ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book covers those aspects of probability theory that are necessary to understand the randomness inherent in sports data. It presents some basic statistical concepts, such as the margin of error and statistical significance that play a central role in dealing with the randomness of sports data. The book also covers some basic statistical methods that are essential in studying sports data. It is concerned with detecting the presence of a relationship between variables and measuring the strength of such relationships. The book contains a detailed discussion of the basic methodology, along with more advanced topics such as the use of categorical variables as predictors, methods for finding the most important predictor, and interaction, which occurs when the effect of one of the predictors depends on the values of other predictors.
