Posts Tagged ‘Sport’

Australian Open 2011 – Performance inspired by sport

Monday, January 17th, 2011

The first tennis grand slam of the year is just about to begin in Melbourne. The Australian Open Grand Slam Tournament promises this year, again, an unforgivable experience to millions of fans throughout the world. eab group, an innovative performance management consultancy company, based in Melbourne and smartKPIs.com one of the largest online platforms for performance management knowledge integration, welcome this year’s event, by presenting in a short preview to the competition, a clip that beautifully outlines the essence of tennis. Enjoy!

What is tennis?

How performance in tennis inspires business performance?


Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Events, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »

Intelligent Data Visualization – FIFA 2010 Balon d’Or

Monday, January 10th, 2011

Data visualization solutions have increased in complexity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the Internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, businesses and social communities. Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.

One of the fields that have started to be revolutionized by data intelligent visualization tools bringing more complex and up dated information closer to reader and fans in an easily understandable format is sport.

As a matter of fact what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field  is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again.  Such complex data visualization applications, can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.” (Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport)

Such an interesting and powerful visualization application that can be used in the future by businesses as a source of inspiration for data visualization purposes is presented below. It was built by the specialists of the Marca sport magazine, in order to celebrate FIFA 2010 Ballon d’Or event.

The application presents comprehensive information of this year’s winners as well as interesting details and statistics across the entire history of this prestigious individual football award, enabling closer and easier connections with fans. To closely view and explore the application click on the image listed below.

Source: Marca, 2010

The application is also interesting if viewed from a performance management perspective. The KPIs used portrait a rich and complex image of the 2010 best football players performance, Lionel Messi, the winner of Ballon d’Or but also of Andres Iniesta and Xavi Hernandez players who came  second and third.

  • % Votes received
  • # International games played
  • # Football games played
  • # Games played in the first team
  • # Goles scored
  • # Assists
  • # Recovered balls
  • # Wrong passes
  • # Winners of Balon d’Or by country or club

For more information on Key Performance Indicators for football or other listed sports visit the smartKPIs.com KPI examples Industry section – Sport – Football.

References

Marca.com (2010), Ballon d’Or 2010 interactive application, available at http://www.marca.com/2011/01/07/multimedia/graficos/1294419079.html, (accessed 10 January 2010)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Data visualization | No Comments »

Castrol Edge penalty analysis. Players will have to think from now on twice, before taking a penalty!

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

In a previous blog post we have presented a new Castrol football application, the World Cup Predictor. Using performance data from every international match played by the World Cup 2010 participating teams in the last ten years and simulating the tournament more than 100 000 times, to minimize the error rate as much as possible, the Castrol team of performance analysts calculated each team’s chances of progression through the competition.
As it proves, the application has its validity,  Brazil the team identified by the Castrol Predictor as the most likely winners still running in the competition, while England the team that was predicted to win the world cup competition by the JP Morgan analysts is already out being eliminated by Germany.

To find out more about what are your favorite team chances to win the next match from the knock out rounds use the Castrol Match Predictor application by clicking on the image below.

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

Additionally, for the knock out stages Castrol Football just launched a new application that proves to be of great interest among fans, but also among players and goalkeepers still involved in the knockout stages of the World Cup competition.

As Peter Schmeichel, one of the official Castrol ambassadors acknowledge, the Penalty Analysis application gives complete historic information about the way and style a field player takes a penalty, but also about the strategy each goalkeeper use when defending a penalty. To view more details you can listen the complete interview with the ex goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel in the podcast below.

Castrol EDGE Penalty Analysis Podcast by Castrol Football

For developing the new application, the Castrol team of performance analysts has studied every penalty taken in the last 4 seasons of the top five European Leagues and UEFA Champions Leagues, as well as a number of international matches and they compiled the results in an application that can be accessed by clicking the image below.

