Sports Betting Analytics

4/13/2022

Sports Betting Analytics Software
Sports Betting Analytics

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“Sports Analytics Simulator is fine program to add to your toolbox for those who have realistic expectations about betting NFL. We use the program to help with our daily NFL prediction articles.” –. The prospect of expanded sports betting in the United States presents great opportunities for sports fans who may have shied away from their local bookies or offshore websites operating in the black market. It also presents major opportunity for sports analytics companies offering predictions or data sets aimed at informing sports bettors.

Sports betting is hard. Actually, scratch that. It’s not. Sports betting is really rather easy. You simply pick an event to bet on, make your selection, and then put your money down. That doesn’t seem too difficult, does it?

Of course not. Anyone can do it. It’s part of what makes sports betting such a popular form of gambling. Millions of people all over the world regularly enjoy betting on sports events, even though the majority of them lose. Sports betting might be easy, but making money from it isn’t.

We hope that doesn’t come as a big surprise to anyone. There’s a reason why the best-known bookmakers and betting sites are huge companies that make big profits every year. They’re very good at what they do, and most bettors aren’t. That’s the simple reality of the situation.

Want to know the funny part? Most bettors don’t even care about this. They would like to win and many even dream of one day being successful, but for the most part they are satisfied just having fun. They’re not prepared to put in the time and effort that’s required to make money, so they don’t give any real consideration to strategy or anything like that. They bet based on instinct and any relevant sports knowledge they may have.

There’s nothing wrong with this approach at all. We know lots of losing sports bettors who are fully aware that their betting costs them money. They don’t mind though, as they enjoy what they do. They view their losing wagers as the cost of their entertainment, and anything they win is simply a bonus.

On the opposite side of the spectrum are the bettors who DO care about winning, and a few of them are very successful. In fact, there are quite a few wealthy people who have made their fortunes from betting. The majority of people who care about winning still lose though. Why? Because wanting to win isn’t enough. Effective sports betting takes a lot more than simple desire. It takes hard work and commitment, plus you have to be willing to learn about all the strategy involved too.

That’s why we’ve put together our comprehensive guide to sports betting strategy. It’s packed full of useful information and advice that can help anyone go from a losing bettor to a winning one: if they’re prepared to work hard enough that is.

We can say with confidence that this article in particular is one of the most critical articles to read in our entire strategy guide, despite the fact that it doesn’t actually contain any strategy advice. Why is it so special then? It explains the research and analysis required before APPLYING sports betting strategy. No one, and we mean NO ONE, can expect to make money from betting on sports unless they spend time researching and analyzing the relevant information. In this article we’re going to teach you how to do that effectively.

The Importance of Research & Analysis

To be honest, we’re not entirely sure we need to explain that research and analysis is vital when betting on sports. If we assume that anyone reading this article has at least a passing interest in becoming a successful bettor, then we’d like to think that they already recognize its importance.

However, maybe you’re a complete beginner to sports betting who really doesn’t know what it takes to be successful. Or maybe you know that research and analysis is crucial, but you’re just not sure why. We like to be thorough in all our articles anyway, so let’s get on with our explanation. We’ll start by asking you a question.

It doesn’t matter what your actual answer is here. It could be soccer, football, golf, tennis or any other sport. We can be pretty sure of one thing though. The sports you bet on the most are the sports you know the most about. Are we right? Of course we are.

With very few exceptions, sports bettors bet on the sports that they’re familiar with. This makes perfect sense. By choosing to bet on the sports they know and understand the best, their chances of selecting winning wagers significantly increases. We have a much better chance of making solid predictions on sports we know a lot about, then on sports where our knowledge is limited. Agreed?

Let’s think about it this way. If it makes sense to bet on the sports we know the most about, then it also makes sense to assume that we should strive to know as much as possible about the sports we want to bet on. When it comes to sports betting, information and knowledge equals power. The more we have, the better.

This, in a nutshell, sums up why research and analysis is so important.

To make good betting decisions, we need to have plenty of information at our disposal. We can’t simply rely on our existing sports knowledge. We might have an in-depth knowledge of football and how it’s played, for example, but that in itself doesn’t necessarily help us when we’re betting on the NFL. Not in isolation of other information. Knowing the different factors that affect the likely outcome of a football game is essentially useless information unless we actually research and analyze those factors.

