NTangible, a sports-tech startup founded by former baseball player Dan Connerty and psychologist Dr. Ed Levine, has developed a psychological assessment called the Clutch Factor. It aims to measure how well athletes perform in high-pressure situations, a quality that has traditionally been hard to quantify compared with sprint speed or throwing velocity. The test is inspired by the Thematic Apperception Test, asking respondents to describe ambiguous images; their word choices and phrasing are then scored against a neurolinguistic guide to produce a number between 0 and 1,000.
Connerty claims that athletes scoring above 750 are twice as likely to commit to a Division I school, and he sees the score being used in recruiting, rankings, and NIL or scholarship discussions. However, the article notes a possible flaw: athletes trying to impress recruiters could answer dishonestly. When the TechCrunch writer took the test honestly, she scored 584; when she answered as an imagined top recruit, she scored 802.
NTangible currently supports testing for nine sports, and Connerty believes clutch is a trainable skill, offering exercises developed with a former MLB sports psychologist. The company is also working on a separate assessment, NTerpret, aimed at corporate HR departments to evaluate how employees respond to coaching and feedback. Its most viable business model appears to be selling directly to sports organizations and companies rather than to individual athletes. NTangible is presenting at TechCrunch Disrupt's Startup Battlefield this week.