Download or read book Game of Edges The Analytics Revolution and the Future of Professional Sports written by Bruce Schoenfeld and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2023-06-06 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A sweeping look at one of the most significant developments in worldwide sports.” —Christine Brennan, best-selling author of Inside Edge The story of how a new generation of tech-savvy franchise owners is reshaping every aspect of professional sports. In the last two decades, innovation, data analysis, and technology have driven a tectonic shift in the sports business. Game of Edges is the story of how sports franchises evolved, on and off the field, from raggedly run small businesses into some of the most systematically productive companies around. In today’s game, everyone from the owners to the marketing staff are using information—data—to give their team an edge. For analysts, an edge is their currency. Figuring out that bunting hurts your offense? That’s an edge. So is discovering metrics that can predict the career arc of your free agent shooting guard. Or combing through a decade of ticket-buying data to target persuadable fans. These small, incremental steps move a sports franchise from merely ordinary to the leading edge. Franchises today are more than just sports; they integrate a whole suite of other businesses—television and digital content, gambling and real estate, fashion and apparel, entertainment, catering and concessions, and much more. But an optimized franchise has no room for error. Teams must do what the numbers say, reducing the element of chance, limiting those random moments of athletic heroism that make sports thrilling to watch. Optimization also means the franchise’s main goal isn’t championships anymore; it’s keeping you, the viewer, engaged with the product. Drawing on extensive interviews with franchise owners, general managers, executives, and players, Bruce Schoenfeld introduces dynamic leaders who are radically reimagining the operations of these decades-old teams—and producing mind-boggling valuations. He joins the architects of the Golden State Warriors dynasty for an exclusive reception before tip-off. He stands among the faithful at Anfield, watching Liverpool’s analytics guru size up a prized midfielder. And he watches the president of the Chicago Cubs break ground on a new DraftKings gambling parlor at Wrigley Field, not ten miles from the site of the original Black Sox betting scandal. Essential reading for anyone interested in sports, business, or technology, Game of Edges explores a world where winning the game is only the beginning.

Download or read book Sports Analytics written by Benjamin C. Alamar and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2024-05-28 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Data and analytics have the potential to provide sports organizations with a competitive advantage both on and off the field. Yet even as the use of analytics in sports has become commonplace, teams regularly find themselves making big investments without significant payoff. This book is a practical, nontechnical guide to incorporating sports data into decision making, giving leaders the knowledge they need to maximize their organization’s investment in analytics. Benjamin C. Alamar—a leading expert who has built high-performing analytics groups—surveys the current state of the use of data in sports, including both specifics around the tools and how to deploy them most effectively. Sports Analytics offers a clear, easily digestible overview of data management, statistical models, and information systems and a detailed understanding of their vast possibilities. It walks readers through the essentials of understanding the value of different types of data and strategies for building and managing an analytics team. Throughout, Alamar illustrates the value of analytics with real-world examples and case studies from both the sports and business sides. Sports Analytics has guided a range of sports professionals to success since its original publication in 2013. This second edition adds examples and strategies that focus on using data on the business side of a sports organization, provides concrete strategies for incorporating different types of data into decision making, and updates all discussions for the rapid technological developments of the last decade.

Download or read book Sport Business Analytics written by C. Keith Harrison and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-11-18 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developing and implementing a systematic analytics strategy can result in a sustainable competitive advantage within the sport business industry. This timely and relevant book provides practical strategies to collect data and then convert that data into meaningful, value-added information and actionable insights. Its primary objective is to help sport business organizations utilize data-driven decision-making to generate optimal revenue from such areas as ticket sales and corporate partnerships. To that end, the book includes in-depth case studies from such leading sports organizations as the Orlando Magic, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Duke University, and the Aspire Group. The core purpose of sport business analytics is to convert raw data into information that enables sport business professionals to make strategic business decisions that result in improved company financial performance and a measurable and sustainable competitive advantage. Readers will learn about the role of big data and analytics in: Ticket pricing Season ticket member retention Fan engagement Sponsorship valuation Customer relationship management Digital marketing Market research Data visualization. This book examines changes in the ticketing marketplace and spotlights innovative ticketing strategies used in various sport organizations. It shows how to engage fans with social media and digital analytics, presents techniques to analyze engagement and marketing strategies, and explains how to utilize analytics to leverage fan engagement to enhance revenue for sport organizations. Filled with insightful case studies, this book benefits both sports business professionals and students. The concluding chapter on teaching sport analytics further enhances its value to academics.

