How is all that pointless football data collated?

The long-running series in which readers answer other readers’ questions on subjects ranging from trivial flights of fancy to profound scientific conceptsFootball pundits seem to revel in pointless stats these days. How far does each player run, how many touches/tackles/passes (successful or unsuccessful), elbows to the back of the head; heat maps, etc. But surely they don’t have 22 researchers with stopwatches, slide rules and tally charts to collect all the data? So how is it done?