The Field of Play Sports Data Conference grew from conversations taking place at PyDataMCR, the hub for Manchester's thriving data science community since 2018. We recognised that while there are a couple of UK sports data analytics conferences, they are primarily vehicles for advertising, can be expensive and insular and almost exclusively about football. Manchester, with its rich sporting heritage, history of innovation and thriving tech community is the perfect place to do something different and worth a day out of the office - and that’s what we will offer, this year and in all future editions.