Source: Castrol Football, 2010

More than that, especially for the World Cup 2010 tournament, the Castrol team of performance analysts analyzed each penalty taken in the last 5 World Cups both during matches and penalty shootouts by all teams who qualified for the South African competition to better understand the psychological impact the penalty shootouts pressure have on field players and goalkeepers. The results are truly surprising:

  • 81% of the penalties taken during the matches are converted while only 66% during the penalty shoot outs
  • Players who go first in penalty shootouts are 7 times more likely to score than those executing the penalties last
  • The older a player is the less likely he will score – only 71% of those above 28 years scored
  • Right foot players have a 69% penalty conversion rate, while left foot players only 50%
  • Goalkeepers wearing green jerseys let through 62 % of the penalties, those wearing black 65%, blue 69%, while goalkeepers wearing red jersey couldn’t save any penalty
  • Strikers with a penalty conversion result of 74% are most likely to score, followed by defenders with a 69% success rate, while midfielder are the most unlikely to score with a 58%  success figure attached.
  • Finally, only 40% of penalties are converted by players if the team final survival depends on that penalty, while 92% of penalties are converted in the opposite situation, when the penalty is to decide the winner.

To view a full video presentation of the Castrol performance analysts research you can follow the Castrol Football official site here.

References:

Additional resources:

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Business Intelligence, Events, Performance Management, Podcast, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »

Enhancing business performance with intelligent data visualization – Ideas from sport

Monday, June 28th, 2010

Data presentation and visualization solutions have increased in popularity in the recent years. Tremendous advancements in information technology and the wide adoption of the internet had a positive effect on communication, data interchange and visualization across networks, business and social communities.

Driven by the business need of analyzing large volumes of data and presenting them in a concentrated, transparent and easy to read form, data visualization instruments such as dashboard solutions register nowadays an increased level of adoption in several activity fields.

Sport is one of them, and particularly those competitions with a large following all over the world, such as football, basketball, tennis, cricket, baseball or golf. These sports are benefiting from a wide variety of data presentations and visualization applications which enable a closer and easier connections with fans.

Only in the last month, once with the start off the World Cup South Africa 2010 a variety of presentation and visualization solutions were launched, slicing and dicing all competition details and data. An excellent visualization solution is presented by Marca.com:

Source: Marca.com, 2010

What is interesting though, is that what we are witnessing today in the data visualization field  is sort of an “echolocation effect”: ideas bounce back from business to sports and business again.  Such complex data visualization applications, as the one presented in the image above, which were first inspired from business visualization and representation solutions can be used now back as sources of inspirations for a more creative business data visualization solutions.

References:

Marca.com (2010), World Cup South Africa 2010 interactive calendar, available at http://www.marca.com/deporte/futbol/mundial/sudafrica-2010/calendario-english.html, (accessed 25 June 2010)

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Business Intelligence, Data visualization, Events | No Comments »

World Cup 2010 and social media performance – England goalkeeper Robert Green’s mistake attracts social media attention!

Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010

A shocking error from the England’s goalkeeper Robert Green, earned the U.S.A. squad a 1-1 draw in the first match of the South Africa World Cup 2010 group stage.

The goalkeeper blunder, as outlined by one of the latest Nielsen (2010) analysis, triggered unexpected levels of reactions in the social media from England and USA, but with however contrasting effect in the overall buzz level changes from the two countries.

The analysis outlines the share of online buzz, in English language social media talks surrounding U.S and English national team players related to the 2010 World Cup squads. (Nielsen Wire, 2010)

The analysis is based on two performance indicators:

• % Player buzz in the social media

• % Change in overall buzz levels

USA and England Soccer Player Buzz Rankings, at  14 June 2010

Source: Nielsen Wire, 2010

As the Nielsen analysis  outlines, two major reactions were registered in the social media talks after the England vs. USA game from the World Cup 2010, both having english goalkeeper Robert Green’s stunning mistake as a trigger point.

