April 7, 2003 will go down in the history books for me. The streets of Syracuse, New York, were abuzz. I was a junior television major, and our men’s basketball team had just won its first NCAA basketball title. Our three-seed Orangemen had bested #2 Kansas in New Orleans, but the
Eating donuts, burning calories, and raising money for a good cause -- that's what the annual Krispy Kreme Challenge is all about. If this intrigues you, read on to find out more... But first, here's a picture of me eating a donut, preparing for a race. I bet you didn't
Shocking headlines to start the new year: Paul DePodesta is leaving the New York Mets and Major League Baseball (MLB) to take a top office position at the Cleveland Browns of the National Football League (NFL). Not so shocked? You don’t care? Who’s Paul De Podesta? Well for those of
It is said that everything is big in Texas, and that includes big data. During my recent trip to Austin I had the privilege of being a judge in the final round of the Texata Big Data World Championship, a fantastic example of big data competitions. It felt fitting that
~ Coauthored by Varsha Chawla and Dale Rierson ~ Here at SAS, we take our sports seriously. With our corporate headquarters in a city surrounded by major universities and with offices all over the world, it’s no wonder that sports data often becomes the forefront of our demos and projects.
With the 2015 World Series currently underway, there couldn't be a more exciting time to discuss how analytics is transforming the game of baseball. It comes as no surprise to say that managers and front office executives, not to mention the players, are continuously looking for a competitive advantage over their opponents.
As a longtime fan of the New York Mets and a longtime employee of SAS, I'm particularly excited about the start of the World Series. In 2014, the Mets and SAS formed a partnership to use SAS analytics to help the organization build stronger relationships with its fan base. While the vast majority of the credit
I get several requests and recommendations for analyzing sports data. I'm not a big sports fan ... but when did I ever let that stop me! When I find interesting data, I like to graph it! Before we get into the nitty-gritty data analysis, here is a picture of my friend Jennifer's daughter
The 2016 summer games are less than a year away, and British sports fans are hoping for a performance that beats Team GB’s record medal tally at London 2012. That’s never been achieved by a country directly after hosting the Games. And the pressure’s on us in the GB Rowing Team given
There's big money in professional sports these days - we're talking billions of dollars! Do you know which teams are the most valuable? The graphs in this blog will show you... I recently saw a bar chart on dadaviz.com showing the world's most valuable sports teams. It was the right kind
We recently met up with Paul Bennett, a member of the GB Rowing Team and current World Champion, and Laurie Miles, Head of Analytics for SAS UK & Ireland, who has been analyzing the team's data. They chatted about data, the life and mind of an elite sportsman, and uncovered some
One of my earlier blogs on handling percent (%) values in SAS was very popular (it's been viewed over 34,000 times!), so I thought I'd write a similar blog on handling time (mm:ss.ss) values in SAS ... This past weekend I was in a dragonboat race (that's me in the
Every year rowers get faster, records are broken, medals are won, but can this trajectory continue? Rowing as a sport lends itself well to data analysis and at the British Rowing Sports Science and Medicine Conference earlier this year I shared some insights the rowing community has gleaned from the
You may be intrigued to know how the average person compares to a gold medal winning Olympic athlete when it comes to things like height, body mass, resting heart rate, arm span, body fat etc. Or, perhaps more frightening, how you measure up? I know this will resonate with my
Katherine Grainger paid a heart-felt tribute to the support staff who have been a pivotal part of her success in her opening speech ahead of last month’s World Sport Science and Medicine conference. The event was hosted in the UK jointly by British Rowing and FISA, the international rowing federation. “My career
In sports these days, there's a lot more data to keep track of than just the score! How can you make sense of it all? Being the Graph Guy, of course I recommend graphing it! Here's an example that's up close and personal for me - dragon boat racing... Below
In a city built on hedging your bets, it is fitting that the Analytics 2014 conference kicked off Monday in Las Vegas with a look at all the unscientific ways people try to predict the future. John Elder, Founder and President of Elder Research, Inc., entertained the audience with examples of how
It’s a great time to be a sports fan – and an even better time to be a sports and data fan as these two worlds continue to meld together. For the last couple of years nearly every conversation about sports, analytics or both had to have at least one
After the 2014 FIFA World Cup, one thing’s clear: here at SAS, we love football (soccer in the US!). To wrap up the popular 2014 World Cup data visualization series on the SAS Visual Analytics Community, we created a presentation that’s chocked-full of interesting insights. From the trillions of pieces
When I started working at business analytics leader SAS, I had no idea I’d be helping the Great Britain Rowing Team plot their way to Olympic glory. While I haven’t, yet, got in a boat and started rowing, I have started working with them on how they can make better
In my region of North Carolina (Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill) one of the most anticipated times of the year has arrived— the NCAA basketball tournament. This is a great time of year for me, because I get to combine several of my passions. For those who don’t live among crazed college
Over the last few years, the main qualifications for a general manager of a sports team have changed dramatically. Gut feel and experience have been replaced by analytical insight and predictive modeling. If Billy Beane started the trend with his Moneyball approach to team building, GMs like Daryl Morey (Houston
Are you an NFL fan, or curious about analyzing social media data? -- Well, in either case, this blog's for you! I recently read a fascinating Facebook article that included a U.S. county map showing which NFL (U.S. football) team had the most 'likes' in each county (based on ~35 million
Revenge of the Nerds was so 1980s. Now it's a new world order: math geeks and athletes are working together. I'm not talking just about what happens when data nerds observe, analyze, and predict sports outcomes -- as they do in March Madness with their "bracketology". That's compelling, but your
A big part of "winning" these days (be it sports or a business) is performing analytics better than your competition. This is demonstrated in awe-inspiring fashion in the book (and movie) "Moneyball." And on that topic, I'd like to show you a few ways SAS can be used to analyze sports data
