If you aren’t glued to Data Journalism Digest, there’s a 22.89% chance you missed the re-launch of FiveThirtyEight.com on Monday. Nate Silver’s data journalism driven blog that was once housed by the New York times has expanded quite a bit and made the move to ESPN. 538’s advanced data reporting ranges from sabermetrics to politics (the blog famously called all 50 states correctly ahead of the 2012 presidential election) and now with a larger staff and ESPN backed resources will expand to areas such as science, life and economics while continuing to give a heavy dose of politics and of course most importantly to the 87.46% reading this: sports.
The site launched this week with their in-depth breakdown of the NCAA tournament with metrics giving predictions for each game of the tourney. 538 goes beyond the standard RPI and mixes in KenPom rankings, Sargarin predictor ratings among other factors like travel and injury. Their interactive bracket and breakdown are definitely worth a look and give unique insight to the data that can drive sports predictions.
And that got us thinking, what other areas in sports could data driven journalism tell a new narrative or give us useful information about the teams and athletes we follow.
Baseball: Steroids in baseball and their affect on pitchers
We all know home runs and slugging increased during the steroid era but what types of pitchers were affected the most? That would be an intriguing topic for 538 to take on, looking at trends before and after the known steroid years and what they did to pitchers performance. Were power pitchers more affected? Did fringe major leaguers have a harder time staying in the bigs? Did lefty specialists become even more crucial or obsolete? Did ballpark dimensions play an even greater role in aiding the pitcher, or were they more of a mute point because of hitter’s increased power? Lots of questions here, 538 team. We want answers.
Football: The impact of crowd noise and home field advantage
Much has been made of the home field advantage and deafening crowd noise that the Seattle Seahawks were able to ride all the way to the Super Bowl title, but what sort of edge does this really give a team? Using decibel data as well as construction of the stadium and crowd size, 538 could examine just what extra edge the crowd is giving teams. Do differing kick off times impact home field advantage? Do home team’s perform worse when they are hosting a lesser opponent and the fans aren’t as in to the game? Anyone can look at home win-loss records and point out differentials but the next level of data research in to crowd noise and stadium structure could really produce some interesting, un-explored caveats in to the standard thoughts about home field advantage.
Basketball: Efficiency on offense following a tough defensive sequence
More and more data is becoming readily available in the NBA and this data would help 538 answer some pretty unique questions. Analysts will soon be able to track the every move of NBA players in each arena and using that data we could learn more about the impact of playing tough defense and how that correlates to offensive efficiency. Does guarding a quick shooter bouncing back and forth through screens make you less adept on the offensive end or get you in the flow of the game? Does getting a stop on D raise your activity and adrenaline or tire you out? By tracking where players move on defense and then their behaviors on offense, both teams and fans would have a better understanding of how players play and what they do best on the court at any given time.
Fan Experience
We all know winning cures most attendance woes, but how does fan experience at the stadium or arena also factor in? Does a long winning streak for the Oakland A’s benefit a team more or less than it does for the Baltimore Orioles? And conversely, does an extended losing streak hurt a team with great game atmosphere as much as it hurts teams that put little effort in to such things? Do certain fan bases not seem to care about fan experience and if so, could those teams focus their budgets and resources toward other things? Why fans go to games with increasingly better home viewing experiences is a topic that is continuously broken down and discussed and would be a perfect idea for 538 to tackle with data driven journalism.
Looking Ahead
538 is a breath of fresh air in the world of sports with its talking head columnists passing off mere conjecture and opinion as gospel. Not only will FiveThirtyEight.com be rooted deep in data but the analysis and conclusions that can be mined from the ever increasing amount of information available in sports will provide new and exciting ways to further analyze our national past times.