Download or read book The Match Althea Gibson Angela Buxton written by Bruce Schoenfeld and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2004-06 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Althea Gibson first met Angela Buxton at an exhibition match in India. On the surface, the two women could not have been more different. The daughter of sharecroppers, Gibson was born in the American South and grew up in Harlem. Angela Buxton, the granddaughter of Russian Jews, was raised in England, where her father ran a successful business. But both women encountered prejudice, particularly on the tennis circuit, where they were excluded from tournaments and clubs because of race and religion. Despite their athletic prowess, both Gibson and Buxton were shunned by the other female players at Wimbledon in 1956 and found themselves without doubles partners. Undaunted, they chose to play together and ultimately triumphed. In The Match, which has been hailed as an "important contribution in spreading the legacy of Gibson,"* Bruce Schoenfeld delivers not only the little-known history of Gibson's life but also the inspiring story of two underdogs who refused to let bigotry stop them -- on the court and off. Here, too, is an homage to a remarkable friendship. *Publishers Weekly

Download or read book Sports Math written by Roland B. Minton and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2016-11-03 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can you really keep your eye on the ball? How is massive data collection changing sports? Sports science courses are growing in popularity. The author’s course at Roanoke College is a mix of physics, physiology, mathematics, and statistics. Many students of both genders find it exciting to think about sports. Sports problems are easy to create and state, even for students who do not live sports 24/7. Sports are part of their culture and knowledge base, and the opportunity to be an expert on some area of sports is invigorating. This should be the primary reason for the growth of mathematics of sports courses: the topic provides intrinsic motivation for students to do their best work. From the Author: "The topics covered in Sports Science and Sports Analytics courses vary widely. To use a golfing analogy, writing a book like this is like hitting a drive at a driving range; there are many directions you can go without going out of bounds. At the driving range, I pick out a small target to focus on, and that is what I have done here. I have chosen a sample of topics I find very interesting. Ideally, users of this book will have enough to choose from to suit whichever version of a sports course is being run." "The book is very appealing to teach from as well as to learn from. Students seem to have a growing interest in ways to apply traditionally different areas to solve problems. This, coupled with an enthusiasm for sports, makes Dr. Minton’s book appealing to me."—Kevin Hutson, Furman University

Download or read book Scorecasting written by Tobias Moskowitz and published by Crown. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Scorecasting, University of Chicago behavioral economist Tobias Moskowitz teams up with veteran Sports Illustrated writer L. Jon Wertheim to overturn some of the most cherished truisms of sports, and reveal the hidden forces that shape how basketball, baseball, football, and hockey games are played, won and lost. Drawing from Moskowitz's original research, as well as studies from fellow economists such as bestselling author Richard Thaler, the authors look at: the influence home-field advantage has on the outcomes of games in all sports and why it exists; the surprising truth about the universally accepted axiom that defense wins championships; the subtle biases that umpires exhibit in calling balls and strikes in key situations; the unintended consequences of referees' tendencies in every sport to "swallow the whistle," and more. Among the insights that Scorecasting reveals: • Why Tiger Woods is prone to the same mistake in high-pressure putting situations that you and I are • Why professional teams routinely overvalue draft picks • The myth of momentum or the "hot hand" in sports, and why so many fans, coaches, and broadcasters fervently subscribe to it • Why NFL coaches rarely go for a first down on fourth-down situations--even when their reluctance to do so reduces their chances of winning. In an engaging narrative that takes us from the putting greens of Augusta to the grid iron of a small parochial high school in Arkansas, Scorecasting will forever change how you view the game, whatever your favorite sport might be.

