Challenges for Team Sport Performance Analytics

Many of the questions to the performance analytics panel centered on the challen
ges performance analytics face.
Here are the key ones.
1 - Clarify. Analytics is a blanket term.
- Distinguish the exact type of analytics first.
When we talk about analytics in sport we need to be careful to identify what area
we are talking about exactly. Analytics is a tool that can be applied to many ar
eas. Analytics can be used in scouting, finance, business or in performance. We
cant group all aspects into one because they are very different and solved with t
heir own methods and have various levels of complexity.
2 - Performance is an SME
- Team sport performance analytics should be considered as an small/medium sized
enterprise
Its easy to forget that while an NBA, EPL or NFL team is a multi-million dollar b
usiness, the performance side - coaches, staff and players - employ a relatively
smaller number of people. The nature of the application of analytics to this ar
ea must be very different than to the overall business. The performance analytic
s approach must be similar to that of SMEs (small-medium sized enterprises). The
actual analysis methods may be similar but, not the overall model. There is much
more similarity in approach with agile manufacturing and small industry analyti
cs than big business analytics.
3 - Will It Make The Boat Go Faster?
- The potential of performance analytics in team sport is clear, but the value i
s still debatable.
The value of analytics on the performance side in team sport is still unclear. P
lenty of brash claims are made, but distinguishing fact from fiction is still a
challenge. Mind you separating marketing from truth is not new to performance in
sport. To paraphrase Ben Hunt-Davis book title Will It Help Us Win?
4 - Integrity Test
- Do not oversell analytics.
For example, the suggestion that analytics might be able to predict injury in te
am sports is laughable. Simply looking at the number of possible variables and l
ack of data points would assure you of this. At the most conservative estimate u
sing a manageable 150 player metric variables and just 6 injury predictors leave
s you with over a billion different possibilities. Compared this to a lottery youve only a 1 in 13 million. Overselling analytics potential creates false unrea
sonable expectations.
5 - You cant fire a rocket from a canoe
- A misguided analyst will knows the price of everything and the value of nothin
g.
Analytics in many team sports is separated too much from the performance domain
knowledge. It often operates alone with little direction. The effects of this ca
n vary from a waste of time, to confusing, to very dangerous. Many teams have so
me exceptional technicians, experts in sabermetrics and analytics. Issues arise
though when there is no domain direction preceding the analysis, and no domain r
eview post-analysis when the results are interpreted. Directionless analytics is
power without direction.
6 - Backroom Bandwidth
- Effective Communication and selling of the concepts
Most analysts manage upwards and downwards. They must communicate with strength c

oaches and trainers who havent the same exposure to data or similar logical think
ing processes as them. Occasionally they have to communicate the data to players
also. At the same time they have to explain it to coaches and front office who
have often developed predominantly through a coaching world. This backroom bandwi
dth challenge means that communication is the critical factor in how messages are
delivered to different people.
7 - Backroom Buddy
- Teammates in the Backroom
The best way to both tackle the domain knowledge issue and the communication iss
ue is to pair data analysts and performance experts. Pairing people allows a syn
ergy to develop where the analysis of the data and results can be far more effec
tive and faster. This also creates cross pollination of ideas and theories. Grea
ter awareness of each others abilities and value is a side effect of the analysi
s progress made. Statistics must factor common sense. Statistically a Tomato is
a Fruit. But you wouldnt put it in a fruit salad. Analytics rule is to inform dec
ision making - not replace it. There must always be human, domain specific inter
vention at the end to review and interpret the data.
8 - Superman & Kryptonite
- The 9 most heard words in sports are Because this is the way its always been don
e
With regard the value placed on analysis, it doesnt matter what a strength coach
or athletic trainer think, few can interpret it without help. The president, hea
d coach and general manager of the organization are the most important people. B
ut not all are accepting. Some old-school Head Coaches are to analytics what Kin
g Herod was to babysitting. Some accept it, many dont want it and those who dont g
et it wont admit it. Many staff who havent come from that background or been expos
ed to it, have come up through scouting or coaching usually.
9 - Small is Big
- Big Data doesnt work efficiently in team sport.
We need to get over the idea that gathering data for a year or two and analyzing
then, is how to work. this approach cant, and wont work - simply because sport do
esnt wait. You go to war with the Army you have. They re not the Army you might wa
nt or wish to have at a later time. Donald Rumsfeld. Team sport analytics must be
agile and reactionary to support decision making - not replace it. The process
must act fast on immediate data and act on the move. "A good plan, violently execu
ted now, is better than a perfect plan next week." Gen. George Patton. It cannot
wait for a perfect conclusion. This is faster and much more effective for every
one though, meaning that the actions are much closer the ground floor.
10 - Hard Target
- The target is always moving
Planning to fire a rocket from a canoe is one thing, but aiming from and at a mo
ving target complicates things even more. In Wayne Gretskys immortal words - I ska
te to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been. Any performance an
alysis approach operating now must aim with a 3-year window appreciating that th
e conclusions and data being collected now will be informing decisions in the fu
ture also.
11 - Analytics Continuum
- Not all sport analytics are equal
Just as analytics is a broad area. Performance analytics is a collection or more
correctly a continuum. Think of it as a scale. On one side you have relatively
stationary individual sports like archery and on the other side you have fluid,
dynamic team sports like soccer. Along the continuum, moving from archery toward
s the centre, you have sports like sprinting, track cycling or olympic sports. M
oving from the opposite side, from soccer where there are fewer breaks in play y
ou have dynamic, stochastic team sports like basketball, rugby and football (NFL

). In the middle you have mixed sports baseball. Performance analytics on the In
dividual side is relatively easier than team sports since the variable sources are
fewer. To complicate things even more then, no team sport is exclusively just a
team - the role of certain individuals (i.e. Quarterback) need to be treated as
individuals some cases. And the opposite is also true. Even in Tour deFrance cy
cling or swimming you have team dynamics and team events. Finally, the diagramma
tic complexity increases with the roster numbers per sport. Sprint teams can hav
e 4 or 5 teammates, but an NFL roster might have over 90.
12 - Affirming, doubting, challenging & disrupting beliefs.
Understanding the layers of analysis and suggested results allows us to peel awa
y and interrogate the data. There are obvious, not so obvious and hidden suggest
ions in the data as we challenge the data we need to be open to challenging our
own preconceived beliefs.
There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known un
knowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don t know. But there a
re also unknown unknowns. There are things we don t know we don t know. Donald Ru
msfeld.

2 Biggest threats to Analytics:

Analysts themselves - Overselling or creating false expectations for the industr
y sector.
Relying on big data - Waiting for the perfect answer at the expense of agile met
hods.
Most exciting potential:
Measuring what doesnt happen - We currently only measure events. In team sport, i
dentifying what doesnt happen is almost as vital. What was most likely to happen,
but didnt has greater a potential to direct learning and performance sometimes t
han what does happen!