only do we do probabilities but we actually build our own bet types and one of the reasons why we do that is because the bet types that are done typically in the world not by some some have some interesting bet types and some of the books out there but a lot dont theyre very vanilla generic and honestly the fan base isnt that interested in them so were able to do all kinds of combinations of really interesting types we can do them pre-event we can verify after event and we actually some day when blockchain can actually accommodate this we can act we actually do real time as well off chain right now so we can basically build bet types during the race that are the most interesting and we can actually update those things up to five times a second relative to the probabilities and the odds so theres theres a wealth of things we could do the question is being an early you know kind of adopter and moving on chain like this were the first ones to go on chain with our sports with the exception of some theres one other group thats doing some work around f1 but in general no ones doing the other sports we cover and what we do in f1 is actually really unique compared to anyone else totally yeah i mean as youre as youre talking about you know why making this information available uh through the chain link network uh some things that come to mind that im observing at least broadly speaking within the industry is around things like game five so you know im just even thinking as youre talking to me about this stuff um the potential of the gamification of this data to make it a more interactive and immersive experience even so uh with the frequency and the ability to bring this on potentially almost as youre saying in real time could potentially breed a whole world of opportunities in terms of other user experiences with this type of information which i think is super cool yeah in play has become in the sports betting world in play is becoming very popular and so we were working with different people out there looking at things we could do um people really wanted us to move not just from you know not just do pre-event but also do in play which we do incredibly well and and its very hard in our sports because these sports are literally thousands of a second kind of timing so um weve gotten very good at that side of it but theres another reason why we actually think on-chain is in chain link is so important and this really came out when we were talking to your group about doing work uh in the sports betting side but theres a bigger constituent base for what we do theres a lot of interest on the media front as an example because our information our probabilities our stories we can tell around what hap whats happening or what happened we can identify why things happen and where they happen we can also do forecasting work which is really helpful for media and so if you i mean our sports are global sports theres 1.9 billion people that watch formula one every year theres 430 million households that tune into moto gp theres 800 you know million people that watch you know world cup skiing and so these are really large audiences and so some of those might be prone to the kind of the sports betting community but a whole bunch of others are really that spectator group out there so we also were very interested in the media front and being able to do distribution on the media front for things that we can do that are very rich relative to being able to tell stories around things that happen with these athletes and whats likely to happen in an event so thats another area that were kind of going to pursue so media a big deal to us as well yeah so i mean youre youre expanding on media here i mean are there other types of applications of this information that you could think of around you know what developers could potentially build with this is now going to be information on chain absolutely so were as an example ill give you an example of something were doing which maybe help spark ideas from other people things they can do with with our analytics work and by the way we we think were were not really a consumer-facing company generally we are doing some consumer work though and ill explain that in a second but in general were very interested in hearing what people want from us because in in the case of things like sports betting we can do so much more than than than you know were currently doing relative to you know tell us what you want relative to data sets around probabilities and things on events that are going to happen and we can actually build those very rapidly as an example you know we do things like dream teams where well combine you know out of 20 racers well combine well basically combine four groups of five that are statistically even so you can go bet on a team versus just an individual in a race thats stuff that we can do in real time as well so its its not really a lot of constraints that we have based on the four years that weve been working with this its much more about what the market wants to consume from us and letting us know what they want to consume so we can actually do it efficiently and price it right in the marketplace um moving into some of the fun things uh we got engaged in the nft space about eight months ago uh we knew nothing about it honestly i had some attorneys come to me and say hey you should be involved in the nft space you have all this great information around performance and these athletes and its really exciting and so we started going doing our homework on it and we realized that we could basically do some really cool games because we can actually take our performance of our athletes and our sports we can create clones and so we can basically clone real real racing attributes into racers and then basically they can actually be involved in a game where they actually enter and win money they can actually reclone themselves with others for fees they can basically increase in value because our clones actually will increase in performance or decrease based on how well you coach them relative to what you go into so you dont play the game with your hands this is all a strategy game related to being able to take an asset and be able to apply it into races so