Download or read book Smart Money written by Alex Duff and published by Constable. This book was released on 2024-03-21 with total page 311 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1978, when Alex Duff first went to watch Brentford, players would go on midweek pub crawls near the Griffin Park stadium. Sometimes, in no fit state to go home, they would crash out in a terraced home where one of them lived opposite the stadium gates. The next morning, they clambered into a white van which one of them would drive to training, stopping on the way for a bacon sandwich and cup of tea at a greasy spoon café. Brentford had once played in the top-flight but now, idling in the third division, were a second home for players and supporters, but there was neither the ambition nor money to revive their best days. They bumbled along until in 2005, fed up with trying to make a profit from a club with an ageing stadium in an unfashionable west London suburb, owner Ron Noades agreed to hand over the business to supporters on the condition they take over responsibility for their £5.5 million overdraft. One of the fans, an Oxford University physics graduate called Matthew Benham, was making millions of pounds from professional gambling and threw in a £500,000 lifeline to help keep the club afloat. Initially, as a sort of academic challenge, he began figuring out if he could employ the mathematics which he used in beating the bookmakers to improve the club's performance on the pitch. Smart Money is the story of how a scientist with an inquiring mind was set loose in a backwater of professional football, and how he turned a modest, little-known team into a competitor in one of the world's most-watched sports leagues.

Download or read book How When and Why Modern Art Came to New York written by Marius de Zayas and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marius de Zayas (1880-1961), a Mexican artist and writer whose witty caricatures of New York's theater, dance, and social elite brought him to the attention of Alfred Stieglitz and his circle at "291," was among the most dedicated and effective propagandists of modern art during the early years of this century. His writings were the first to provide the American public with an intellectual basis upon which to understand and eventually appreciate the newest artistic developments. How, When, and Why Modern Art Came to New York, originally written in the 1940s, is a fascinating chronicle assembled from de Zayas's personal archive of photographs and from newspaper reviews of the exhibitions he discusses, beginning with those held at the Stieglitz gallery and including important shows mounted in his own galleries: the Modern Gallery (1915-1918) and the De Zayas Gallery (1919-1921)

Download or read book Sports Performance Measurement and Analytics written by Lorena Martin and published by FT Press. This book was released on 2016-02-03 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A PRACTICAL, REAL-WORLD GUIDE TO ANALYTICS FOR THE 5 MAJOR SPORTS: FOOTBALL, BASKETBALL, BASEBALL, SOCCER, AND TENNIS GAIN A COMPETITIVE EDGE! This is the first real-world guide to building and using analytical models for measuring and assessing performance in the five major sports: football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and tennis. Unlike books that focus strictly on theory, this book brings together sports measurement and statistical analyses, demonstrating how to examine differences across sports as well as between player positions. This book will provide you with the tools for cutting-edge approaches you can extend to the sport of your choice. Expert Northwestern University data scientist, UC San Diego researcher, and competitive athlete, Lorena Martin shows how to use measures and apply statistical models to evaluate players, reduce injuries, and improve sports performance. You’ll learn how to leverage a deep understanding of each sport’s principles, rules, attributes, measures, and performance outcomes. Sports Performance Measurement and Analytics will be an indispensable resource for anyone who wants to bring analytical rigor to athletic competition: students, professors, analysts, fans, physiologists, coaches, managers, and sports executives alike. All data sets, extensive code, and additional examples are available for download at http://www.ftpress.com/martin/ What are the qualities a person must have to become a world-class athlete? This question and many more can be answered through research, measurement, statistics, and analytics. This book gives athletes, trainers, coaches, and managers a better understanding of measurement and analytics as they relate to sports performance. To develop accurate measures, we need to know what we want to measure and why. There is great power in accurate measures and statistics. Research findings can show us how to prevent injuries, evaluate strengths and weaknesses, improve team cohesion, and optimize sports performance. This book serves many readers. People involved with sports will gain an appreciation for performance measures and analytics. People involved with analytics will gain new insights into quantified values representing physical, physiological, and psychological components of sports performance. And students eager to learn about sports analytics will have a practical introduction to the field. This is a thorough introduction to performance measurement and analytics for five of the world’s leading sports. The only book of its kind, it offers a complete overview of the most important concepts, rules, measurements, and statistics for each sport, while demonstrating applications of real-world analytics. You’ll find practical, state-of-the-art guidance on predicting future outcomes, evaluating an athlete’s market value, and more.

