The Peloton Project: Largest-Ever Sports Simulation Yields Surprising Results

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Aerodynamics in a cycling peloton aren’t what you might expect. A peloton is the main field or group of riders in a road bicycle race like the Tour de France. While it can take different shapes, the peloton’s overall purpose is to take advantage of the effects of slipstreaming, or drafting, behind other riders in the group. Air resistance is the biggest mechanical component preventing cyclists from going faster on flat road, and slipstreaming can save up to 50 percent of their energy. Or that was the assumption, at least. The reality is that almost no information exists on aerodynamic resistance for riders in cycling pelotons. Systematic computer simulations or measurements have never been reported before. Professor Bert ... [ Read More ]

[Infographic] The Emergence of Analytics & Big Data in Baseball

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As the economics of baseball have changed with higher salaries and increased player activity, along with public interest in game information, we have advanced from hand-coded historical models to the real-time capture of every movement and action in data collection and the use of advanced analytics have evolved from a part-time hobby of a few die-hard fans into a major business, one where advanced big data technology will become a necessity and not a rarity. Take a look at the infographic below to take a stroll through the history of analytics and big data in baseball.\   ... [ Read More ]

Sport Analytics: Who is Really All-In?

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Baseball Cray Blog

Who is the ‘Mystery' MLB Team that has a Cray Supercomputer? It is a great story, but after two decades in the U.S. Special Operations Command and another 10 years building and operating capabilities for the government as a defense contractor, I fully understand the power of a secret. My colleague, Nick Davis, recently expressed his frustrations at not being able to tell the world more about our involvement in Major League Baseball (MLB). I could not agree more, because working with our mystery team, bringing the advanced analytics capabilities of our Urika-GD™ graph discovery appliance to baseball, has been one of my most prized experiences. And now to have the writers at ESPN The Magazine mistakenly associate us with the Houston ... [ Read More ]

Cray’s Mystery MLB Team Revealed?

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ESPN Analytics Blog

Last week, ESPN published an interesting article exploring the use, or lack thereof, of analytics in Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League. In the article, titled “The Great Analytics Rankings,” the researchers at ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com assessed, rated and ranked each team on its overall usage of analytics. Based on their findings and assessments, teams were classified as either all-in, believers, one-foot in, skeptics or nonbelievers. Needless to say, the article caught our attention. Many devoted followers of Cray know, and now the readers of this ESPN article are quickly finding out, a Major League Baseball team is one of our customers. Yes, ... [ Read More ]

Super Bowl XLIX | Improve Effectiveness of Your Ad with Graph Analytics

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The Super Bowl is the largest annual live televised event in the U.S., with viewership averaging 162.8 million over the past five years. Advertising rates for a 30-second advertisement during the upcoming Super Bowl broadcast are reportedly $4.5 million, dwarfing regular 30-second ad rates for non-sporting events (in 2014, spots for AMC’s “The Walking Dead” sold for $623,000). Advertisers have developed a range of methods for measuring ad success including views, social media interaction, YouTube hits, meme spinoffs … the list could go on. If you are an advertiser, you’d want your advertisement to be successful, but wouldn’t you also want it to be effective? An ad can be remarkably successful, but not necessarily effective. Other ads can ... [ Read More ]