BIG DATA — The Top Player of the Sporting Industry

Know-How Big Data is the Game-Changer in Football and Baseball

Its always said that the secret to consistently win in any sport is being a step ahead or even more of your opponents. You need to get into your opponent’s head. What would his next step be or what are his strengths and limitations? It’s about understanding your opponent very well. Big Data and analytics have empowered the sporting teams to analyze their players and opponents as well.

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It All Started With a Hollywood Movie

The Hollywood blockbuster movie Moneyball (2011) depicts the same quite brilliantly. The sensational way in which Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane uses Big Data and analytics to turn the fortunes in the favor of his failing MLB (Major League Baseball) team was utterly amazing and brought the much-awaited Big Data revolution in the sporting world. Big Data and analytics since then has been one of the most important tools for some of the biggest sporting teams in the world. Its a completely different ball game since then.

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BIG DATA — THE SECRET OF WINNING

Teams are now enlightened with more sophisticated ways to gather and analyze their player’s data. They are now accomplished to analyze every aspect of their players. From wearables and cameras to sensors, teams are analyzing players on the basis of different parameters such as their calorie intake, training times and even the number of fans a player interacts with during the course of the game, all with an aim to enhance their overall performance.

Data collected during the game time is of utmost importance to the teams. Having information about the players allows dieticians and medical personnel to mould the perfect diet plans and the training regimes to all the players. They even track how well the athletes are sleeping.

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Apart from video analytics, smart wearables are the second most popularly used tool for analyzing players. The American rugby league has observed a decline in the number of injuries that are taking place during the course of the game since these wearables track the intensity and impact of a collision on a player by comparing it with the historical data of the player to eradicate the danger of a long-term injury. This saves their money as its important and highly valued players do not sit out and spend time on the bench due to injuries.

The biggest of sports governing bodies such as FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) and the ITF (International Tennis Federation) have now shown faith in the smart wearables.

GETTING INTO THE HEAD OF THE BEST

The man who is ruling the footballing right now is Lionel Messi. There’s hardly any team who has found a way to stop him and teams and their coaches have admitted that publicly.

But Big Data and analytics have forced teams to believe that they now have a solution to stop the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) — Lionel Messi, though they haven’t managed to achieve that yet as Leo always seems to be a step ahead to his opponents (maybe he uses analytics better than his opponents)

A recent Big Data analysis revealed some interesting facts about Lionel Messi. It was found that Leo spends the first few minutes of the game just walking around the ground. The reason behind it is he analyzes the opponent teams’ players’ movements in the ground and then dictates the game accordingly (The reason He is considered the GOAT). Even then also he’s unstoppable.

The teams now have access to such information like “the passes made by Neymar that was successfully intercepted” or “all the shots on target by Cristiano Ronaldo”. The most interesting analysis in football has been the off-ball events, the reaction of players when they don’t have the possession.

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THE INVINCIBLES

In football, Premier League’s (UK) only invincibles so far, Arsenal have already been the pioneer in the analytics world and have invested heavily in the analytics field with a goal to gain better insights from the data they are collecting. They have installed 8 cameras around their home ground i.e. in the great Emirates Stadium to track every player’s training regime and their interactions with other players. Prozone, their main analytics system has the capability of tracking 10 data points per second of every player, summing up to 1.4 million data points per game. That’s astonishing though. Additionally, the system through some automated algorithms as well as manual coding is also used to monitor more than 12,000 soccer matches across the globe.

“Dallas Mavericks, an American Professional basketball Team, will surely perform much better the coming season”, their coach Rick Carlisle quotes during an interview stating that he already knows this because of the analytics our team has done.

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TAKING CARE OF THE FANS

Fans are invaluable for any team or a sports individual. They are always considered as the extra player for the team who contribute from outside the field. In a recent interview Pep Guardiola, Manager of the current English Premier League Champions Manchester City revealed that the toughest team he has faced in recent times is Liverpool at the Anfield. He quoted the reason to be its fans and the amazing support Liverpool gets at the Anfield makes it tough for the players to concentrate. And since this interview, many teams in the world are focussing more on its fans than ever before. Social media interactions with fans are the most common practice to stay connected with their fans.

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END NOTE

But the reality of the game remains the same. The real action happens on the pitch and its the players who are involved in the action. Analysts might tell the team management about the best practices to be followed in order to win a game but they can never take the field. They can never have a go at it. And same is the case with the Head of the team and the members who make important decisions. Big Data and analytics can provide important insights to the teams but they cannot dictate it. It’s always players who rule the sporting world. Big Data and analytics might help a player in becoming one of the best in the world. That’s all.