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Do analytics enhance your enjoyment of sports?


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  1. 1. Do analytics enhance your enjoyment of sports?



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My enjoyment of sports is definitely enhanced by analytics. I feel if I understand strategies and individual player strengths and what makes players valuable I can be a more informed watcher. Others may just enjoy watching without them; to each their own.

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Double edged sword but for the most part I think it has made sports less enjoyable. Players changing teams constantly and uneven field caused by PEDs are worse though.
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Yes but not over analytics (see Tim McCarver)...

I don't think Tim McCarver understands a lot of the advanced analytics.

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Only for baseball, really. I find that it enhances baseball, not for the other sports I watch (football, college basketball, very rarely hockey) Edited by BowlCity
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Only for baseball, really. I find that it enhances baseball, not for the other sports I watch (football, college basketball, very rarely hockey)

I agree with this. The Cub announcers especially do what I think is a good job of incorporating the thinking behind advanced stats into the broadcast. I think for the other sports they ARE more peripheral and are more something that I read about outside of the game. I think in college basketball the long two has fallen out of favor as a result of analytics.

 

One thing I'm not sure that analytics have done is improve gameplay. For example, in baseball working the count has been an outcome I think driven by analytics, and it makes for a game that's less interesting. And some of the pitching changes have slowed the game quite a bit and I think analytics is at least partially responsible. But I'd hate to have a team which ignored this kind of stuff, which the Cubs seem to have done prior to Epstein.

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Hank Stram was awesome in the day. The best as far as strategy goes bar none...
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Hank Stram was awesome in the day. The best as far as strategy goes bar none...

I loved Stram as an announcer (much more than Madden who I always thought was overrated), but by the mid 70s his "offense of the 70s" so instrumental in winning Super Bowl IV was fairly unproductive. Was it aging players or that he failed to adapt when others had figured out how to stop it? Who knows....

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To answer the original question I would say yes if its kept to a minimum and done by a person I have respect for...
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Hank Stram was awesome in the day. The best as far as strategy goes bar none...

I loved Stram as an announcer (much more than Madden who I always thought was overrated), but by the mid 70s his "offense of the 70s" so instrumental in winning Super Bowl IV was fairly unproductive. Was it aging players or that he failed to adapt when others had figured out how to stop it? Who knows....

Yep. Stram was way better than Madden ever dreamed of being...
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Analytics are great for basketball, where it's often all about matchups. This especially true in terms of the early rounds of March Madness.
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My enjoyment of sports is definitely enhanced by analytics. I feel if I understand strategies and individual player strengths and what makes players valuable I can be a more informed watcher. Others may just enjoy watching without them; to each their own.

 

I enjoy analytics and I enjoy sports. I have found, though, that I don't enjoy them at the same time. Like you, I appreciate the background knowledge and information and it helps me to better understand strategy or situational shifts, but I have learned I need to stay off the phone or computer while watching a game as it distracts me.

 

Similarly, I stopped playing fantasy sports for the same reason. I noticed, especially during football season, I was more interested in the ticker and checking live stats than actually watching a game.

 

In between games, however, I am still a stat hound.

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I watch sports to free my mind of all the bull-crap that I read and see everyday. I use it as a relaxing therapy to release all the stress and anxiety that this world buries us under. I thoroughly enjoy watching a sport without caring who has what average and how many this and that's does that player have. It is my time to simply relax and quietly watch, my F-ing Habs blow another frikin second round and then suffer through the Damn Ducks getting their beaks smashed by that bastard Toews, and as I throw my fourth shoe at the tv watching the Padres blow yet another series the stress just peels away, peels away the layers of my amygdala.
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My enjoyment of sports is definitely enhanced by analytics. I feel if I understand strategies and individual player strengths and what makes players valuable I can be a more informed watcher. Others may just enjoy watching without them; to each their own.

 

I enjoy analytics and I enjoy sports. I have found, though, that I don't enjoy them at the same time. Like you, I appreciate the background knowledge and information and it helps me to better understand strategy or situational shifts, but I have learned I need to stay off the phone or computer while watching a game as it distracts me.

 

Similarly, I stopped playing fantasy sports for the same reason. I noticed, especially during football season, I was more interested in the ticker and checking live stats than actually watching a game.

 

In between games, however, I am still a stat hound.

I quit fantasy football ten years ago and never looked back. Fantasy football of all the games seems the most random and one where the real value of a player was the most detached from his fantasy value. Plus the games are so much more meaningful than in other sports because there are relatively fewer of them and I care more about football than other games.

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And....

 

now we know John Kruk is not a member of the forum.

Kruk may not have been good with two strikes on him, but he was still the best one ball hitter the game has ever known.

 

:outtahere:

 

Sometimes I even hate myself for some of these posts.

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Only for baseball, really. I find that it enhances baseball, not for the other sports I watch (football, college basketball, very rarely hockey)

 

Baseball is unique in its strategic notions. Much of it has to do, I think, with the amount of time and movement between the actual motions of the game. Baseball, unlike other sports, has quasi "time out" periods. In football, hockey, and basketball, among others, a stop in the action is clearly that.... but in baseball, there is never really a stop in the gamesmanship. That makes baseball a game of strategy and execution. It's the chess of the big four sports.

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And....

 

now we know John Kruk is not a member of the forum.

Kruk may not have been good with two strikes on him, but he was still the best one ball hitter the game has ever known.

 

:outtahere:

 

Sometimes I even hate myself for some of these posts.

 

Kruk would give you knucks for that post. It's all good.

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Analytics are great for basketball, where it's often all about matchups. This especially true in terms of the early rounds of March Madness.

Flip Saunders, GM of the Timberwolves here in Minnesota, may be overmatched by analytics if this comment is any indication...

 

“When you can keep a guy 39 years old on your team, you can keep the average up a little bit,” Saunders said. “If you take the mean, we’ll be about 19.”

 

http://www.startribune.com/wolves-insider-team-sitting-pretty-with-blended-team-of-veterans-young-guns/310365511/

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Probably not. As a little kid then teen I watched a lot of tennis, NFL, and NBA but never cared about analytics and STILL enjoyed those sports a lot. I sometimes pay attention to analytics these days but I don't think my actual enjoyment is greater than in the past. It's just satisfying my own curiosity to get greater detail.
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I guess it depends on how relevant the stat is. In the football coverage over here we get useless data like "team A hasn't beaten team B on a home game wearing their second uniform on a Wednesday in X years!".
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I guess it depends on how relevant the stat is. In the football coverage over here we get useless data like "team A hasn't beaten team B on a home game wearing their second uniform on a Wednesday in X years!".

That is true, you need to know what's relevant. But while your example is a stat, I wouldn't call it an analytic.

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I guess it depends on how relevant the stat is. In the football coverage over here we get useless data like "team A hasn't beaten team B on a home game wearing their second uniform on a Wednesday in X years!".

That is true, you need to know what's relevant. But while your example is a stat, I wouldn't call it an analytic.

Granted...but even the analytic ones they come up with do not help much. Other examples include: "63,58% of the goals scored by player X during the second half in away games on week nights were headers".

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