From left to right in the photo: Elijah Cavan, Tim Swartz, Robyn Ritchie, Ryker Moreau, Brendan Kumagai

Collaborative Research Team Projects

Sports Analytics: Exploring Complex Sports Datasets

This project explores problems related to sports business and economics, player health and performance, and traditional sports analytics.

Research Category: Sports Science
Region:
National
Date:
2021-2024

Why Study Sports Analytics?

The advent of complex sports datasets has resulted in great interest in sports analytics. These datasets extend beyond box score data to include event data and the gold standard known as tracking data*.

*tracking data is big data which records the location of all players on the field, recorded at intervals as frequent as 25 Hz.

Areas of Exploration

Business & Economics

Includes ticket pricing, fan retention, fan growth, efficiency of gambling markets, marketing and salary cap issues.

Player Science

Includes nutrition, sleep, injury prevention, training, physiology, exercise, biomechanics, health, medicine and biochemistry.

Traditional Analytics

Includes fairness of competitions, scheduling, tactics, the indication of key performance indicators, drafting, rules, ranking, decision making, handicapping and player evaluation.

Solving Global Challenges

Research Team’s Goal

To advance sports analytics using the tools of probability, statistics and data science.

People Behind the Project

Project Team

Tim Swartz | Simon Fraser University

Alex Leblanc | University of Manitoba

Tianyu Guan | Brock University

Oliver Schulte | Simon Fraser University

Dave Clarke | Simon Fraser University

Collaborators

Syed Ejaz Ahmed | Brock University

David Beaudoin | Université Laval

Jiguo Cao | Simon Fraser University

Tim Chan | University of Toronto

Peter Chow-White | Simon Fraser University

Ivor Cribben | University of Alberta

Paramjit Gill | University of British Columbia, Okanagan

Joan Hu | Simon Fraser University

Tom Loughin | Simon Fraser University

Saman Muthukumarana | University of Manitoba

Catherine Pfaff | Queen’s University

Pascal Poupart | University of Waterloo

Peter Tingling | Simon Fraser University

Project Partners

Sportlogiq

Own the Podium

Canadian Sports Institute Pacific

Contact

Sports Analytics is a Collaborative Research Team project. This program tackles complex problems through a three-year research and training agenda.


CANSSI offers approximately $200,000 for this type of project, which requires a team of faculty, postdocs, and students.