The Phillies sued Zelus Analytics to stop the company from selling their ‘competitive advantage’
The team uses the system for “critical baseball operations decisions,” from trade analysis to on-field strategy. Now, the company wants to sell it to more than the agreed upon number of teams.
The Phillies have filed a federal lawsuit accusing a data firm of breach of contract by shopping an exclusive baseball analytics platform to the team’s divisional rivals and other teams around Major League Baseball.
The Phillies filed the lawsuit on March 14 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against an analytics company, Zelus Analytics, which is owned by Teamworks Innovations, for breach of contract, alleging that the companies were trying to sell their baseball analytics platform to other MLB teams, a violation of the original agreement.
The Phillies purchased a Zelus analytics program called the Titan Intelligence Platform, which provides “proprietary baseball analytics models and metrics that inform critical baseball operations decisions, including player evaluation, prospect assessment, trade analysis, roster construction, asset valuation, and on-field strategy,” according to the lawsuit.
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The team entered its first agreement with Zelus in 2022 for the use of Titan, which restricts the company from selling the platform to more than six MLB teams, one per division, according to the suit.
The Phillies allege in the suit that they exercised a contractual option to extend the exclusive agreement to the 2025 MLB season, but that Zelus responded by attempting to amend the contract to sell to additional teams, and “explicitly stated” that it intended to sell parts of the Titan Intelligence Platform to more than the agreed-upon six teams. In exchange, the company offered the Phillies “discounted pricing,” which the Phillies have rejected.
The Phillies are asking a judge to block any sales of the product that would breach the agreement, in addition to unspecified compensatory damages. In the suit, the Phillies say the organization invested “substantial” financial resources to ensure that the team had exclusive rights to the platform, including $1.75 million for access from 2022-24, and said the team would pay $725,000 for access in 2025.
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“The harm suffered by the Phillies cannot be adequately remedied by monetary damages alone,” the lawsuit states. “The competitive advantage secured through the division exclusivity agreement and six-team limitation is unique and cannot be precisely quantified.”
Teamworks Innovations, Zelus’ parent company, did not immediately reply to a request for comment from The Inquirer. The Phillies declined comment on the pending litigation.