Not convinced? We’ll use another football example to explain. Let’s say you’re a genuine football expert. You understand exactly what it takes to win a game of football. You know which positions are the most important on the field, you recognize that the coaches play a key role, and you know that certain playing styles are effective in some situations and not so effective in others. Great! Now take a look at the following betting market.

Seattle Seahawks vs New Orleans Saints
Point Spread

Saints +3
-110

Which team is going to cover? Are the Seahawks going to win by more than three? Or are the Saints going to keep it close, or maybe even win?

These questions are practically impossible to answer, since you have absolutely no context for the game. You might be tempted to assume that the Seahawks are going to cover based on the fact that they’re typically the stronger of the two teams, but that would essentially be guessing. You’re using general football knowledge rather than considering the specific factors that are going to affect this game.

Let’s now imagine that the Seahawks are without their star quarterback, their starting tight end, and their best running back. All three of these players are injured, and won’t be playing in the game. Suddenly, we have some context for this game. Seeing as how the Saints will be without three of their key players, we have good reason to believe the Saints will cover.

This is a slightly more informed judgement, because we’re working with relevant information. However, it’s still only a limited amount of information. This data alone doesn’t tell us everything we need to know in order to make a good betting decision. What if the Saints are also missing some key players? Or what if the Seahawks have been missing those players for the last two games and have still posted comfortable victories?

If you don’t know very much about American football, then what we have just discussed probably doesn’t make a lot of sense to you. There’s no need to worry. It all serves to highlight the main point we’re trying to make. Don’t expect to make properly informed judgements unless you’re actually properly informed. This SHOULD be obvious.

Even if you knew everything there was to know about a sport, you’d still need to understand the specifics surrounding the game or event you’re betting on. Otherwise, you won’t be able to consistently make accurate predications. Not to mention, you won’t be able to properly identify where the value lies.

Our Top Tips for Your Research & Analysis

This might surprise you, but there’s no “correct” way to carry out the necessary research and analysis. The only definitive rule is that you should actually do some. Beyond that, it’s really down to you to work in whatever way suits you the best. Obviously you need to research and analyze different things depending on what sports you bet on. The type of wagers you typically place, and the strategies you use, will also play a part in determining what information is most relevant to you.

For these reasons, we can’t provide you with a perfect guide to exactly what to do and how, as it really depends on your betting preference. Instead, what we can do is offer some useful tips that can be applied in a general sense. None of these are especially complicated, but they’re still solid advice. Follow them, and you’ll definitely be on the right track.

We’ve listed our top tips below, and then explained each one in detail.

Dedicate plenty of time
Have a plan
Be flexible
Value facts over opinions
Get balanced views
Watch games/events
Always consider context
Find good sources

Dedicate Plenty of Time

Our first tip here couldn’t be any more straightforward, but that doesn’t make it any less critical. In fact, it’s arguably the most beneficial piece of advice we have to offer. The quality of our research and analysis will ultimately determine how successful we are when betting on sports. We’re not exaggerating here. If we don’t gather enough relevant information and properly assess it, then we just simply won’t be able to consistently make good betting decisions.

Our research and analysis obviously won’t be particularly high quality if we only spend five minutes on it. This is something we need to dedicate a significant amount of time to. This doesn’t mean we’ll need to spend hours upon hours poring over every little detail, but we certainly need to do more than the bare minimum. Consider this simple equation. More time spent doing research and analysis equals more informed judgments. More informed judgments typically lead to making more money.

Have a Plan

We find it very useful to have a defined plan for our research and analysis. We like to plan which sources we’re going to use, what information we’re going to look for, and how we’re going to factor that information into our betting decisions. By having a plan, what we do becomes a lot more effective.

As part of our plan, we also like to have some kind of schedule. We try to allocate some fixed times to work on our research and analysis. This approach is much more effective than simply trying to fit it in whenever we have a spare moment or two.

Be Flexible

This tip may seem a little contradictory to the one we previously mentioned. It IS important to have a plan, but it’s equally important to be able to deviate from that plan when necessary. There will be times when we need to use slightly different methods, or apply different strategies, depending on what we’re betting on.

