Even the NFL is getting into data analysis these days.
Buffalo Bills to start advanced analytics department
Personal note: Like many American children, I grew up dreaming of playing professional football in the NFL. Also, like many American children, that dream did not come true. Maybe now I could try to make the NFL as a data scientist. I wonder if they have fall training camp for the analytics department. If so, sign me up.
Some of the NFL teams have been doing this already for a while, but more in the administrative side of the sport (like salary cap management or how to find good players in the mid-range pay level). My NE Patriots are a great example of this 🙂 because of Belichick’s background in Economics. [1]
A good place to start becoming good in this area could be in Fantasy Football. I found this article [2] very interesting on the subject.
You would find this compilation of data [3] very helpful and fun to play with!
[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/16/sports/pro-football-for-belichick-an-economy-of-thought.html?pagewanted=all
[2]: http://www.eweek.com/c/a/IT-Infrastructure/Fantasy-Football-Secret-Weapon-IBM-Predictive-Analytics-107809/
[3]: http://www.advancednflstats.com/2010/04/play-by-play-data.html
Alan,
Wow, thanks for the links. I will definitely take a look at them.
Ryan