Analytics in Sports

 

Over the last two decades, the sports world has embraced an analytics revolution that has changed many of the fundamental concepts that once defined sports. In the United States, baseball has felt that impact the most, due to the discrete nature of the game. Even free-flowing sports such as basketball have endured analytical changes as well, with the clearest example being the rise of the 3-point shot. One sport that hasn’t felt the impact of analytics as much thus far is American Football. Although the NFL is trying to incorporate analytics into the league, this field is mostly undiscovered in football.

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Being a sports fan, and particularly football fan myself, I wanted to build a model that would allow me to accurately preview and predict the outcomes of the first 16 matchups in Week 1 of the NFL season. I am a high school student interested in pursuing a career at the intersection of sports, analytics, business, and management, and I wanted to apply these passions to create my own predictive analytical model for the 2021-2022 NFL season.