If we’re too rigid in the way we do our research and analysis, we can end up being too rigid in our thinking. This is bad news for sports bettors, as it will only harm us to always look at everything in exactly the same way. We need to adjust our thinking based on new information and different circumstances. If we don’t do that we can end up making a lot of bad decisions, or missing out on some good betting opportunities.

Value Facts over Opinions

This tip is extremely relevant when betting on mainstream sports. Sports like American football, soccer and basketball get a lot of media coverage. Let’s face it; the media is full of people who like to offer their opinions. While their opinions can be very insightful, there’s also a chance they may be complete nonsense.

That’s why we need to be especially careful about overvaluing the opinions of others. Our goal should always be to form our own opinions. That’s the whole point of doing our research and analysis in the first place. There’s nothing wrong with considering other people’s opinion and factoring them in, but it’s FACTS that ultimately tell us a lot more.

Get Balanced Views

This is a continuation of the previous tip. We just got done explaining why there’s nothing wrong with considering the opinions of others, but we must warn you. This CAN be dangerous if we’re exposed to views that are too one-sided. The main advantage of considering other opinions is that it helps us ensure that our own opinions are balanced. This advantage is lost if we’re overly influenced by any kind of bias.

For example, let’s say that there’s an upcoming soccer game between Liverpool and Manchester United. As part of our research, we decide to visit an online Liverpool fan forum. We figure this will give us some insight into how the team is playing and what their chances are of winning. This is a perfectly valid thing to do. As you’ll discover later, fan forums are one of the sources we recommend using for research. Here’s the problem though.

This forum will ONLY give us the views of Liverpool fans.

Obviously, a Liverpool fan forum will consist of mostly Liverpool fans, who aren’t going to have an unbiased view of the upcoming game. This is especially true considering they’re going up against Manchester United: their most fierce rivals. Their judgments on the outcome of the game will be completely clouded by their love for Liverpool and their hatred for Manchester United. What we’re trying to explain here is that their opinions really won’t help us at all.

Instead, we should look into a different fan forum. One that’s used by fans of various different teams to discuss soccer in general, as well as upcoming games will be the best option. We’d be much more likely to find some unbiased insight here, which would be far more valuable to us.

Watch Games/Events

An excellent way to carry out research and analysis is by actually watching the games/events. There are certain things that we can only really discover from actually watching teams and players in action. Plus, it helps us to form our opinions about how good they are and what sort of form they’re in. It will also help us identify their strengths and weaknesses, see how they react to certain situations, learn about their preferred style(s) of play and all kinds of other things.

We try not to bet on anything if we haven’t seen the relevant participants in action recently, regardless of what sport we’re betting on. We genuinely believe that seeing them play/compete is that valuable. We’re not suggesting that you need to be as strict as us, but never overlook the benefits of watching games and events.

Plus, this is actually a very enjoyable way to spend your time!

Always Consider Context

We mentioned earlier that facts are far more important than opinions. We should also point out that facts can be misleading. Certain facts don’t always tell us everything we need to know. Even worse, they can sometimes paint an entirely false picture.

For example, let’s say we’re about to bet on a basketball game between San Antonio Spurs and Sacramento Kings. As part of our research, we take a look at the recent form of the two teams. We see that the Spurs are on a streak of five consecutive wins, while the Kings have lost their last four. The obvious assumption is that the Spurs are in the better form.

A lot of bettors would stop their research there and immediately bet on the Spurs.

This would be a mistake. While betting on the Spurs might be the best decision, we can’t come to that conclusion based on that one small piece of research. Not only do we need to consider a lot more than recent form, but we also have to remember that simply looking at results doesn’t necessarily tell us the whole story. We have to also consider the context of those results.

If we did our research and looked into the details of these games, we might discover that the Spurs had actually been a little lucky to win in three of their last five games. They didn’t actually put in great performances, but the bounce of the ball just seemed to go in their favor. When we dig a little further, we realize that their last five games also happen to have been among the easiest in their schedule, and two of the teams they faced were missing a couple of key players due to injury or suspension.

