StatShark sports service swims to deal with Cingular Wireless.

MARINA del Rey-based Orion Data Analysis Corp. is banking that avid sports fans will pay to have high-tech sports predictions easily accessible on their cell phones.

Its StatShark.com, considered the first online sports forecasting service to employ the level of detailed analysis used by financial and economic prognosticators, has signed a wireless deal to provide its content to Cingular Wireless subscribers.

StatShark.com, which launched its main Web site in time for the 2005 National Football League season, enables fans, fantasy players and handicappers to receive the results of 10,000 simulated contests before an actual game is played. The company this month began promoting its new StatShark Mobile service as a March Madness enhancement for college basketball fans.

"StatShark.com considers factors that even the most avid sports fans are unable to calculate," said Jason Manasse, Orion's chief executive. "What we're providing is entertaining content that adds value, whether you're sitting in a bar with friends watching a game, setting up your fantasy league team at home or looking at the (betting) line at Mandalay Bay."

Both services use Orion's proprietary data analysis and simulation engine, which constructs a mathematical equation comprising more than 100 different variables for every player, coach and team. That generates a full range of possible results and the precise odds and probabilities for every statistic, every player, and every game.

Overall, it has successfully picked the game winner in 78 percent of NFL games, 68 percent of National Basketball Association contests, and 73 percent of National Collegiate Athletic Association regular season basketball games, Manasse said. It was running 75 percent correct for March Madness as of early last week, and plans to start covering Major League Baseball later this spring.

The wireless subscription costs $4.95, but the StatShark.com Web site offers a variety of free and paid access to its content, with regular subscriptions ranging from $8 a month for the typical sports fan to $600 a year for handicappers and sports investors. Partners such as Amp'd Mobile, CBS SportsLine, Yahoo!Sports, and VegasInsider.com also offer limited versions of the same information on their sites.

Manasse and his partners have raised more than $600,000 in local angel investor and friends-and-family funding since September 2004 to develop and launch the service, he said. The company also is developing applications for stock picking, real estate investing, travel research, and assessing personal relationships.

Staff reporter Deborah Crowe can be reached at [phone], ext. 232, or at [e-mail].