Download or read book Sport Analytics written by Gil Fried and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-11-10 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The increasing availability of data has transformed the way sports are played, promoted and managed. This is the first textbook to explain how the big data revolution is having a profound influence across the sport industry, demonstrating how sport managers and business professionals can use analytical techniques to improve their professional practice. While other sports analytics books have focused on player performance data, this book shows how analytics can be applied to every functional area of sport business, from marketing and event management to finance and legal services. Drawing on research that spans the entire sport industry, it explains how data is influencing the most important decisions, from ticket sales and human resources to risk management and facility operations. Each chapter contains real world examples, industry profiles and extended case studies which are complimented by a companion website full of useful learning resources. Sport Analytics: A data-driven approach to sport business and management is an essential text for all sport management students and an invaluable reference for any sport management professional involved in operational research.

Download or read book The MVP Machine written by Ben Lindbergh and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2019-06-04 with total page 428 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Move over, Moneyball -- this New York Times bestseller examines major league baseball's next cutting-edge revolution: the high-tech quest to build better players. As bestselling authors Ben Lindbergh and Travis Sawchik reveal in The MVP Machine, the Moneyball era is over. Fifteen years after Michael Lewis brought the Oakland Athletics' groundbreaking team-building strategies to light, every front office takes a data-driven approach to evaluating players, and the league's smarter teams no longer have a huge advantage in valuing past performance. Lindbergh and Sawchik's behind-the-scenes reporting reveals: How undersized afterthoughts José Altuve and Mookie Betts became big sluggers and MVPs How polarizing pitcher Trevor Bauer made himself a Cy Young contender How new analytical tools have overturned traditional pitching and hitting techniques How a wave of young talent is making MLB both better than ever and arguably worse to watch Instead of out-drafting, out-signing, and out-trading their rivals, baseball's best minds have turned to out-developing opponents, gaining greater edges than ever by perfecting prospects and eking extra runs out of older athletes who were once written off. Lindbergh and Sawchik take us inside the transformation of former fringe hitters into home-run kings, show how washed-up pitchers have emerged as aces, and document how coaching and scouting are being turned upside down. The MVP Machine charts the future of a sport and offers a lesson that goes beyond baseball: Success stems not from focusing on finished products, but from making the most of untapped potential.

Download or read book Sports Finance and Management written by Jason A. Winfree and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2018-10-10 with total page 488 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the sport business continues to evolve, so too, does Sport Finance and Management. The first version of this book took an in-depth look at changes in the sport industry, including interconnecting financial issues between teams and their associated businesses, the nature of fan loyalty influences, and the impact of sponsorship on team revenues. This second edition updates each of these elements, introduces relevant case study examples in new chapters, and examines the impact of changes in facility design, media opportunities, and league and conference policies on the economic success of teams, the salaries earned by professional players, and the finances of collegiate athletics.

Download or read book Handbook of Statistical Methods and Analyses in Sports written by Jim Albert and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 2017-02-03 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This handbook will provide both overviews of statistical methods in sports and in-depth treatment of critical problems and challenges confronting statistical research in sports. The material in the handbook will be organized by major sport (baseball, football, hockey, basketball, and soccer) followed by a section on other sports and general statistical design and analysis issues that are common to all sports. This handbook has the potential to become the standard reference for obtaining the necessary background to conduct serious statistical analyses for sports applications and to appreciate scholarly work in this expanding area.

