ABSTRACT

In this chapter we introduce sports analytics by first considering what analytics actually is, and what we can expect analytics to achieve for an organisation. We present an “analytics process”: stages in an analytics project that are typically addressed. Next, we use some examples of analytics being used in sport, including baseball (the Moneyball phenomenon), expected goals in soccer, and plus-minus ratings in team sports, to understand how analytics is being adopted in sport to gain an edge over the competition.