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- All Subjects: sports
- Creators: Department of Information Systems
- Member of: Theses and Dissertations
Description
This project looks at the change in strikeout patterns over the past 19 years of Major League Baseball. New research in 2001 revolutionized the pitching statistics field, and non-coincidentally, the number of strikeouts has ballooned since then. I first detail the statistical nature of the increase, looking at where the additional strikeouts are coming from. Then, a discussion of why this has happened, referencing changes in baseball strategy and talent usage optimization follows. The changes in the ways MLB teams use their pitching staffs are largely the cause of this increase. Similar research is cited to confirm that these strategy changes are valid and are having the effect of increasing strikeouts in the game. Strikeout numbers are then compared to other pitching statistics over the years to determine whether the increase has had any effect on other pitching metrics. Lastly, overall team success is looked at as a verification method as to whether the increased focus on increasing strikeouts has created positive results for major league teams. Teams making the MLB playoffs consistently ranked much higher than non-qualifying teams in terms of strikeout rates. Also included in the project are the details of data acquisition and manipulation, to ensure the figures used are valid. Ideas for future research and further work on the topic are included, as the amount of data available in this field is quite staggering. Further analysis could dive into the ways pitches themselves are changing, rather than looking at pitching outcomes. Overall, the project details and explains a major shift in the way baseball has been played over the last 19 years, complete with both pure data analysis and supplementary commentary and explanation
ContributorsCasalena, Jontito (Author) / Doig, Stephen (Thesis director) / Pomrenke, Jacob (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
Basketball has evolved and is continuing to evolve in parallel with media and communication. The 21st century bears witness to the digitization of basketball, media, and communication with the advent of social media. Arguably the most esteemed professional basketball league in the world, the National Basketball Association (NBA) observes fans and players alike conversing about the game through social media platforms available across the world. One of the most popular platforms, Twitter, enables anyone with a computer to write a textual post known as a “tweet” that can be made viewable to the public. The Twitter landscape holds a trove of data and information including “sentiment” for NBA teams to analyze with the goal of improving the success of their team from a managerial perspective. Two aspects this paper will examine are fan engagement and revenue generation from the perspective of several franchises in the NBA. The purpose of this research is to explore and discover if key measures of performance including both the number of points scored in a game and the game outcome either being a win or a loss, and the location of a game being won either at home or away on the road influence fan Twitter sentiment and if there is a correlation between fan Twitter sentiment and game attendance. The statistical computing tool RStudio in combination with data compiled from online databases and websites including Basketball Reference, Wikipedia, ESPN, and Statista are employed to execute two t-tests, two analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests, and one correlation test. The results indicate there is a significant difference in fan Twitter sentiment between high-scoring games and low-scoring games, between game wins and losses, among games being won at home versus away on the road, and there is no conclusion that can be made regarding any existing correlation between fan Twitter sentiment and game attendance.
ContributorsKwan, Matthew (Author) / McIntosh, Daniel (Thesis director) / Eaton, John (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
In the basketball world, perhaps one of the most sought-after feelings is that of momentum. Basketball players, coaches, analysts, and fans alike are all too familiar with the idea that a “team has momentum” during a stretch of time, or that the team needs to do something to “generate their own momentum”. In a game that appears to be an accumulation of independent possessions, what exactly does momentum really mean? My goal was to see if there is a way to quantify momentum in an NBA game, particularly by looking at the Phoenix Suns 2021-2022 NBA season.
ContributorsRao, Ansh (Author) / Schneider, Laurence (Thesis director) / McIntosh, Daniel (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2022-05
Description
While sports have been around for thousands of years with ranging popularity across the globe, they are a stronghold in American culture. The “big four” sports in the United States are American football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, although Major League Soccer (MLS) has made a push within recent years for soccer to become the fifth. While it is being welcomed into the world of sports in America it is lacking popularity compared to its stronghold within cultures throughout the world. In this thesis we explore possible reasons as to why soccer and Major League Soccer is not as popular in the United States as it is in other countries as well as compared to the other major sports in the US. This is done through an extensive literature review, followed by an online survey to answer questions that were not answered using past research. The data collected was then analyzed through testing six hypotheses. All of the information collected is then used to formulate five major recommendations for MLS to grow the popularity of Soccer in the United States. These recommendations include building a community of soccer in the US, enhancing the fan experience at games by building soccer specific stadiums, raising the caliber of players playing in the US within MLS, building awareness of the sport through the reach of hosting the 2026 World Cup, and finally furthering this research by looking into the US Women's National team.
ContributorsDahlin, Amanda (Author) / Tvelia, Emily (Co-author) / McIntosh, Daniel (Thesis director) / Neto, Rivadavia (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor) / Dean, W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor)
Created2022-05