Analytics-based approach paying off in professional sports

In 2015, ESPN published an article titled “The Great Analytics Rankings.” This project examined all four major North American professional sports leagues (NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB) and ranked every team “on the strength of each franchise’s analytics staff, its buy-in from execs and coaches, its investment in biometric data and how much its approach is predicated on analytics.” From most to least, the ranks were: “All in,” “Believers,” “One foot in,” “Skeptics” and “Nonbelievers.”

Since 2015, each of these professional leagues has crowned several champions and had successful (and not so successful) teams. Richard Little, an analytics aficionado, decided to take a look at the list of champions…