Poll: Are HN users interested in sports analytics?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1101191

by epe • 16 years ago

16 20 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

dabent• 16 years ago

If the math is interesting, certainly. It's all about using knowledge to one's competitive advantage.

lhuang3• 16 years ago

For those interested in sports analytics, specifically NFL, but really any sport feel free to email me. Contact info in my user profile.

I'm working on an interesting project in this space and would love to talk to more data-oriented sports fans.

gmail me at burntreedown@...

dannyr2• 16 years ago

I'm interested. Where are you based?

lhuang3• 16 years ago

Chicago based. Another founder is temporarily in SF for the next couple of months.

dannyr2• 16 years ago

Yes. Used to run a college sports web site.

Statsheet.com in my opinion is the best sports stats site out there.

davemabe• 16 years ago

I'll second that - Statsheet is quite a one-person startup success story.

mitrca• 16 years ago

Thanks! Since I run http://statsheet.com http://embed.statsheet.com http://statplot.com http://stat.us and http://statfix.com I guess I'd say I'm interested in sports analytics ;-)

obsaysditto• 16 years ago

yes.. in fact one of my friends is working on a fantasy baseball engine http://sabrstats.com/

sebg2• 16 years ago

I too, like lhuang, am working on a project using sports analytics. It has to do with amateur sports versus his NFL sports.

Regarding the math aspect - I think prediction of performance or how certain teams/coaches affect different types of athletes is very interesting.

jherdman• 16 years ago

I've been working with a company for the past while now that deals with sports data. Perhaps you can verify this for me, but I've noticed a pattern: if a sport is American, and in a college, the stats and math behind it are disproportionately more convoluted than ANY OTHER sport, league, etc.

lhuang3• 16 years ago

We've explored analyzing the impact that coaches bring to teams and athletes and have found some interesting results.

The big problem though, is that with the NFL at least, there are just wayyyyy too many coaches a player touches and that makes it hard to model to a degree.

hockeybias• 16 years ago

I am interested in adding college and professional hockey stats to my site http://hockeybias.com. Please contact me if you are in a position to help me. Guy at hockeybias dot com

joblessjunkie• 16 years ago

Why do we need a poll for this?

If HN users are interested in it, they will vote up the stories. If not, they won't.

RK• 16 years ago

I'm not interested in sports analysis per se, but I am interested in interesting data analysis in general and have a soft spot for excellent visualizations.

sebg2• 16 years ago

what's the best way to contact you as your profile is missing contact information?

skorgu• 16 years ago

I'd be happy to be proven wrong but I can't imagine there are many sports analyses that aren't written for sports fans who have substantial knowledge of the rules, sides, strategies, etc.

gxs2• 16 years ago

I generally appreciate sports analytics, but in the sport I watch the most (NBA) they have a long way to go.

While I admit this is a personal failure, I too often find the articles (especially by guys like Hollinger) obnoxious. They love to tout simple stat concepts (regression to the mean! sample size!) as keen statistical insight. Another example is the PER metric: it is a simple weighted average of multiple stat categories but the author regards it as the authority by which all players should be measured.

Additionally, nba stat analysts believe stats tell the entire story. The nba right now, more than any other sport, in my opinion, is the sport which can least be described by statistics. Reading one of their articles, however, would leave you wondering why they even bother playing the games.

Edit: clarity.

epe• 16 years ago

You might be interested in this article that made it to HN about a year ago:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=481392

I found it fascinating even though my interest in the NBA is lukewarm at best.

gxs2• 16 years ago

Thanks! I am a fan of Daryl Morey and what he does in Houston. A tidbit you might find interesting: he among others hold a sports analytics conference in Boston at MIT every year. The big thing last year was evidence that the hot hand theory in basketball is false.

jdietrich• 16 years ago

Not being USian, I have no idea who Adrian Peterson is, no idea what a running back is and no idea why they might fumble or what that might mean.

So no, at least not analytics for sports that don't really exist outside the US. Data on Cycling or Motorsport would interest me.

Poll: Are HN users interested in sports analytics?

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