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Sports Analytics By: Indrani Chakraborty & Sourish Atorthy (T A Pai Management Institute, Manipal)
How Statistics & Analytics is guiding a new era in sports. “How can you not be romantic about Baseball!” When Brad Pitt says this in the movie Moneyball, he is speaking for all of us and about all sports. Statistics says about 56% people in the world love sport and 73% people have played at least one sport in their lifetime in any level. But how has statistics and analytics changed sports through time? Or did it affect at all?
To answer that we need to look no further than the movie mentioned earlier – Moneyball. Moneyball Theory is a concept in statistics, which came out when Bill Beane of Oakland Athletics, with the help of his number two, Peter Brand, used empirical analysis to scout players and built a team with undervalued players which created history by winning 20 straight games in Major League Baseball of America. They did not bring big names to their teams but instead went for players who were written off by others but fetched enough amount of runs to win matches. “The goal was not to buy players but runs. As players don’t win you matches, runs do.” And how did they find out which player fetched the right number of runs? Yes, you guessed it right – through statistical analysis and data mining. This was one of the first examples of using statistics and analytics in the field of sport. But now the question rises, what is the future of this then? That is what we will try to see and answer through this article.
The World Sports Market According to a recent Kearney assessment of sports clubs, leagues, and federations, the global sports sector is worth between €350 billion and €450 billion ($480-$620 billion). Infrastructure construction, sporting equipment, licensed items, and live athletic events are all included in this. According to a study commissioned by Lagardère Unlimited, the global sports business is rising at a far quicker rate than national GDP rates around the world. And the global sports value chain, in terms of size, composition, and revenues, has substantial future growth potential.