When we then look at the Kings results in more detail, we see that they’ve actually had some pretty bad luck. Even though they haven’t been performing poorly, they just weren’t getting the kind of results they deserved. They’ve also been facing some tough opposition, and have been missing their star small forward who typically scores a lot of their points.

This is an entirely hypothetical situation, but it highlights the importance of looking at the context. Once we dug into the detail, the form of the San Antonio Spurs wasn’t as impressive as it first seemed. And the form of the Sacramento Kings wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

Find Good Sources

Our eighth and final tip is a big one. The quality of the sources we use for our research will ultimately define just how much we gain from our analysis. If we’re analyzing information that isn’t especially accurate or useful, then our conclusions are likely to be flawed. If we’re analyzing information that IS accurate and useful, then the conclusions we reach should be valuable to us.

We are blessed to have a TON of reliable and useful resources available to us. There’s simply no need to use poor resources. We just have to be willing to put in the necessary effort into finding suitable ones that will give us the information we need.

Chances are, you probably already have your list of preferred sources. We encourage you to ask yourself these questions. Do you have quality sources? Do they provide exactly what you need? Do you use a large selection of different sources? Or do you limit yourself by relying too heavily on just one or two sources?

With this in mind, the next section of this article looks at the various types of resource you should be using for your sports betting research.

Useful Resources for Sports Betting Research

We could simply provide you with a list of recommended resources here, but that’s not we’re going to do. Although this would be useful to some extent, we’d have to keep it constantly updated. A good resource today might not be so good in the future. Some resources, for whatever reason, let their standards drop. Meanwhile, other resources improve and new ones come along that have a lot to offer.

So what we’re going to do instead is suggest a few different types of resource that you should consider using. Here’s our list.

General Sports Media
Official Websites
Stats Websites
Fan Websites, Blogs & Forums
Sports Betting Websites, Blogs & Forums
Social Media

Now, we’re going to do our best to explain each one of these resources in detail to give you a better understanding of why they are useful and why we recommend using them. Where appropriate, we’ll also list some specific resources that we know are useful. Please note that not everything we discuss here is relevant for ALL sports. Most of it applies to mainstream sports though.

General Sports Media

This should be your first stop as you begin your sports betting research. General sports media includes any of the many sports channels on TV in addition to what’s found on the written press. These sources are both useful, but the most valuable sources of all are the websites operated by the big sports outlets.

You’ll find all the major news you need to know on these sites, and plenty of interesting editorial pieces too. They’re great for keeping up on the changes that teams are making during the close season, and great for keeping track of injuries and suspensions once the action starts. They typically publish insightful previews of upcoming games and events, and detail reports on past games and events.

In short, these websites contain a lot of useful information. Most of the major ones cover a wide variety of different sports too, so they’re good resources regardless of what sports you bet on.

Here are a few sites that we consider to be especially valuable sources.

ESPN.com
SkySports.com
CBSSports.com

Official Websites

Official websites of the appropriate leagues or competitions that you’re betting can also be useful sources of information. You’ll only find bare facts here, but sometimes they’re all you need. There are details of schedules and fixtures, for example, as well as league standings. Some official sites also have sections for the news or stats.

Here are the official sites for some of the most commonly bet on leagues and competitions.

NFL.com
NBA.com
PremierLeague.com
NHL.com
MLB.com
ATPWorldTour.com
PGATour.com

Most sports teams have their own official sites too. They won’t provide a wealth of information, but they can be useful for researching certain facts.

Stats Websites

For a lot of the sports we can bet on, statistics can be very powerful information to have, assuming we’re able to analyze them properly and interpret our findings of course. If we do that well, then stats can really help us make good betting decisions.

Finding the stats we need on the internet is not hard at all. As we just mentioned, the relevant stats are often displayed on official websites. The NFL website, for example, publishes extensive statistics for its teams and players. Many others do the same.

There are also lots of “unofficial” stats sites out there that provide even more detailed statistics than official websites. The top quality sites provide accurate data that’s regularly updated. We won’t list any here simply because there are so many of them, for a variety of different sports. We are positive you won’t have trouble finding them yourself though; a simple Google search will be proof of that.

