WHY SPORTS ANALYSIS NEEDS MATHS BY JAMIE KERR

INTRODUCTION I have chosen Sports Analysis for my project because it’s an obscure job that uses many elements of maths. This is evident in every step of the analysis process from gathering data to analysing statistics and presenting the information to players and teams. In my presentation I will be looking deeper into the world of sports analysis and its reliance on mathematics.

GATHERING DATA The role of the analyst is to provide the coach (and players) with a better understanding of their performance. Gathering data helps achieve this, particularly in relation to identifying patterns. In football and rugby for example the role of the analyst is to gather data on the individual players and the team. The coach might be interested in how many shots a certain player takes, how many times they gave the ball away, the areas of the pitch where they’re making their passes etc. From a whole team point of view it could be gathering information on corner kicks, free kicks etc. or it could be the areas of the pitch where the team are best at attacking. For example the left wing, the right wing or through the middle. Overall the role of the analyst is to provide a complete picture of the performance from the team to the coach.

ANALYSING DATA After the analyst has gathered the data of the match, step two of the process is to analyse and interpret data. Things that analysts would be looking at is patterns in key areas, for example in tennis and badminton they’d be looking at the percentage of serves in the court or what percentage of your serves are gaining a point, which can be compared with your opponent. They can look for patterns which would be general trends in the data to see if a player is doing the same thing, improving or not making improvements.

PRESENTING DATA After the process of looking at all the data and finding the patterns and statistics a sports analyst has to find a way of presenting this data to the coach or even the player. This can be accomplished verbally by talking through some of the key points, you might want to show the data in a graph or pie chart which would instantly and clearly show the results of the data. Another option is to measure performance over time and perhaps even for a full season. If a player or coach wanted to look at the number of successful corner kicks perhaps then they could easily look at one game or multiple which would make a pattern and the results would be much stronger because there is more data. The data helps the coach easily see what a player or a whole team need to improve on.

CONCLUSION The process of sports analysis is the gathering, analysing and presenting of data. This means that hey have to use many areas of maths in their job. These include  Patterns  Percentages  Drawing graphs and diagrams  Statistics