Copyright irishmirror
There aren’t too many Irish companies that can boast a client list that includes more than half of all Premier League clubs, a host of NFL, NBA, WNBA, NHL, MLB and MLS franchises, and an Olympic gold medalist. Yet in its five-and-a-half-year existence, Output Sports has been propelled into the pro sports stratosphere. The company was co-founded in 2020 by Dr Martin O'Reilly, Dr Darragh Whelan, Julian Eberle and Professor Brian Caulfield, and is headquartered at NovaUCD in Dublin. It recently opened a US office in Boston. Output Sports is in the rapidly expanding business of sports science, and its technology is used to inform everyone from the most elite pro athletes and coaches to general population gym-users. Recently, as part of preparations for the upcoming Dublin Hyrox event at the RDS, a group of media and content creators brought together by Red Bull got to work with Padraig Cullen and Sam Carey from Output Sports. Using a single wearable sensor system, they were able to provide insights into various performance metrics, with a leaderboard system providing the all-important competitive edge to the session. And while they weren’t dealing with people at the level of Irish rugby or All Blacks stars that the company has put through their paces, they were still able to glean some valuable information to aid improvements. Afterwards, Sam told Fitter Happier that work with weekend warriors (my words, not his) was one of the biggest growth markets in a business that is already worth €13.1billion, according to a recent article published on the UCD website, and is expected to grow by over 20 percent by 2030. “This is a new scene for us,” he said. “We primarily work in professional team sports, universities, performance facilities, mainly in the US, and across Ireland and Europe, and rehab centres. Hyrox has become bigger and bigger too. It’s great to get involved in this scene.” Sam came into Output sports after graduating from Setanta College, renowned for its courses in sports science. While studying, he interned with different teams across a variety of sports, and afterwards he landed an internship with the South Africa Under-20 rugby team. “That was the biggest role I’ve had in terms of pro sport, and that was a really good insight for me in terms of getting what pro athletes want and what coaches want,” he said. “When I came back to Ireland after that I joined a couple of schools and a couple of different local teams. “Then Output Sports, luckily, did a data collection on one of the teams I was working with, and I forced them to give me a job!” After Padraig completed a Health and Sports Science degree in TUD, he began working with the strength and conditioning team at Shamrock Rovers. “Working in one of the biggest and best football academies in Ireland as a young S&C coach with a bit of sports science knowledge, you are asked to do a lot in terms of trying to get as much data as possible,” he said. “If there are scouts coming across, you have to try and provide a little bit of information on these guys.” Getting buy-in from pro athletes is easy, they say. According to Sam: “One big thing we have seen, especially in football clubs, is strength and conditioning is still a little bit behind, and most coaches will probably agree with that, even in the Premier League. “The common problem with players is actually the buy-in to the gym work. So the ways we have helped them and the reason they have us in is mainly around gamifying the gymwork. “They want to compete with each other, they are big competitors the whole time, and this basically looks after that. “The biggest aspect of training with pro teams is, if you don’t have any intent behind it, it’s a waste of time. Just doing work for the sake of fatigue is not useful. So they actually want to get good work done, so we can gamify that and drive the intent in the weight room or on the pitch.” With help from Enterprise Ireland and other investors, Output Sports has developed rapidly beyond these shores, utilising contacts to break into lucrative NFL and Premier League markets. Word of mouth saw the company expand from initially working with Burnley to now doing business with more than half of English top-flight sides. It was the same across the Atlantic, when word of their successes with the LA Chargers spread throughout the NFL. Output Sports now works with over 800 sports organisations, providing the insights needed to make data-backed decisions that can improve athletic performance. According to the UCD article, last year their technology captured a mind-boggling 30 million measurements from athletes around the world. In the case of swimmer Daniel Wiffen, the data collected helped him on his way to Olympic gold in Paris. Let’s see what impact it can have on a bunch of amateur Hyrox hopefuls next month. Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email .
