The game insight group: A model for academic-industry partnerships for sports statistics innovation

Abstract

In the Moneyball-era of sports, the adoption of statistical innovation has spread throughout the sports industry. Little has been written about the strategies of adoption, but anecdotal evidence suggests that the “silo” has been the predominate model. This article provides one of the first descriptions of a strategy for statistical innovation in sports: the Game Insight Group (GIG). The article details the unique academic-industry partnership that is GIG. The framework shows that building a bridge between academia and the sports industry is feasible and can be an effective approach for the practical translation of statistical research in sports.

Keywords:

• Bayesian methods
• process improvement
• statistical decision making
• statistical modeling
• statistical thinking

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 http://www.sloansportsconference.com/content/tennis-analytics/

2 http://www.changeovertennis.com/the-backboard-a-name-change-is-tennis-in-the-analytical-dark-ages-and-more/

3 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/13/sports/tennis/australian-open-data.html

4 https://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/victoria-university-rebuilds-reputation-under-dawkins/news-story/d4958ea4cadb965fb37b0c1c9999c193

5 https://ausopen.com/articles/news/wanted-tennis-hackathons-solve-big-data-questions

6 https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-two-grade-schoolers-set-off-a-tennis-revolution/

7 http://on-the-t.com/2017/01/13/ao-mens-predictions/

8 http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2018-01-16/australian-open-tennis-statistics-clutch-time-pressure-work-win/9329322

9 http://www.espn.com.au/tennis/story/_/id/21601521/what-do-new-grand-slam-rules-really-mean

10 http://www.itftennis.com/media/205103/205103.docx

11 http://www.itftennis.com/media/256740/256740.pdf

12 http://www.afr.com/business/sport/tennis-australia-mines-big-data-for-new-performance-metrics-20170118-gttwxr#ixzz57Pjz0WOc

13 https://theconversation.com/the-terrible-toll-tennis-can-take-on-top-players-who-play-too-much-90237

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie Kovalchik

Dr. Stephanie Kovalchik is a senior data scientist in the Game Insight Group at Tennis Australia and is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Health and Sport at Victoria University in Melbourne, Australia. Dr. Kovalchik earned her PhD in Biostatistics from UCLA and her BS from Caltech. Her research focuses on the use of statistical methods to understand performance, game strategy, and mentality in high-performance tennis.

Machar Reid

Dr. Machar Reid is one of international tennis’s preeminent voices in sport and coaching science. He is currently the Innovation Catalyst at Tennis Australia; having previously served as its inaugural High Performance Manager (2011–2014) and Sport Science & Medicine Manager (2008–2010). Dr. Reid has a PhD in Biomechanics and has published over 100 peer-reviewed articles and books/book chapters in the field.