Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-10-2023

Publication Title

Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics

Pages

1-24

Publisher Name

Wiley Periodicals

Abstract

Sports analytics—broadly defined as the pursuit of improvement in athletic performance through the analysis of data—has expanded its footprint both in the professional sports industry and in academia over the past 30 years. In this article, we connect four big ideas that are common across multiple sports: the expected value of a game state, win probability, measures of team strength, and the use of sports betting market data. For each, we explore both the shared similarities and individual idiosyncracies of analytical approaches in each sport. While our focus is on the concepts underlying each type of analysis, any implementation necessarily involves statistical methodologies, computational tools, and data sources. Where appropriate, we outline how data, models, tools, and knowledge of the sport combine to generate actionable insights. We also describe opportunities to share analytical work, but omit an in-depth discussion of individual player evaluation as beyond our scope. This article should serve as a useful overview for anyone becoming interested in the study of sports analytics.

Comments

Author Posting © Wiley Periodicals LLC, 2023. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of Wiley for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Computational Statistics, May 2023. https://doi.org/10.1002/wics.1612

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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