Scope of Data Science/Analytics in Sports World

In this article, We will be discussing how impactful advanced analysis and predictive modeling can outperform regular custom/legacy analysis on the sports world.

We have witnessed how Artificial intelligence and state of art Machine learning models outperformed old analysts methods and its analysis have reshaped operation of many businesses.

It is surprising that despite being so rich in data, adoption of analytics in sports has been rather bumpy and uneven.

Only recently, sports analytics has come of age, and even so, there’s plenty of room for penetration.

2016–2022 sports analytics forecasts estimate a massive 40.

1% CAGR potentially reaching a value of USD 3.

97 bn in 2022.

Recognizing the scope of data we’ll be handling in the sports world, It makes much sense to make use of analytics.

Day by day, the world of sports keeps on improving its capabilities of using sports analytics as a tool to improve their win rate.

Why Sports analytics is changing the world?Basically, Sports analysis is done for either the sports teams which involve in the games directly or for sports betting firms.

Sports analytics can be explained as using data related to any sports or game.

Like statistics of players, Weather conditions, Team’s recent wins/lose, etc.

With this data, we can create predictive machine learning models to make informed decisions on behalf of the management.

The main objective of sports analysis is to improve team performance and enhance the chances of winning the game.

The value of a win speaks volumes and takes on different forms like trickles down to the fans filling the stadium seats, television contracts, fan store merchandise, parking, concessions, sponsorships, enrollment, retention, and local pride.

Major teams and their analytics partnerReal Madrid and Microsoft, One of the world’s greatest football clubs — Real Madrid — is using Microsoft technology to transform its operations, performance, fitness, and relationships with 500 million global fans.

Manchester United and Aon, Like thousands of businesses across the globe, Manchester United Football Club relies on Aon as a long-term trusted advisor to find innovative solutions that allow them to stay ahead of the competition.

As we can see, Top global sports brands use advanced sports analytics to stay at top of their game in terms of overall performance, fitness, and relationship with fans.

Sports Analytics UsecasesThe predictive analysisThe primary use case is doing the predictive analysis, which can deliver insights on how the team should be on game day.

Which intern gives better team performance and increases the team’s win probability.

Using our Machine learning models, We can predict which player performs better at which position, on the match day.

Our model will be built on the player's stats as the base, how well he performed against the rival team, match conditions like the game is home or away, etc.

So, we can predict which players fit into which position, given the game condition and opponents we are facing.

Player analysis, We can improve each player’s game on the pitch and his fitness level by analyzing his training pattern and diet chart then revamp those with the insights from our analysis.

Team analysis, Using the team stats, we can build state-of-art machine learning models like deep neural networks, SVMs, etc to help the team management to figure winning combinations with their probabilities.

Fans management analysis, With the social handle data, we can find patterns and form clusters/groups using clustering algorithms, within the fans base and run campaigns on targetted groups.

Knowing factors which attract s the fans most, team management can focus on improving that aspect, which leads to gaining new fan base and retain the older ones.

Using advanced visualization to deliver insightsData visualization is a crucial tool in today’s data-focused world and sports domain is never an exception to it.

Using raw data in tabular format, management cannot get clear insights and will take a long time to go through the whole data and grasping the content.

So presenting the data in a graphical format enables the management to see analytics presented visually through graphs and plots, so they can grasp difficult concepts or identify new insights.

Next step to the graphical representation is the interactive visualization, you can take the concept a step further by using technology like tableau, clickview and rshiny apps to drill down into charts and graphs for more detail and insight on zone level, interactively changing what depth of the data you see and how it’s processed.

Team manager Dashboard, Players match performance stats will be represented in an interactive dashboard format for the better understanding of the game played.

Fans Dashboard, Fans can be feed with their favorite player’s stats of the match and can compare his gameplay with others in the rival team or the same team.

Understanding network of fansEvery sports team holds its own passionate fan base, It needs a way to better connect with them, wherever they are in the world.

Our reactive dashboards allow them to engage one-on-one with fans, create targeted promotional campaigns, and use the data gathered to track and analyze fan behaviors.

This way management knows, what drives their fans to go crazy over their team and work more on that part.

Finding the common interest, Using data collected from social handles like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram we can analyze the factors which attract the team ’s passionate fans the most and with that, we can run promotional kinds of stuff.

Into the world of Sports GamblingSports analytics not only having a huge impact on and off the field within the sports but also it has contributed to the growing industry of sports gambling, which accounts for approximately 13% of the global gambling industry.

Valued somewhere between $700-$1,000 billion, sports gambling is extremely popular among groups of all kinds, from avid sports fans to recreational gamblers, you would be hard pressed to find a professional sporting event with nothing riding on the results.

Many gamblers are attracted to sports gambling because of the tons of information and analytics that are at their disposal when making decisions.

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