On the one hand, the mistake, who upset almost 50 million English fans, pulled the goalkeeper out from obscurity in the social media spotlight (Nielsen Wire, 2010). Newspaper titles such as “hand of clod”, “cock –up keeper Green wrecks dream start” “tainted glove” or “worst howler ever”, triggered a storm of discussions on social media forums that earned Robert Green an 11.4 % buzz share and the first spot in the Nielsen rankings ahead of more famous team mate Wayne Rooney.

On the other hand, this unfortunate and costly mistake for the England soccer team produced a 21 % drop in the overall social media discussions around the squad, reflecting the general disappointment of the English nation. In stark contrast, same mistake  produced a 250% increase in the social media discussions round the USA team, as the Nielsen analyst suggest.

Overall, it appears that a simple mistake from a goalkeeper has the power to ignite, through social media channels, the hearts and minds of USA fans, bringing this sport into spotlight in a country where baseball, ice hockey , american football or basketball are the major sport attractions.

References:

Additional resources:

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in KPI, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

The best driver in the world – Castrol Driver Rankings for Formula 1 – Nascar – WRC

Saturday, March 27th, 2010

Who is the best driver in the world?

With a wide variety of motorsport competitions in place around the world, this is one of the questions that started many passionate debates, staying for many years on the lips of millions of motorsport fans. Today, Castrol Driver Rankings provides all motorsport fans with a powerful and objective tool for assessing driver’s performance and determine who the best driver in the world is. According with the current rankings, the Castrol Driver Dynamic Table is topped by Jenson Button followed by Sebastian Vettel and Sebastien Loeb.

Source: www.castroldriverrankings.com, 2010

What is Castrol Driver Rankings?

The Castrol Driver Rankings is developed by a panel of experts and measures every aspect of a driver individual performance in each event they participate at,  taking in consideration world’s top 2000 drivers from  47 Championships and more than 650 race events. Among the most important Championships analyzed are Formula1, NASCAR or World Rally Car. However competitions such as World Touring Car Championship, Le Mans Series or IndyCar Series are not missed out.

How is Castrol Driver Rankings measured ?

The points in the Castrol Ranking Dynamic Lead Table are rewarded based only on the drivers recorded performance results in the qualifying rounds and race and takes in consideration measures such as:

# Fastest lap time

# Laps lead

# Positions gained / lost, or

# Race consistency

To ensure an objective ranking across all competitions the points won by each driver are adjusted according with the importance of the competition and number of events held. Being updated on a weekly basis the Castrol Ranking ensures that fans know at any given point in time who is the best driver in the world. Fans can also follow the Castrol Edge Performer category in order to review how their favorite drivers performed on a monthly basis.

Do you want to find out more?

View the Castrol Driver Rankings video presentation below, or visit the official Castrol Rankings website for complete facts and analysis.

Additional resources

References

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Index, KPIs in practice, Measure, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

2010 IPL – Indian Premier League and the Castrol Cricket Index

Thursday, March 18th, 2010

In a previous post we have presented a new approach for measuring performance in cricket: The Castrol Cricket Index. In the same blog post we talked about the immense media coverage that cricket started to attract in the last years, and the introduction of new shorter version of the game as one of the most important development in recent years. Thus, in short period of time, a series of new competitions, such as Twenty 20 World Cup, Cricket Champion League and the Official Indian Premier League proved to be a total success  attracting huge interests from fans, sponsors and media.

On 12 March, the Indian Premier League (IPL) just kicked off with its third season. It is the first sporting event ever available by live broadcast on the popular video sharing website YouTube.

Additionally, the Castrol Cricket website offers full coverage of the teams and players’ performance. Viewers can benefit from the insights and analysis of top experts such as Harsha Bhogle and a wide variety of statistics and standings in which teams and players’ performance is analyzed in high detail. The table below illustrates the IPL standings at the beginning of the season:

Source: www.castrolcricket.com (2010)

smartKPIs.com also brings its contribution to the game by promoting and facilitating the understanding of  some of the key metrics used in the sport :

For more details about some of the most important metrics in the game and their use as part of the Castrol Cricket Index visit www.castrolcricket.com.