that actually both win money but also win points which actually becomes valuable for the basically the you know the asset uh being traded in the secondary market so were very close to launching our beta for that game and that game will start with the motorcycle side and then itll they basically move into the open wheel we dont call them the names of the sports for a variety of reasons as you can imagine but we are doing the you know motorcycle road racing were going to be doing the uh the open wheel right after that and then well move into the other sports as well so thats actually going thats its a really fascinating fun project weve been working on for the last say six months eight months or so yeah its super cool so if i understand correctly then its not necessarily skill based per se but its a lot about like the prep work or what variables you have control over before the simulation potentially would run or yeah its its really about um its really about understanding the performance of your athlete versus others relative to conditions so that you can actually as a as a owner can actually place them or a team team owner or team coach you can put them into the right races where they actually have a high probability of winning so theres a lot of theres statistics and things that go along with this so that i understand better kind of how to actually place my athlete into the right places deliveries and stuff were doing are beautiful weve got you know amazing graphic design work and the game itself is really coming along its pretty stunning the way it looks so yeah its really its but it is based on all of the exact same assets were using for all of the sports betting or media site it really has to do with the ground statistics and the athlete performance statistics that are very rich that allow us to do the cloning that were talking about gotcha so like depending on like if theyre better on certain terrains versus others you probably would want to better id definitely put your player in that lane yes so that you can maximize performance based off of the historical yeah thats correct based on historical well so you have basically if you think about a clone that clone is born with a certain set of characteristics that are really you know kind of different than the other one um as an example i think well have you know theres a lot of clones like in the thousands and so everyones a one of one theres no the two that are identical not only are the deliveries for the machinery not necessarily identical some are similar um some might be identical but the actual characteristics are all very different because our racers are based on indexing and those indexes are thousands of a second and theres no two that can be the same its pretty much impossible right so basically everybody gets a one of one which means that if they actually have a really nice one of one with great you know liveries which actually are high performing athlete then that could be traded out on the market to someone who would actually be building a team plus well allow people to build teams of open wheel motorcycle racing motocross skiing they race separately but you can actually um uh race them you know kind of well have the motorcycle racing well have the car racing and all that but i can actually own a race team across things i mean think about red bull right red bull has all kinds of athletes right well so right how expensive is it to build race teams pretty expensive so this allows everyone to basically play into the racing game much like it really works in the real world at an affordable price um yeah lowering the buried arent you really to participate in essence exactly exactly right and so its not just an nft that you can trade and its nice looking its one i can actually do something with and actually make money from i can win money in my races i can also clone someone with someone else and i can get paid to basically let someone clone with me to create a new a new asset and so the assets will populate over time theyll increase in overtime yeah man so im just like im now starting to think as youre talking about this as like where where will these games live i guess if we start thinking about web 3 and blockchain based technology so i know that uh you know for example like hybrid smart contracts are what we view maybe as like the next evolution of what smart contracts can be and that they can combine on-chain data with off-chain data and computation stuff like this so you know how do you see you know the evolution of hybrid smart contracts playing out as it relates to the broader blockchain ecosystem in the next several years um because it sounds like theres a lot of potential opportunity for the utilization of this type of data in a lot of different ways depending on you know where it lives there is i mean because if you think about the architecture that were putting together for our game thats based on all this great you know performance um information that we create um you know theres a whole bunch of thats off chain um to be able to then own an asset and trade that asset on chain is super important and then to be able to go play a game that may be off-chain although aspects of it arent because you actually have to do payouts for people and everything else so theres a fairly complex set of things and weve learned a lot about smart contracts were still really new to it right were learning about this um but i guess one of the things that i would say just as a business person is i kind of look at the next five years and say well the first thing wed like to see is cross-chain interoperability right and so and i know that you guys im not that familiar with it yet but i know youre creating a chain link ccip cross chain interoperability protocol which is important to us because we want to be able to allow people to to be able to exchange their assets to um buy things because their our assets will be customizable well be able to put new you know stickers and libraries and sponsorships on the liver you want that to be something thats really free flowing we dont over time what would be really nice is to be able to have assets be able to move across chains so that theyre not just in one place and that what that