Fan Websites, Blogs & Forums

Sports fans can be very passionate about the teams (or individuals) they support and follow. Some are passionate enough to launch their own websites and blogs dedicated to their favorite team or athlete. A lot of the websites and blogs are pretty useless for any kind of meaningful research, but that’s not the case for all of them. Some of these resources can be very helpful for getting some alternative points of view, or even real insight, from someone who knows a lot more about a specific team or player than we do.

The same principle applies with fan forums. We mentioned these earlier. Most of the professional sports teams we’re likely to bet on will have at least one or two dedicated fan forums. These can be very useful for picking up some information from people who are more knowledgeable and up to date about a particular team than we are. Just remember what we said earlier about being wary of biased opinions!

There are also lots of other general sports forums that can be useful too. Again, we’re not going to list any here for the same reasons as before. There are too many of them, and they’re reasonably easy to find.

Sports Betting Websites, Blogs & Forums

Expect to uncover countless sites dedicated to sports betting on the internet. These include informational sites (such as ours, which you’re reading right now), as well as blogs and forums. As in the previous category, many of these sites will not be very useful. Others (like this one!) are excellent, and provide lots of valuable information.

These kind of sites aren’t necessarily the best for researching specific events you’re planning to bet on, but they’re great for researching sports betting in general. This is something worth investing your time in, as you should never stop trying to improve your sports betting knowledge and learning about all the strategy involved.

Also, some of these sites ARE useful for researching specific events. Take our gambling blog for example, or our news section. We write a wide variety of different posts and articles for these, including previews for sports events. These previews not only provide an overview of what to expect in the relevant event, but they also feature at least one or two recommended wagers.

Social Media

Social media is full of sports betting tipsters. Especially Twitter. Most of these tipsters barely deserve the label, as they’re not very good at what they do. Some of them, however, are worth following. It wouldn’t be wise to just blindly follow their tips and picks, but it doesn’t hurt to take what they say into account when it comes time to make your own decisions. The best tipsters will thoroughly explain their reasoning for choosing to pick what they did, so this is also a great way to gain more perspective.

An especially useful social media site to use is Reddit. There are lots of sports and sports betting related sections on here, many of which feature very interesting discussions. We definitely recommend taking some time to explore this site.

More Research & Analysis to Consider

Before we finish up this article, there are two more pieces of advice we want to offer. The first is that you should spend some time analyzing your own betting performance. If you keep detailed betting records (and you should), there’s a lot to be gained by regularly reviewing those records and looking for ways to improve. This is a great method for enhancing your betting skills over time.

The second piece of advice is that you should research the various different betting sites you can use, and make sure that you’re betting with the right ones. There are numerous benefits to using the best betting sites, some of which can directly help you make more money. Want to learn more about this subject? Read our article on choosing where to bet. Or for an even quicker solution, check out our list of recommended sites we have provided below.

The Best Sports Betting Sites
Ranked & Reviewed by Experts

(Redirected from Sports Analytics)

Sports analytics are a collection of relevant, historical, statistics that can provide a competitive advantage to a team or individual. Through the collection and analyzation of these data, sports analytics inform players, coaches and other staff in order to facilitate decision making both during and prior to sporting events. The term 'sports analytics' was popularized in mainstream sports culture following the release of the 2011 film, Moneyball, in which Oakland Athletics General Manager Billy Beane (played by Brad Pitt) relies heavily on the use of analytics to build a competitive team on a minimal budget.

There are two key aspects of sports analytics — on-field and off-field analytics. On-field analytics deals with improving the on-field performance of teams and players. It digs deep into aspects such as game tactics and player fitness. Off-field analytics deals with the business side of sports. Off-field analytics focuses on helping a sport organization or body surface patterns and insights through data that would help increase ticket and merchandise sales, improve fan engagement, etc. Off-field analytics essentially uses data to help rightsholders take decisions that would lead to higher growth and increased profitability.^[1]

As technology has advanced over the last number of years data collection has become more in-depth and can be conducted with relative ease. Advancements in data collection have allowed for sports analytics to grow as well, leading to the development of advanced statistics and machine learning,^[2] as well as sport specific technologies that allow for things like game simulations to be conducted by teams prior to play, improve fan acquisition and marketing strategies, and even understand the impact of sponsorship on each team as well as its fans.^[3]

