Top 7 Sports Datasets for Computer Vision Projects
Published Nov 8, 2022 • 5 min read

Computer vision and image processing are used widely in sports to significantly influence athletes and team performance. Implementing computer vision techniques is a turning point in the transformation and development of the sports industry. Sports companies use data collected during games to train real-time machine learning and artificial intelligence models for in-game strategies.

This post will discuss the top 7 sports datasets available in Roboflow Universe.

1. Cricket, Football, Baseball Classification

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/popular-benchmarks/cricket-football-baseball-classification

Project Type: Classification

Subject: Cricket-Football-Baseball

Classes: cricket, baseball, football

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

This dataset contains 252 images of playing cricket, football, and baseball (original dataset from Kaggle - Bikram Saha). The images are split into cricket - 95 images, football - 77 images, baseball - 79 images. This is a dataset for image classification in sports. This model will help to identify if the sport or activity occurring in the image or video feed is, or most closely resembles, cricket, football, or baseball.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

2. Helmet Detecting Model Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/helmet-ytw2w/helmet-detecting-model

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: football-helmets

Classes: Helmet, Not_helmet

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The helmet detection model is an object detection dataset with two classes that allows you to detect whether football players are wearing a helmet. The dataset contains 4.3K train, 416 valid, and 209 testing images with auto-orientation and resizing applied to each. This dataset can help detect helmets, track detected helmets, and identify impact to tracked helmets on the field.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

3. Shuttlecock Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/mathieu-cartron/shuttlecock-cqzy3

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: Shuttlecock

Classes: Shuttlecock, Null

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The shuttlecock computer vision project is a dataset containing 5.6K trains, 1.6K valid, and 816 test images of shuttlecocks for an object detection project. The images in the dataset have auto-orientation applied and are resized to 640*640 pixels. This dataset can be used to train object detection models that allow the embedded cameras to track the movement of shuttlecocks during the competitions allowing them to determine the trajectory in 2D and 3D and know when the shuttle hits the ground.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

4. Golfball Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/anna-gaming/golfball

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: ball

Classes: golfball, Null

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The golfball computer vision project is a dataset containing 31K trains, 3.5K valid, and 3.5K testing images of a golf ball from different angles. Each image has auto-orientation applied and is resized to 416*416 pixels using adaptive equalization. The project can be used to train an object detection model capable of detecting golf balls in images and videos. The dataset has excellent applications like sports broadcasting, automated ball tracking, scoring, finding a lost ball, and more.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

5. Boxpunch Detector Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/markmcquade/boxpunch-detector

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: Punches

Classes: bag, cross, hook, jab, lead hook, lead uppercut, no punch, rear hook, rear uppercut, uppercut

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The boxpunch computer vision project is a dataset containing 606 train, 47 valid, and 25 test images of a boxer punching a bag. All the images in the dataset have auto-orientation applied and are resized to 416*416 pixels. This dataset can be used to train a model that can capture different types of punches thrown during boxing matches and training sessions. It can be used to count the total punches thrown in a round, keeping track of intensity, and understanding flaws in punch technique.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

6. Cyclist Database Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/pawel-brzozowski/cyclists_database

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: cyclists

Classes: cyclist_back, cyclist_front, cyclist_side, person

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The cyclist database computer vision project is a dataset containing 4.4K train, 572 valid, and 190 test images of people riding bicycles from multiple directions (front, back, and side). The images in the dataset have auto-orientation applied. This dataset has multiple use cases, from training self-driving cars to be cautious of cyclists to sports broadcasting to gather information about how cyclists are positioned.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

7. Football Players Computer Vision Project

Link: https://universe.roboflow.com/bronkscottema/football-players-zm06l

Project Type: Object-Detection

Subject: american-football-players

Classes: american-football-players, center, db, lb, qb, skill

Download Formats: YOLOv5, YOLOv7, MT-YOLOv6, COCO JSON, YOLO Darknet, Pascal VOC XML, TFRecord, CreateML JSON, etc

The football player computer vision project is a dataset containing 1.8K train, 100 valid, and 50 test images of football players in straightforward positions like center, quarterback (qb), defensive back (db), and linebacker (lb). All the images in the dataset have auto-orientation applied. This dataset can detect players across various scenes in real-time and help identify the specif plaers. In advanced use cases, if trained with other models, this dataset can assist with referee rule enforcement and regulations during a game.

Test the model's performance by calling Roboflow's API pretrained on the images.

Using Open Source Sports Datasets for Computer Vision

Computer vision applications in sports are emerging all over the globe, covering post-game analysis, in-game activities, sponsor opportunities and much more. Today's article provided some insight into datasets you can use for your sports applications.

Sign up for a free Roboflow account to add images from open source datasets and train a computer vision model in one click. You'll have a fully running computer vision pipeline in no time.

Cite this Post

Use the following entry to cite this post in your research:

Mrinal Walia. (Nov 8, 2022). Top 7 Sports Datasets for Computer Vision Projects. Roboflow Blog: https://blog.roboflow.com/top-sports-datasets-computer-vision/

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Written by

Mrinal Walia
Passionate Data Scientist with 5+ years of writing experience in data science and its related fields. Published 200+ articles, blogs, guides, use-cases, and tutorials at multiple renowned publications