Additional resources:

References:

  • Castrol Cricket Index (2010)  available at: http://www.castrolcricket.com/castrol_index/castrol_index , (accessed 19 March 2010)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in KPIs in practice, Measure, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

Sport Management and the Winter Olympic Games: Vancouver 2010

Friday, February 26th, 2010

What can we associate Olympic Games with, and what is the importance and place of the Olympic Games among other sport competitions?

If asked these questions to the large public some would say that Olympic Games is the oldest and most important sport competition taking place every four year. Others would say that is a celebration of sport, joy and peace between nations. While some would acknowledge the huge economical benefits and recognition, such a competition can bring for the organizing nation of the Games.

Without no doubt all of these remarks are right. But what can we add more is that Olympic Games above all  is a celebration of olympism and performance.

Starting from this last remark let’s have a look at the most important drivers of a successful Olympic Games edition and how can be performance in regards with such an event be best pictured?

Just a few days ago a new edition of the Winter Olympic Games, has witnessed its 21st opening with a grandiose ceremony in Vancouver, Canada. It was for the first time in the history of Olympic Games when an opening ceremony was held in an enclosed stadium. And it was for the first time in the history of Winter Olympic Games when more than 60.000 thousand spectators were present in the stadium premises for the opening ceremony and other 3 billion watched it from behind the TV screens.

If looking only at these figures and we couple them with athletes performance during olympic competitions we could say that the Winter Olympic Games, Vancouver 2010 should be considered a big success. But is that right?

Beyond the unprecedentedly media coverage of the event, beyond the athletes’ performance there are a lot of other factors that play an important role in the success of an Olympic Game edition. All of them are enabled by Sport Management as a business discipline. When applied well, it secures the success of a competition from both a sportive and administrative point of view. Listed below are some performance measures and their related figures which portrait Vancouver Winter Olympic Games 2010 edition from a performance management perspective:

• # Viewers per televised sport event: 34,5 million Americans viewed the opening ceremony in prime time, 2 out of 3 Canadians watched the event and overall it was projected that more than 3 billion people witnessed the opening event from behind the TV screens around the world.

• # Event tickets available: 1, 6 million tickets

• # Volunteers supporting the sport: 25,000 volunteers are supporting the Vancouver 2010 Olympic event (approximated figure)

• # Athletes and officials attending competition: More than 5,500 Olympic athletes and officials (approximated figure)

• # Countries participating in the sport event:  82 countries have qualified athletes and are attending the event.

• # Accredited media representatives:  10,000 media representatives have been accredited for different events during the Olympic Games (approximated figure)

• # Medal events during the competition: 86 medal awarding events held during the 16th days of competition.

• $ Sport event operating cost: $ 1, 76 billion estimated costs

• $ Sport event security costs:  $ 900 million estimated costs

• $ Athletes accomodation facilities development cost:  $ 167 million estimated cost of the Vancouver Olympic Village

• $ Venues renovation costs:  $ 365 million estimated renovation cost of the Olympic venue

• # Distance travelled by the Olympic torch:  45,000 kilometers across Canada

• # Olympic torch bearers: 12,000 Canadians were given the occasion to bear the Olympic torch

• # Olympic torch  relay duration:  106 days.

As we can acknowledge from the figures listed above the organization of an Olympic Games edition implies a great effort and resource allocation. However its success can be determined with precision only at its end, and what we have presented above is just a fraction of the performance indicators that can portrait a sport event. For more performance measures from sport management industry visit the smartkpis.com database.

Additional resources:

References:

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Events, Library of KPI examples, Performance Measurement, Uncategorized, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »

2010 Australian Open Grand Slam in Melbourne: Tennis Metrics and beyond

Monday, January 25th, 2010

In two previous posts we have presented how information technology solutions can shape the world of sport. By gathering and analyzing the most important bits of data, the Castrol Index and Ranking system presents both specialists and fans of football and cricket with a unique dataset and user experience. Hundreds of statistics and rankings about players and teams performance during games or even entire competitions are now available at a “touch of a button”.

