regressing Page 26 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
The Beautiful Infographics Of Ted Williams's <em>The Science Of Hitting</em>
In 1971, Ted Williams and John Underwood released The Science of Hitting, the definitive treatment of the subject. Few great athletes have ever been so articulate about the mechanics of their greatness, which is one reason the book holds up even today, well into the analytics era. (A decade ago, Sci...
Model Predicts That The U.S. Is Going To Dominate Sochi
We're nearly past the Opening Ceremony, so it's time to get serious: Who's going to win the Winter Olympics? Based on an analysis of economic and geographic data from participating countries through Winter Olympic history, Dan and Tim Graettinger have built out a model for medal performance at the g...
Cool Chart: The Altitudes And Latitudes Of Winter Olympics Hosts
Over at the Washington Post, Darla Cameron, Cristina Rivero and Gene Thorp have created an excellent graphic comparing the latitude, host city altitude, and skiing venue altitude of every Winter Olympics since 1960. Squaw Valley, Ca. was the highest host city and Salt Lake City was the highest ski v...
This New NBA Stat Is A Huge Step Forward For Basketball Analysis
This morning on Grantland, Kirk Goldsberry introduced the stat Expected Possession Value Added (EPVA), which he developed with some colleagues as part of a Sloan Conference paper. EPVA still needs some work, but it may represent an enormous development in NBA analysis. Here's why....
The Durant-LeBron Arms Race Is Real—And Statistically Unprecedented
We mentioned this back in November, but LeBron James and Kevin Durant—the two best basketball players in this galactic quadrant—are outdoing themselves in 2013-14. Here are some per game lines:...
Beautiful Maps Reveal Where People Run In 22 Major Cities
Over on FlowingData, Nathan Yau pulled public data from the tracking site RunKeeper.com to map out the common running routes of twenty major cities. The results are neat to look at, but it's also interesting to see the park systems, waterways, and urban grids of these cities come to come life....
Who Was America Rooting For Last Night?
As it's done for the every round of the playoffs, Facebook put together a map showing where each Super Bowl team had more Facebook fans (above). The Broncos—an older, more centralized team with two NFL championships—had more national support, while Seahawks fandom was mostly contained to the Pacific...
Why The Denver Broncos Are In The Super Bowl
Need a last-minute primer on the teams before heading out to your Super Bowl party? Here's everything you need to know about the Broncos for today. You can find our Seahawks preview here. ...
The Offensive/Defensive Matchup Of Super Bowl XLVIII Is Historic
Everyone knows that Denver has a good offense and Seattle has a good defense, but The Guardian data viz team has put together a great series of charts showing how this matchup stacks up against every other Super Bowl since 1970, using the stat "average yards per play"....
What You Need To Know To Bet On The Super Bowl (Late Edition)
Below is your final NFL betting line chart for the 2013-14 season, with updated figures for spread, bet trend, over/under, and money line figures for this Sunday's Super Bowl (here's the early post from last week). Of course there are many fun ways to bet on the Super Bowl; check out Jay Sanin's pos...
Super Bowl Prop Bets: The Comprehensive List Of What To Bet And Where
While the Super Bowl has become the holiday of choice for many groups of people, it's possible that nobody will enjoy Super Bowl Sunday more than degenerate sports bettors with a one-day excuse to bet on anything in the known physical universe....
How The Super Bowl Can Kill You
Do you care about the Super Bowl? I mean do you really care who wins or are you just watching for the commercials? If you are invested in the game, there are a few things you should know. The first is this: if your team loses, it could be bad for your health. Spectacularly bad. So bad that clinical ...
Facebook Data Show Just How Much Football Games Depress You
Whenever Facebook rolls out a new broad survey of its data, like a map of NFL fandom, the instinct is usually to jump right to the counterintuitive bits—Why would there be a pocket of Saints fans in the heart of Texas?—and then sussing out an answer. But here, with a look at how positive and negativ...
Why The Seattle Seahawks Are In The Super Bowl
Need a last-minute primer on the teams before heading out to your Super Bowl party? Here's everything you need to know about the Seahawks for today. You can find our Broncos preview here....
Which Industry Spends The Most On Super Bowl Commercials?
DVRs are the scourge of TV advertisers, which makes live sports—especially the NFL, and especially the Super Bowl—worth an enormous amount of money....
Which NFL Experts Predicted A Broncos-Seahawks Super Bowl?
We have recently recapped the awful performances of baseball and college football pundits—both groups whiffed entirely on either of the championship game participants. Did the NFL pundits do any better with their preseason predictions? We tracked 63 "experts" from CBS, ESPN, NFL.com, and Sports Illu...
Statistically, When Is The Best Time To Buy Super Bowl Tickets?
Just a few days ago, you'd have had a better chance of finding a reasonably priced one-bedroom in Manhattan than you would've of scoring Super Bowl tickets for less than a mortgage payment or ten. For those who were able to hold off a few days, though, the savings are likely in the thousands....
A Better Way Of Ranking The Most Dominant Tennis Players
"Who has the most rings" has always been a brainless exercise in absolutism, but at least within team sports, we're forced to consider some context when applying it to individual players. Why, then, do we still universally use this methodology when ranking tennis players?...
Where Do NBA Shooting Fouls Actually Take Place?
Yesterday, Grantland's Kirk Goldsberry wrote a piece about how James Harden gets fouled like a Super Mario coin brick. But buried in the piece was this fascinating map of every single shooting foul so far in this NBA season, so we thought we'd take a closer look. (Do yourself a favor and click "Expa...