Data Analytics In Sport And How It Became Mainstream

How Data Analytics In Sports Became Mainstream

Sport is big business. The Premier League generates around $4 billion each year. The NBA draws a figure twice that size, while the NFL is double again, at around $16 billion. With so much on the line, and games lost on fine margins, it makes sense to turn to analytics to find an edge.

So it's little surprise to learn that the global sports performance analysis market is expected to surpass $5.2 billion by 2024. What is perhaps more surprising, is that analytics has gone mainstream.

Moneyball

When we talk about analytics in sport, thoughts inevitably turn to Moneyball, the story of Billy Beane's famous Oakland A's baseball franchise. The book tells the true story of a side transformed into one able to compete with MLB giants such as the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees, despite only having a third of their budget.

Baseball has been obsessed with statistics since its inception, but Beane famously took a more evidence-based, scientific approach to their analysis. He helped ease the passage of analytics into the sporting mainstream. Although his older, more traditional scouts ridiculed such ideas, the A's success is the history books for all to see.

Matthew Benham and Brentford FC

Scepticism around analytics in sport is not unique to North American baseball, though. The concept is still very much viewed with suspicion in the UK, perhaps because it is seen as "American".

But the tide is slowly beginning to turn. This is in part, due to successful experiments with analytics in football. And there are few better examples than that of Matthew Benham at Brentford Football Club.

With a passion for data, as well as football, Benham set up a gambling consultancy in 2004. With its team of sports analysts, Smartodds would find value bets for its high rolling clients. Having invested money into his beloved Brentford in 2006, it was only a matter of time before Benham would combine his two great loves.

But in English football, people are reluctant to accept change. So instead, in 2014, Benham bought a majority stake in FC Midtjylland, a modest-sized club in Denmark with no real history of success. By the end of his first season as owner, Midtjylland had secured the Superliga title for the first time in their history.

The Midtjylland model of using innovative statistical analysis to spot "football inefficiencies", helped Benham to win confidence at Brentford, whose own rise through English football has been meteoric. Benham took over completely in 2009, with the side having just been promoted from the fourth tier of English football. But next season, The Bees will play in the Premier League for the first time.

Opta and Infogol

Even the most sceptical of English football fans are familiar with Opta. Created in 2006 to analyze Premier League matches, the sports analytics company now provides data for around 30 different sports, in over 70 countries. It's impossible to read a match report or watch a game these days, without seeing a stats graphic bearing their name.

And it's Opta who are largely responsible for the increasingly popular Expected Goals metric. Better known as xG, few subjects bring out such division among football fans as this one, which aims to assess the quality of chances created.

By analyzing thousands of shots in competitions around the world, companies like Opta can build a model of how likely a player is to score. An xG value can be assigned to every chance and, when the values are totaled, a picture forms of how many goals aside could have been expected to score.

Of course, like any metric, xG has limitations and the data is open to interpretation. But the fact that you now hear people in football stadia even uttering the term xG shows just how mainstream data analytics are becoming. Supporters are even using such metrics to inform their pre-match betting, since many apps now provide xG statistics for free, and are even integrated with online sportsbooks and apps.

However, it's important that fans research betting apps before placing bets, using comparison sites. They vet bookmakers to ensure they are licensed and offer a safe and secure betting experience. They also detail the various bonuses on offer, among other important criteria.

Thanks to analytics, fans have more information than ever at their fingertips.