Today’s post comes to add a new example of performance management and technology going hand in hand to build better performance in sport. Through its innovative technologies and solutions IBM is able to capture, analyze and distribute data on almost all the aspects of the Australian Open Grand Slam Tournament, enhancing and facilitating the experience of fans, media and officials in real time.

Performance and technology during the game

  • IBM technologies can capture players’ performance on the court through metrics such as winners, breakpoints, serve percentage, net approaches or unforced errors and then transmit them in real time to the IBM scoring system. To view more example of tennis metrics visit the list available on smartKPIs.com.
  • The Speed Serve System consisting of two electronic displays, a custom build radar and corresponding support software application can capture and transmit to the scoring system speeds of the first and second service, two important performance metrics in tennis.
  • Finally, Chair Umpire System, use Chump PDAs technology that allows umpires to record every bit of data during a match such as double faults, aces, forced errors, etc which is transmitted subsequently to the main scoring system.
  • All these information are available to fans, media and officials due to IBM innovative technologies and solutions in real time, thus increasing the game experience.

    • Performance and technology beyond the game

  • All information on Australian Open action such as players’ performance during the game, latest news, schedule of play can be followed on the official competition site.
  • Fans can customize and personalize their experience by being allowed to fallow their favorite players’ performance using an interactive draw.
  • New developed  iPhone application allows fans to watch players’ performance live and fallow all the information available on the Australian Open Grand Slam in real time.
  • To view more details about how IBM brings its contribution to enhance the tennis game experience at Australian Open but also at the other three Grand Slams that take place throughout a year: Roland Garros, US Open and Wimbledon please watch the highlights below.

    • Thus, if we are to summarize the effect of IBM technologies on the perceived tennis game experience in general and Australian Open Grand Slam Tournament in particular  the best quotation comes from the IBM experts themselves:

    “Two people hit the ball over a net. At this stage is not even a game. To call it a game you need at list one piece of information, a score. That piece of information gives the game meaning. Ad some more information and you’ve got a competition and even more and you have a tournament. Add serve speed, line calls and players statistics, incorporate weather forecast, crowd reports and transport timetables, distribute real time web feeds, match analysis and social media platforms, deliver scalability for pattern bytes of internet, traffic and create the infrastructure for a two week tournament, then pack it up and take it to the other grand slams. By adding more layers of information to the Australian Open we help shape the fan experience and turn a simple game in one of the greatest tournaments in the world.”

    For more details of the IBM technologies applied to enhance the tennis game experience please visit:

    Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
    Posted in Performance Measurement, smartKPIs.com | No Comments »

    A new approach to measuring performance in cricket: the Castrol Index

    Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

    Cricket is considered today as one of the major world sports in terms of participants, spectators and media interest. Although it originates from England, cricket did not attract much interest and attention in Europe like football did. However it became hugely popular in countries such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa, Australia, New Zeeland and West Indies, most of them former British colonies or still under the Crown influence.

    With an increased influence and interest in the game of cricket around the world, the International Cricket Conference (ICC) is trying to implement new development programs with the goal of producing more national teams capable of competing at Test level but also club teams that can compete in professional leagues at national or international level. Thus, in the last years we could see the development of the shorter versions of the game such as the Twenty 20 World Cup (2007), the official Indian Premier League (2008) and the Cricket Champion League (2009).

    Because of its increased popularity and tremendous developments, especially in terms of birth of new professional competitions, cricket became today a major attraction, whose performance in all of its aspects is an important phenomenon to watch and measure. As a result, more applications and programs that monitor performance in cricket have already started to emerge.

    One such example is the Castrol Cricket Index which objectively analyses and ranks player and team performance by adopting a comprehensive approach towards the game.

    The Castrol Index takes into consideration all aspects of the players’ game such as the battling, bowling and fielding trying to create and bring into attention comprehensive statistics, insights, information and knowledge in order to facilitate a better understanding of the game and what is necessary in order to create a winning performance. It monitors both player and team performances separately, enabling “connoisseurs” to track teams or players performance on a cumulative level or in different aspects of the game.

