Importance of Computers in Sports
Computers influence sports in the compilation of statistics, in scouting and coaching, and with sports training. Such statistics as runs created in baseball allow managers to make smarter personnel decisions. Scouts use computers to compare players in a draft or their team's minor league prospects. Computer programs allow football coaches to make better play calls. For athletes, new sports training technology has permitted their training results and body motions to be put into a computer program. The program can track an athlete's results and show where he needs to improve in his training.
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Computers and Sabermetrics
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Sabermetrics is an analysis of a sport using mathematics and statistics. Mathematicians have created formulas that have led to a deeper understanding of how players perform. Some of these statistics are difficult to compute manually. This has led to professional sports teams hiring a specialist who compiles statistics from around the league to helps their team make personnel decisions. One of the earliest teams to employ this was the Oakland Athletics in Major League Baseball. General Manager Billy Beane used a combination of scouting reports and stat analysis to help draft players.
Computers in Scouting
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Computers play a part in scouting players on nearly all professional teams. Since the beginning of the 21st century, new technology has been developed by which scouts use computers to put in scouting information easily and speed up the process of evaluating players. One technology used in basketball is Pocket Hoops. It allows scouts to input where a player took a shot and whether he made the shot on his Pocket PC. The Los Angeles Lakers of the NBA were the first to use this method of scouting in 2001.
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Computers and Coaching in Football
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Computer programs allow football coaches to weigh the odds of a coaching decision before it is made. In 2006, a computer model called ZEUS was released. The program, which runs on a small laptop, was created to help coaches in the National Football League make play calls and strategic decisions based on the odds released by the computer. The program has years of NFL statistics and play-by-play data built into it, creating a realistic computer model that coaches can use as a guide on the sidelines.
Computers and Sports Training
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Computers help gauge an athlete's performance during a specific training regimen. Trainers for sports teams can put a player's height, weight and body model into a computer and develop a training program that best fits her needs. Trainers can also put sensors and equipment onto a player during training, allowing the computer to register results while the player trains. In 2007, the Sensing for Sport and Managed Exercise in England demonstrated sensory equipment that is connected through a wireless network to a computer. The computer can model an athlete's motions, allowing trainers to see where an athlete can improve.
Sabermetrics and Baseball
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An example of a common statistic used in sabermetrics is batting average of balls in play. This stat is a player's batting average when he hits the ball. Those who study sabermetrics believe that once a player hits the ball, what happens next is random and dependent on other factors. Therefore, they believe that a player with a high BABIP had a lucky season, while a player with a low BABIP had an unlucky season. This can be factored into projecting a player's statistics for the following season.
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References
- "CIO", Hoop Dreams, Lee Pender, February 2001
- "Moneyball", Michael M. Lewis, 2003
- "ScienceDaily"; New Computer Model Of Football Can Help NFL Coaches Call The Next Play, Evaluate Players; April 24, 2006
- Virtual Medical Worlds; EPSRC to Fund Leading-edge Body Sensors, Computer Models and SESAME Technologies for Sporting Achievements; Leslie Versweyveld; Sept. 13, 2007
Resources
- Photo Credit Joe Robbins/Getty Images Sport/Getty Images