does is it really allows people to kind of engage in i think a broader sense right its just right its more flexible and i like the way that you guys have described the ccip of being similar to tcpip right which is really kind of allowing uh inner communication across these worlds which is good for us in the kind of work we do whether thats over on the betting side whether thats over on the media side or whether thats over on our own or you know the game area that were working on as well now i guess the other thing id say over the next five years is um uh and im im relatively new to the world you guys are creating here but you can open the door to smart contracts being something that you know people understand uh theres a larger percent of the population that kind of get it i dont think that i dont i think right now people think of nfts as a thing versus a contract right and so the the the you know being able to make it easier for people to understand this will engage them into being able to do things with smart contracts whether thats for personal or whether thats for work related things right and so itll evolve to become much simpler and less ambiguous right and i think i personally think itll be much less ambiguous in the paper contract world which we live in today its a matter of time before people understand the language around this whole movement and be able to really understand how to how to leverage it for themselves so we want to be a pioneer in doing some of that with the things were working on absolutely scott and i think that um you know some of the examples youve outlined even in our time today kind of give a a foray into some of these potentially relatable use cases that are just beyond that maybe the headlines or what people perceive as nfts but make it more relatable that they could touch and feel and create something more with the technology yes but also the information um that youre able to provide uh to bring it to life which is uh in my view so um you know just for the for the followers and the enthusiasts i guess generally um curious scott you know how how else can people learn about what apex 146 is working on things that you have coming in the pipeline the best way is to go to our website apex146.com um you wont see much about our nft game on there right now its right weve been keeping it fairly quiet but were about ready to launch going into our beta so maybe a little bit of alpha in this conversation i dont know i dont know how much you said but yeah maybe i dont know about that outside but i think that people will find it really interesting but were so close right now that we want to start getting momentum around getting you know kind of our our first drop down and getting momentum behind there and people playing with it you know theres a couple you know a couple things about that were trying to make it so that so that the assets themselves the nfes are attainable by people we dont want to make it so that its just about you know asset valuation going up through the roof and no one can actually play the game then we really want to we create we we think weve solved some of the issues that others have had relative to making sure that you can keep broad participation and growth in the game itself so were thinking very long term not short term uh relative to making sure that people can play and actually really uh make it enjoyable and they can win um i mean its its really kind of interesting its parallel to sports betting but its not sports betting because its a game right you own an asset you basically enter that asset into uh into something or you do something with it so i personally find it a fascinating business model and it lines up so much with the things were doing with you guys that chain link it lines up with kind of our whole vision in the beginning of what we wanted to create its just that if you asked us a year ago weve been doing nft gaming we would have said what what youre crazy no um we we kind of we kind of fell into it right it was it was very opportunistic um but its super fun right where the team is having a great time learning about this stuff and becoming real experts very quickly absolutely scott and i i i appreciate you guys leaning in as a as a early mover potentially in this space and trying to figure out how do we bring to life so much rich data and making it relatable accessible and uh reliable quite frankly and trustworthy based off of what you were explaining uh earlier in terms of the back testing and the validity of this information so that we could build the next wave of really cool products so scott again thanks so much man for uh the time today its awesome to have your your point of view around where you see things heading uh not only just necessarily in the analytics and the sports sphere but also as you see it relaying into the evolution of whats happening in web3 so great to have you im sure the enthusiasts are really excited to see what more can be built with this kind of information and um to the broader community if youve enjoyed this conversation with scott and apex 146 feel free to subscribe like and uh join us again next time with our next guest so scott again have an awesome day thanks for joining us today thanks for having me i appreciate it you Join us on Chainlink Q&A with Apex146. We cover what Apex146 does, considerations when making data accessible in a new way, and how Apex146 is using Chainlink to bring real-world action sports data on-chain.Featuring: Scott Robinson, Founder and CEO at Apex146 Apex146: Apex146 Twitter: Apex146 blog: Connect your smart contracts to real-world data: Chainlink is the industry standard for building, accessing, and selling oracle services needed to power hybrid smart contracts on any blockchain. Chainlink oracle networks provide smart contracts with a way to reliably connect to any external API and leverage secure off-chain computations for enabling feature-rich applications. Chainlink currently secures tens of billions of dollars across DeFi, insurance, gaming, and other major industries, and offers global enterprises and leading data providers a universal gateway to all blockchains. Learn more about Chainlink: Website: Docs: Twitter: Chainlink Apex146 Chainlink,