Another significant impact sports analytics have had on professional sports is in relation to sport gambling. In depth sports analytics have taken sports gambling to new levels, whether it be fantasy sports leagues or nightly wagers, bettors now have more information at their disposal to help aid decision making. A number of companies and webpages have been developed to help provide fans with up to the minute information for their betting needs.^[3]

Sport-specific analytic tools and measurements[edit]

Major League Baseball (MLB)[edit]

The MLB has set the benchmark in sports analytics for a number of years, with some of the game's brightest minds having never stepped foot into the heat of a major or minor league baseball game. Theo Epstein of the Chicago Cubs is one of those minds who has never suited up in a professional baseball game; instead Epstein relies on his Yale University education and the numbers behind the game to make many of his decisions.^[4] Epstein, known for his role in ending two of baseball's most historic streaks (the Boston Red Sox curse of the Great Bambino in 2004, and as recently as the 2016 World Series, helping end the 108-year drought between World Series wins for the Chicago Cubs), is a member of a growing community in major league baseball who do not rely on years of major league playing experience. This community has been able to grow thanks to the in depth collection of statistics that has existed in baseball for decades. With analytics being relatively common in the MLB, there are a breadth of statistics that have become vital in the analysis of the game, which include:

Batting average is one of the most commonly discussed statistics in baseball. A players batting average is determined by dividing hits by the number of at bats that players have. The use of statistics also provides players with different pitches they struggle with at the plate, it shows their tendencies and which pitch usually strikes them out.^[5]
On-base percentage is the percentage of times a player reaches base on either a hit, walk, or by being hit by a pitch. This is a significant offensive stat as it looks beyond hits and more importantly illustrates how often a batter can avoid being put out at the plate. This is a more in depth offensive statistic than batting average as it takes into account walks and being hit by a pitch, both of which are indicators of how a player handles an at bat. Sabermetrics can help change a player's approach in order to raise their own base percentage increasing productivity and ultimately their overall worth as a player.^[6]
Slugging average is the calculation that determines the number of bases a player earns on hits. To determine this stat, the number of bases earned is divided by the number of at bats. This is a good measure for measuring a batters power as the higher their slugging average is, the more likely they are to hit for extra bases (i.e. a double, triple or homerun). For sluggers, analytics can help them improve decision making at the plate and look for their pitch. Now, hitters can study the tendencies of the pitchers they are going to face therefore familiarizing themselves before they are up to bat.^[7]
WHIP stands for Walks plus Hits allowed per Inning Pitched and tends to be viewed as a strong way to measure the success of a pitcher as it illustrates how many baserunners the pitcher allows on both hits and walks. This is also a proven method for looking at a pitcher's efficiency. Now, pitchers can study the upcoming lineup they are going to face and focus on tendencies of the batters. Like where they stand on the plate, what pitches they tend to chase, and what part of the field they like to hit.^[8]^[9]

National Hockey League (NHL)[edit]

The NHL has kept statistics since its inception, yet it is a relatively new adopter of analytics-based decision making. The Toronto Maple Leafs were the first team in the NHL to hire a member of management with a largely analytical background when they hired assistant general manager, Kyle Dubas, in 2014. Dubas, similar to Theo Epstein in the MLB, has never suited up in a professional game and relies on the numbers generated by players on a nightly basis both now and in the past to make decisions.^[10]

The Corsi statistic is an advanced statistic that has been widely adopted throughout the NHL, as teams, fans and media alike rely on the Corsi statistic to track shot attempt differential.^[11] Corsi has been recognized as the most informative single statistic in the game of hockey as it can provide insight into both the offensive and defensive play of a team as well as the amount of time a team has possession of the puck.^[12]

Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour[edit]

The PGA Tour collects vast amounts of data throughout the season. These statistics track each shot a player takes in tournament play, collecting information on how far the ball travels and exactly where each shot is played from and where it finishes. These data have been used for a number of years by players and their coaches during practice sessions as well as during tournament preparation, highlighting the areas in which that player needs to improve before teeing it up in tournament play.

