The role of data analytics in modern day sports

Purpose
Published in 2003, the best-seller by Michael Lewis, Moneyball, changed the way people thought about
and approached sports. Lewis’ book on baseball helped spark a revolution in which the performance of
players was gathered and assessed using an evidence-based approach as opposed to traditional factors like
anecdotes, gut feelings, and superstitions.

Managers, owners and players took note of these new ways to strategize and over time, sports scientists
have attempted to replicate this success in other sports such as American football, basketball, soccer, etc.
Sports franchises are using analytics to engage fans while governing councils of sports like cricket and
tennis are using it to provide assistance to the umpires so that they can make the best decision. In an
industry anticipated to reach a market size of $4.7 billion​[1]​, there is a strong need to crunch data
effectively.

Rapid advances in big data and machine learning technology mean that more data can be analyzed than
ever before at faster rates and with more accurate results. Even so, many sports have been unable to
correctly manipulate data parameters and models so as to gain valuable insight. The advantages are
plentiful but is there enough advancement to accurately predict and improve the performance of any
athlete under real time constraints?

To even begin to answer this question, players’ distribution on the field needs to closely examined as it is
closely related to strategic options, tactical choices, and principles. Analysis of positional data is thus,
extremely relevant and easily allows to look for patterns in a particular sport.

Technical Background and Scope

An overview of how team sports are recognized is vital in better understanding the different parameters
that should be accounted for to extract meaning from data. They are dynamic systems of interaction,
where individual and collective patterns of behaviour emerge from converging multiple constraints on the
players.

This document will limit its scope in discussing data analysis techniques to games collectively known as
invasion games. Games falling under this category comprise of two teams that compete for possession of
a ball in a constrained playing area. Each team has the objective of scoring by putting the ball into the
opposition’s goal and also of defending its own goal​[2]​. The team that scores the greatest number of goals
by the end of the game is the winner. Examples include American football, basketball, soccer, hockey,
etc.

The data from invasion games mostly consists of ball and player trajectories throughout the game. It also
includes events such as goals, assists, shots, etc. at any given time. Advanced object tracking systems
produce spatio-temporal traces of these player trajectories with high definition and high frequency.

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Use of Voronoi diagrams in mapping positional data
Studies have tried to characterize tactical behaviour from positional data in invasion games using
variables derived from their spatial distribution. They revolve around an important aim in most invasion
games, which is that creating space in the opponent’s arena leads to a better winning percentage.Creative
and unique tactics are formed just to fulfill this purpose. Therefore, an analysis of the immediate area that
can be accessed by a player becomes very vital. It can be crucial in determining the time a player has to
maintain possession or other regions in the arena that would help protect possession.

But, most humans are not ambidextrous. To realistically understand how players can dominate parts of the
arena near them, their dominant region needs to be taken into account. In sports science, a player’s
dominant region is the region he or she can reach before any other player. A simple way to calculate this
is to draw a Voronoi diagram, which divides the pitch into the regions closest to each player.

Figure 1: 20 points and their Voronoi cells/regions. [3]

​

It is the defined as the partitioning of a plane into regions based on distance to points in a specific subset
of the plane. An example, constructed with 20 points, can be seen in Figure 1. It could be modified with
the help of additional information, for example, the observation that dominant regions tend to be larger
for the attacking team than the defending team. Figure 2 shows a portion of a soccer field with a modified
Voronoi diagram overlaid.

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 Figure 2: A portion of a soccer field with a Voronoi diagram overlaid.​[4]

Problems with Voronoi diagrams

However, calculating the Voronoi diagram for each player on the pitch is computationally expensive and
not been successfully done in real time. Instead, researchers focus on a different property, the region each
player can reach in a given time. Overlaps are looked for and then resolved. This increases speed by a
factor of 1,000 with only a 10 percent loss in accuracy​[5]​.

Still, a number of crucial factors are ignored in this approach. It takes no account of the momentum of the
players, which is very important in building a realistic model as a player in motion can dominate a much
larger region ahead than a stationary player.

Calculating realistic dominant regions in real time is challenging. Network science provides a solution as
a wide range of mathematical tools have already been developed for analyzing networks. Each player is
treated as a node and a line is drawn between them when the ball travels from one to the other. The most
important node can be measured using centrality and the same approach can be used to divide the nodes
into clusters.

Figure 3: A network model of two basketball team showing possible passes and outcomes.​[6]
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Infrastructure needed
A wholesome view of the data analytics is incomplete without examining the infrastructure needed to
perform tactical analysis and generate visualizations from positional data mapping techniques. Figure 4
shows a big data technological stack for soccer. Physiological, tracking, video and observational data are
collected using the necessary hardware. A storage system is required allowing efficient data storage and
access.

Subsequently, a processing pipeline has to be established to extract relevant information from the data and
to combine this information to build a predictive model. Visualization capabilities are needed to monitor
the different processing steps and communicate the results.

Figure 4: Big data technological stack for tactical analysis in soccer.​[7]

Conclusion
Exciting times lie ahead for team sports performance analysis as more and more data is going to become
available allowing more refined investigations. The challenge in sports science is to use this data to gain a
competitive advantage, whether in real time during the game or to help in training, preparation, or
recruitment.

There is a strong need to systematically evaluate and compare different methods to determine their utility
and value. The adaption of big data technologies for research in invasion sports is helping by sharing data
and techniques within teams and bringing us closer to answering the million dollar questions like: Can
these tools help improve performance both on and off the field? Can they be used as a metric of player

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performance and value? Can they work in real time during a game to help coaches, owners and fans?

Future research will have to embrace a stronger multi-disciplinary approach. Biomechanists, performance
analysts, exercise scientists, as well as practitioners will have to work together to make sense of these
complex data sets. Most of the machine learning approaches are performed by computer science research
groups. Multidisciplinary teams and shared research will lead to more comprehensive theoretical models
and a better understanding of tactical team performance in invasion sports may be within reach.

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Citations

1. WinterGreen Research, “Sports Analytics: Market Shares, Strategies, And Forecasts, Worldwide,
2015 To 2021​”.​ ​Reportsnreports.com​. May 2015. Web. 16 Apr. 2017.
2. Pearson, P., Webb, P. (2008) ​An Integrated Approach to Teaching Games for Understanding
(TGFU). ​Available: http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=edupapers
[Accessed: 16- Apr- 2017].
2008,http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1053&context=edupapers
3. By Balu Ertl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via
Wikimedia Commons
4. Patent US20050037826 - Use in computer games of voronoi diagrams for partitioning a
gamespace for analysis", ​Google Books,​ 2017. [Online]. Available:
https://www.google.com/patents/US20050037826. [Accessed: 16- Apr- 2017].
5. Gudmundsson and M. Horton, "Spatio-Temporal Analysis of Team Sports -- A Survey", ​Arxiv.org​,
2017. [Online]. Available: https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.06994. [Accessed: 16- Apr- 2017].
6. http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0047445
7. Rein, R.; Memmert, D. Big data and tactical analysis in elite soccer: Future challenges and
opportunities for sports science. SpringerPlus 2016, 5, 1410.