    On the individual level, players are assessed for their both core (battling and bowling) and noncore (fielding and wicket keeping) skills being awarded with base points for core skills and bonus points for noncore skills. At the team level, Castrol Index focuses on team overall battling momentum and bowling efficiency across a set of matches. The most important metrics their performance is assessed against are:

    Overall, as Harsha Bhogle, cricket commentator and ambassador for the Castrol Index acknowledges: “The Castrol Index provides differentiated analysis and information that sheds new light on how the game is played and won. The Castrol Index provides unique insights into the performance of players and teams – specifically what makes some of them more effective and successful than others. It provides a point of view based on analysis and data not just subjective opinion”.

    For more details about how Castrol Index is calculated please visit: www.castrolcricket.com

    The football version of Index is available at: www.castrolfootball.com

    References:
    www.essortment.com/hobbies/historycricket_sngj.htm
    www.yehhaicricket.com/history/history.html
    www.castrolcricket.com

    Tags: , , , , , , ,
    Posted in KPI, Measure, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

    Performance in sport: a new era has began

    Friday, November 13th, 2009

    It is acknowledged that performance activities have been a necessary part of the human life for as long as there have been organizations. Thus performance is a fact of life.

    The same is in sport, as performance is the most important goal to be achieved by each and every single “athlete” from this world no matter of the sport activity it is involved in. More than that, performance in sport has a very old history, and can be traced back thousands of years ago when the first official edition of the Ancient Olympic Games took place in Greece in 776 BC. Since then, sport activities evolved tremendously both in form and complexity and nowadays they became an important part of the human beings life.

    Along with these developments, performance has increased its importance exponentially, part as a natural consequence of the human society development and civilization, part because of the commercialization of sport in many of its branches. Therefore, performance in sport became today one of the most intensively monitored phenomena.
    One important sport activity that has attracted much attention from the perspective of performance monitoring and measuring is football. Considered by many as the king of all sports, mostly because of its popularity but also because of its huge commercial benefits, football became today a veritable industry, whose performance in all of its aspects is an important phenomenon to watch and measure. Therefore, in this sense more applications and programs have already been built.

    A good example of such a program is the Castrol Index and Ranking system. The Castrol Rankings is the world’s first rankings based on the actual performance of every football player across Europe’s top five leagues. Castrol’s team of performance analysts use the latest technology to analyze and measure each player’s performance in every of these leagues matches.

    The Castrol Index objectively analyses player performance, tracking every move on the field and assessing whether it has a positive or negative impact on a team’s ability to score or concede a goal. At the end of each game, players are given a score out of ten. Some of the most important measures that compose the index are:

    Assists

    Blocked shot

    Chances created

    Clean sheet

    Clearance

    Cross

    Dribbles/Take-ons

    Duels Lost

    Duels Won

    Fouls Won

    Interception

    Mins/goal conceded

    Minutes played

    Passing accuracy %

    Save %

    Shooting accuracy %

    Shots off target

    Shots on target

    Tackle

    Then Castrol Rankings combines the individual Castrol Index players’ performance measures and weights them, so each player can be ranked to find out who the world’s best performer players are.

    As the famous german football coach Ottmar Hitzfeld declared: “…data and stats have radically changed football over the past 10 years. Whether it’s at club or international level, managers and their staff use statistics and insights on player performance to help improve the team and deliver the best results“.

    For more details about how Castrol Index is calculated visit www.castrolfootball.com .

    Tags: , , , , , , ,
    Posted in KPI, Measure, Performance Management, Performance Measurement | No Comments »

    Featured products

    [no image]
    $45 USD
     
    [no image]
    $289 USD
     
    [no image]
    $35 USD
     
    [no image]
    $183 USD
     
    [no image]
    $99 USD
     
    [no image]
    $99 USD
     
    [no image]
    $1800 USD
     
    [no image]
    $99 USD