Shotlink data collection has revolutionized the way that data is collected in the game of golf. Introduced on a full-time basis in 2003, Shotlink relies on a number of strategically placed on-course laser rangefinders and cameras to collect precise data from every shot that is struck on the PGA Tour.^[13] With these data, players are able to see the areas of their game that need improving, and on a broader year-to-year basis, players can review course statistics from previous years to allow for relevant tournament preparation. On top of the year-to-year stats provided players and fans can also easily access these statistics at an up to the minute rate, giving these data an extremely high velocity. Shotlink has also made its mark on the world of golf course design as designers have constant access to up to the minute statistics of professional golfers, allowing for these designers to create courses that can provide a challenge for the world's best players.^[13]

History[edit]

Many statisticians attribute the popularization of sports analytics to current Oakland Athletics General Manager, Billy Beane. Strapped with a minimalist budget, Beane relied on sabermetrics, a form of sports analytics, to evaluate players and make personnel decisions. Understanding the importance of getting runners on base, Beane focussed on acquiring players with a high on base percentage with the logic that teams with a higher on base percentage are more likely to score runs. He was also able to achieve success on a shoestring budget by acquiring overlooked starting pitchers, often getting them for a fraction of the price that a big name pitcher may require. When Beane's Athletics began to achieve success, other major league teams took notice. The second team to adopt a similar approach was the Boston Red Sox, who in 2003 made Theo Epstein the interim general manager. Epstein, who remains the youngest general manager to ever be hired in the MLB, came into the position with zero professional playing experience, highly irregular at the time. Using a similar approach to that of Billy Beane, Epstein was able to form a Boston Red Sox team that in 2004, won the organization's first World Series in 86 years, breaking the alleged Curse of the Bambino. Many experts attribute some of Epstein's success to Boston Red Sox owner, John W. Henry, who achieved significant success in the investments industry by using^[18] Using this approach, the Houston Astros captured their first World Series victory in franchise history in 2017.^[19]

San Antonio Spurs (NBA)[edit]

One of the early adopters of SportVU, the San Antonio Spurs have been using analytics to gain a competitive advantage on opponents for a number of years. Collectively as a team the Spurs have honed in on the importance of the three pointer and as a result constantly rank among the league lead in three point attempts. The teams understanding of the importance of the 'three' extends beyond the offensive side of the court as they are relentless at defending the three pointer in the defensive end of the court.^[18]

Chicago Blackhawks (NHL)[edit]

In 2009 the Chicago Blackhawks turned to an outside company to produce analytical assessments for them.^[18] Subsequently, the Blackhawks have achieved unparalleled success in the NHL, winning three Stanley Cups in six seasons. With this success has come a number of difficult decisions for Blackhawks management as they are often only able to hang onto a core group of players following each cup run, while other key players receive offers that the Blackhawks simply cannot match under the NHL's salary cap. However, by using this analytics based system, the team has continuously been able to fill these gaps by finding players who are undervalued by other teams but will fit well with the Blackhawks' style of play. Many times, a team put together like this will seem underwhelming but perform higher than expectations. This strategy could be adopted by teams with limited financial freedom to put together a competitive team.^[20] This process has been refined by the Blackhawks who provide yet another example of the longevity that can be associated with analytic base decision making.^[21]

Gambling[edit]

Sports analytics have had significant impact on the field of play but sports analytics have also contributed to the growing industry of sports gambling, which accounts for approximately 13% of the global gambling industry.^[22] 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 plethora of information and analytics that are at their disposal when making decisions. One gambler, Bob Stoll, has been ahead of the analytics curve for a number of years, successfully betting against the line 56% (575–453) of the time in college football, a significant rate as a winning percentage above 52.4% is considered profitable. With the number of statistics so openly available to fans, Stoll combines a number of different statistics such as, home and away records, record vs divisional/non-divisional teams, rush yards per rush, etc., to make educated picks that have paid off more than half of the time.^[23]

Results from academic research show evidence that Twitter contains enough information to be useful for predicting outcomes in football games.^[24]

With the popularity of sports gambling came the development of a number of sports betting services. 'Sports betting services are provided by companies such as William Hill, Ladbrokes, bet365, bwin, Paddy Power, betfair, Unibet and many more through their websites and in many cases betting shops. In 2012, William Hill generated around 2 billion U.S. dollars in revenue with about 30 billion U.S. dollars in total being staked / wagered with the company.'^[22]

References[edit]