{"id":1580,"date":"2026-10-14T14:22:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T14:22:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/?p=1580"},"modified":"2026-10-14T14:22:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T14:22:12","slug":"beyond-the-stopwatch-inside-ntangibles-quest-to-quantify-the-clutch-factor-in-sports-and-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/?p=1580","title":{"rendered":"Beyond the Stopwatch: Inside NTangible\u2019s Quest to Quantify the "Clutch Factor" in Sports and the Workplace"},"content":{"rendered":"

When collegiate sports programs scour the country to recruit the next generation of star athletes, evaluating physical talent has long been reduced to an exact science. Scouts and coaches can measure concrete metrics with pinpoint precision: a player\u2019s sprint speed down the baseline, their throwing velocity from the outfield, or their maximum physical strength in the weight room. Yet, despite the billions of dollars flowing through collegiate athletics, a critical component of athletic success has historically remained entirely unquantified. <\/p>\n

Until now, there has never been a clear, data-driven way to measure the mental aspects of sports. How well will a specific athlete actually perform when thrust into high-pressure situations? Will they remain calm under the spotlight, block out distractions, focus intensely, and deliver their absolute best performance? Or will the overwhelming weight of expectations cause them to panic and falter when it matters most?<\/p>\n

Dan Connerty, co-founder and CEO of the sports-tech startup NTangible, believes he has finally unlocked the secret to answering these questions and predicting whether a player will execute during the most critical moments of a game. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe really wanted to hyper-focus on this idea of clutch performance,\u201d Connerty, a former professional baseball player turned sports-tech entrepreneur, told TechCrunch. \u201cCognitive [science] itself is just this black box that nobody\u2019s wanted to touch, because nobody\u2019s had the ability to measure it accurately prior.\u201d<\/p>\n

To crack this complex behavioral puzzle, Connerty teamed up with Dr. Ed Levine, a prominent psychologist and professor emeritus at the University of South Florida. Together, they developed a specialized psychological assessment designed to predict an athlete’s resilience and capability to perform under intense pressure. Dubbed the "Clutch Factor" assessment, the evaluation draws deep inspiration from the classic Thematic Apperception Test\u2014a well-established psychological examination where individuals are presented with photographs depicting ambiguous scenarios. Test-takers are then asked to describe what they see happening, identify who they imagine themselves to be within the scene, and narrate what they believe might happen next.<\/p>\n

\"NTangible<\/figure>\n

Rather than relying on straightforward multiple-choice questions about sports strategy or competitive drive, the assessment evaluates open-ended responses through a specialized lens. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no right or wrong answers,\u201d Connerty explained. \u201cThe key words that you use, the way in which you use those words, and the semantic phrasing associated with it get scored against the neurolinguistic scoring guide that psychologists created, and it shoots out your clutch factor score.\u201d<\/p>\n

The resulting score places the athlete on a scale between 0 and 1000. According to internal data cited by Connerty, an athlete who manages to score over 750 on the assessment is statistically twice as likely to ultimately commit to an elite Division I athletic program. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve been able to do is leverage this analysis, where we can show the predictive ability,\u201d he said, emphasizing the immense commercial value such data holds in the modern collegiate landscape. \u201cThis number can be heavily used in rankings, leaderboards, recruiting conversations, NIL conversations, and scholarship conversations, especially in the crazy wild west that is collegiate sports right now, where we\u2019re writing $4 million checks to quarterbacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the enthusiasm surrounding the platform’s predictive capabilities, potential vulnerabilities exist within any self-reported psychological assessment. A notable flaw in the product is that ambitious athletes, keenly aware of what coaches and recruiters are looking for, might be tempted to answer the questions dishonestly to artificially inflate their clutch score. When TechCrunch tested the quiz honestly, the reporter received a below-average score of 584\u2014an outcome that aligned with personal history, noting a lifelong dread of high-leverage situations during high school sports. However, upon taking the quiz a second time while consciously adopting the persona of a level-headed, naturally clutch top-tier recruit, the score jumped significantly to an 802.<\/p>\n

\"NTangible<\/figure>\n

Recognizing these nuances, NTangible\u2019s platform may ultimately find its most enduring value not just as a static screening tool for recruitment, but as a developmental resource. Connerty firmly believes that being "clutch" is not an immutable trait, but rather a learnable skill that can be systematically trained and improved over time. While NTangible does not position itself strictly as a training platform, Connerty collaborated with former Major League Baseball sports psychologist Howie Schwartz to curate a specialized list of exercises. Athletes can utilize these exercises as a foundational starting point to elevate their mental game and mental fortitude.<\/p>\n

Although Connerty\u2019s professional roots are firmly planted in baseball, NTangible has already scaled its technology to support psychological testing across nine distinct sports. Looking beyond the athletic arena, Connerty harbors broader ambitions to adapt the underlying methodology for corporate settings, offering human resources departments a novel way to evaluate employee strengths and weaknesses under workplace pressure. <\/p>\n

To address this market, the company developed the "NTerpret" assessment, which translates more directly to professional environments. In this adaptation, respondents answer targeted questions regarding how they best respond to coaching and constructive feedback, providing management with actionable data on how an individual employee processes instructions and executes tasks based on incoming information.<\/p>\n

For now, NTangible\u2019s most viable business model appears to be selling its software and evaluation services directly to organized sports bodies and corporate entities, rather than marketing to individual athletes seeking personal assessments. The company is set to showcase its broader business strategy and platform capabilities on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, where it is currently competing among the top 20 emerging companies vying for the grand prize at the annual Startup Battlefield competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When collegiate sports programs scour the country to recruit the next generation of star athletes, evaluating physical talent has long been reduced to an exact science. Scouts and coaches can measure concrete metrics with pinpoint precision: a player\u2019s sprint speed down the baseline, their throwing velocity from the outfield, or their maximum physical strength in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":1579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[317],"tags":[1016,2201,1975,318,321,643,2198,320,2200,2199,1157,2197,319,557],"class_list":["post-1580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology-and-fintech","tag-beyond","tag-clutch","tag-factor","tag-fintech","tag-innovation","tag-inside","tag-ntangible","tag-payments","tag-quantify","tag-quest","tag-sports","tag-stopwatch","tag-technology","tag-workplace"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amercanfirstfinance.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}