Download or read book Mathletics written by Wayne L. Winston and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-02-22 with total page 608 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How to use math to improve performance and predict outcomes in professional sports Mathletics reveals the mathematical methods top coaches and managers use to evaluate players and improve team performance, and gives math enthusiasts the practical skills they need to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of their favorite sports—and maybe even gain the outside edge to winning bets. This second edition features new data, new players and teams, and new chapters on soccer, e-sports, golf, volleyball, gambling Calcuttas, analysis of camera data, Bayesian inference, ridge regression, and other statistical techniques. After reading Mathletics, you will understand why baseball teams should almost never bunt; why football overtime systems are unfair; why points, rebounds, and assists aren’t enough to determine who’s the NBA’s best player; and more.

Download or read book The Hidden Game of Baseball written by John Thorn and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-03-20 with total page 453 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The acclaimed classic on the statistical analysis of baseball records in order to evaluate players and win more games. Long before Moneyball became a sensation or Nate Silver turned the knowledge he’d honed on baseball into electoral gold, John Thorn and Pete Palmer were using statistics to shake the foundations of the game. First published in 1984, The Hidden Game of Baseball ushered in the sabermetric revolution by demonstrating that we were thinking about baseball stats—and thus the game itself—all wrong. Instead of praising sluggers for gaudy RBI totals or pitchers for wins, Thorn and Palmer argued in favor of more subtle measurements that correlated much more closely to the ultimate goal: winning baseball games. The new gospel promulgated by Thorn and Palmer opened the door for a flood of new questions, such as how a ballpark’s layout helps or hinders offense or whether a strikeout really is worse than another kind of out. Taking questions like these seriously—and backing up the answers with data—launched a new era, showing fans, journalists, scouts, executives, and even players themselves a new, better way to look at the game. This brand-new edition retains the body of the original, with its rich, accessible analysis rooted in a deep love of baseball, while adding a new introduction by the authors tracing the book’s influence over the years. A foreword by ESPN’s lead baseball analyst, Keith Law, details The Hidden Game’s central role in the transformation of baseball coverage and team management and shows how teams continue to reap the benefits of Thorn and Palmer’s insights today. Thirty years after its original publication, The Hidden Game is still bringing the high heat—a true classic of baseball literature. Praise for The Hidden Game “As grateful as I was for the publication of The Hidden Game of Baseball when it first showed up on my bookshelf, I’m even more grateful now. It’s as insightful today as it was then. And it’s a reminder that we haven’t applauded Thorn and Palmer nearly loudly enough for their incredible contributions to the use and understanding of the awesome numbers of baseball.” —Jayson Stark, senior baseball writer, ESPN.com “Just as one cannot know the great American novel without Twain and Hemingway, one cannot know modern baseball analysis without Thorn and Palmer.” —Rob Neyer, FOX Sports

Download or read book Sports Economics written by Rodney D. Fort and published by Prentice Hall. This book was released on 2014-07-11 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Those Guys Have All the Fun written by Tom Shales and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2011-05-24 with total page 669 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the exclusive behind the scenes look, sports fans can unlock the fascinating history of the channel that changed the way people watch and interact with their favorite teams. It began, in 1979, as a mad idea of starting a cable channel to televise local sporting events throughout the state of Connecticut. Today, ESPN is arguably the most successful network in modern television history, spanning eight channels in the Unites States and around the world. But the inside story of its rise has never been fully told-until now. Drawing upon over 500 interviews with the greatest names in ESPN's history and an All-Star collection of some of the world's finest athletes, bestselling authors James Miller and Tom Shales take us behind the cameras. Now, in their own words, the men and women who made ESPN great reveal the secrets behind its success-as well as the many scandals, rivalries, off-screen battles and triumphs that have accompanied that ascent. From the unknown producers and business visionaries to the most famous faces on television, it's all here.