ABSTRACT
Performance analysis is usually thought of in terms of providing feedback for players and coaches to enable improvement in sports performance. This is not necessarily so, as media coverage of sport often adds statistical detail to their reporting of events for the purpose of informing the sports fan. Consequently, two separate explanations for carrying out performance analysis can be seen to exist, i.e. by those involved in a sport for performance improvement and by media groups for the enlightenment of sports fans. Identifying this distinction also raises the interesting question as to what extent these two performance analysis tasks differ or indeed are similar. This chapter will focus on presenting performance analysis as commonly depicted in the media. Some reference will be made to academic and professional sports teams’ use of similar information; although this will not be exhaustive, since other publications offer more of this type of information. For example, students of sport have been well served by previous books edited by Hughes and Franks (1997, 2004), as well as original
research published in scientific journals, e.g. electronic International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport. Soccer players and coaches have also had a book written for them (Carling et al. 2005) detailing the types of analysis performed at elite clubs. There have also been books aimed at the general public, one which achieved bestseller status in the USA (Lewis 2003), told the account of how Billy Beane, a highly talented but low achieving baseball player became general manager of the Oakland Athletics and transformed the team’s fortunes by picking new players solely on the analysis of their playing statistics rather than trusting his scouts’ reports and recommendations.
