LeanBI at the Swiss Association for Analytics
12.10.2016 – Analytics for Sports
The fourth event of the Swiss Association for Analytics in 2016 took place, as usual, at the Mövenpick Hotel in Lausanne, less than 3 kilometers away from the International Olympic Committee. This detail is a good introduction to the theme of this edition:
“Analytics for Sports”.
The topic is usually underestimated but takes today more and more importance in the different sport federations and teams. The lecturers held interesting presentations about detecting doping in cycling (François Marclay, Intelligence coordinator at the Cycling Anti-Doping Foundation), evaluating the recent rule changes in baseball (Marcel Bieler, Data Scientist at UBS) and understanding the player performance in ice hockey (Christer Bodell, Business Advisor at SAS).
One transversal topic was how to explain the benefits of Data Science to and audience who has a priori no idea about it. In which way can you present the topic without digging too much into details? M. Bieler and C. Bodell both introduced the movie “Moneyball” (Bennett Miller, 2011) as an entertaining way to discover the power of Analytics.
Maybe the “Moneyball” DVD is also an idea for the next Christmas gift to your uncle (who doesn’t understand how Facebook suggests him new friends he really knows). Participants of the event even reported that they offer the Moneyball DVD to potential clients in order to convince them of the new analytical opportunities.
Many thanks to the contributors of this edition and we are already looking forward attending to the next event proposed by the Swiss Association for Analytics.
