Overview
Class Central Tips
Sports analytics has emerged as a field of research with increasing popularity propelled, in part, by the real-world success illustrated by the best-selling book and motion picture, Moneyball. Analysis of team and player performance data has continued to revolutionize the sports industry on the field, court, and ice as well as in living rooms among fantasy sports players and online sports gambling.
Drawing from real data sets in Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), the English Premier League (EPL-soccer), and the Indian Premier League (IPL-cricket), you’ll learn how to construct predictive models to anticipate team and player performance. You’ll also replicate the success of Moneyball using real statistical models, use the Linear Probability Model (LPM) to anticipate categorical outcomes variables in sports contests, explore how teams collect and organize an athlete’s performance data with wearable technologies, and how to apply machine learning in a sports analytics context.
This introduction to the field of sports analytics is designed for sports managers, coaches, physical therapists, as well as sports fans who want to understand the science behind athlete performance and game prediction. New Python programmers and data analysts who are looking for a fun and practical way to apply their Python, statistics, or predictive modeling skills will enjoy exploring courses in this series.
Syllabus
Course 1: Foundations of Sports Analytics: Data, Representation, and Models in Sports
- Offered by University of Michigan. This course provides an introduction to using Python to analyze team performance in sports. Learners will ... Enroll for free.
Course 2: Moneyball and Beyond
- Offered by University of Michigan. The book Moneyball triggered a revolution in the analysis of performance statistics in professional ... Enroll for free.
Course 3: Prediction Models with Sports Data
- Offered by University of Michigan. In this course the learner will be shown how to generate forecasts of game results in professional sports ... Enroll for free.
Course 4: Wearable Technologies and Sports Analytics
- Offered by University of Michigan. Sports analytics now include massive datasets from athletes and teams that quantify both training and ... Enroll for free.
Course 5: Introduction to Machine Learning in Sports Analytics
- Offered by University of Michigan. In this course students will explore supervised machine learning techniques using the python scikit learn ... Enroll for free.
- Offered by University of Michigan. This course provides an introduction to using Python to analyze team performance in sports. Learners will ... Enroll for free.
Course 2: Moneyball and Beyond
- Offered by University of Michigan. The book Moneyball triggered a revolution in the analysis of performance statistics in professional ... Enroll for free.
Course 3: Prediction Models with Sports Data
- Offered by University of Michigan. In this course the learner will be shown how to generate forecasts of game results in professional sports ... Enroll for free.
Course 4: Wearable Technologies and Sports Analytics
- Offered by University of Michigan. Sports analytics now include massive datasets from athletes and teams that quantify both training and ... Enroll for free.
Course 5: Introduction to Machine Learning in Sports Analytics
- Offered by University of Michigan. In this course students will explore supervised machine learning techniques using the python scikit learn ... Enroll for free.
Courses
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This course provides an introduction to using Python to analyze team performance in sports. Learners will discover a variety of techniques that can be used to represent sports data and how to extract narratives based on these analytical techniques. The main focus of the introduction will be on the use of regression analysis to analyze team and player performance data, using examples drawn from the National Football League (NFL), the National Basketball Association (NBA), the National Hockey League (NHL), the English Premier LEague (EPL, soccer) and the Indian Premier League (IPL, cricket). This course does not simply explain methods and techniques, it enables the learner to apply them to sports datasets of interest so that they can generate their own results, rather than relying on the data processing performed by others. As a consequence the learning will be empowered to explore their own ideas about sports team performance, test them out using the data, and so become a producer of sports analytics rather than a consumer. While the course materials have been developed using Python, code has also been produced to derive all of the results in R, for those who prefer that environment.
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The book Moneyball triggered a revolution in the analysis of performance statistics in professional sports, by showing that data analytics could be used to increase team winning percentage. This course shows how to program data using Python to test the claims that lie behind the Moneyball story, and to examine the evolution of Moneyball statistics since the book was published. The learner is led through the process of calculating baseball performance statistics from publicly available datasets. The course progresses from the analysis of on base percentage and slugging percentage to more advanced measures derived using the run expectancy matrix, such as wins above replacement (WAR). By the end of this course the learner will be able to use these statistics to conduct their own team and player analyses.
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In this course the learner will be shown how to generate forecasts of game results in professional sports using Python. The main emphasis of the course is on teaching the method of logistic regression as a way of modeling game results, using data on team expenditures. The learner is taken through the process of modeling past results, and then using the model to forecast the outcome games not yet played. The course will show the learner how to evaluate the reliability of a model using data on betting odds. The analysis is applied first to the English Premier League, then the NBA and NHL. The course also provides an overview of the relationship between data analytics and gambling, its history and the social issues that arise in relation to sports betting, including the personal risks.
Taught by
Christopher Brooks, Peter F. Bodary, Stefan Szymanski, Wenche Wang and Youngho Park