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 THE STAT 26Percentage of wireless customers who use their cell phones to take picturesMore Vitals
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APRIL 15, 2003
Soon, a PC May Be the Game's MVP In today's world of sports, sophisticated analysis of everything from technique to draft choices is being driven by bits and bytes
He now uses a cutting-edge digital video-editing package from Pinnacle Systems (PCLE ), a Mountain View (Calif.) company with $231 million in 2002 revenues. This hardware and software system integrates high-end video effects and statistical analysis on the same screen, so that Bodaken can quickly and easily assign a data tag to each play or even insert a tag each time a specific player touches the ball. The software also lets him sift through archived footage of the Lakers against various opponents for the past several years, all on a laptop computer connected to a powerful storage system. "We're able to attach a lot of data to everything that we digitize, so we can sort that data and find with a couple of keystrokes all of Shaq's post-ups on the left side of the key against Sacramento this season." That gives Lakers Coach Phil Jackson a powerful tool to plot strategy for dealing with Chris Webber and Mike Bibby in the probable playoff clash between the Lakers and the Sacramento Kings. PRECISE PREDICTORS. Welcome to the era of digital sports. Throughout the history of competition, forward-thinking sports strategists have always come up with new methods to gain an edge. Legendary Brooklyn Dodgers General Manager Branch Rickey relied on statistical analysis long before baseball junkies started crunching the numbers they find in the Baseball Prospectus -- the game's statistical bible -- and discovered that a team's on-base percentage usually is a better predictor of overall success than total home runs or total steals. And at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., exercise physiologists have long played with exotic technologies to better understand and optimize athletic performance. For the most part, though, until very recently instinct, experience, mental replay, and crude measures of performance served as the primary tools of trainers and coaches. No longer. Led by early adopters such as the Lakers, teams across most sports are using computers to analyze everything from player mechanics and training techniques to game-day strategies. And coaches have become as acquainted with PCs as with note pads. Dozens of companies now sell software and specialized hardware for just about every type of sport. And this market has developed even as modern sports franchises have become far more wired than their predecessors. "Five years ago, all of our scouts in the field used pen, paper, and faxes," says Brad Kullman, assistant director of baseball operations for the Cincinnati Reds. "Now every single employee has a laptop. People can be anywhere in the country at any hour of the day and dial in to get the latest information." STATS RULE. A new stadium wired to modern specifications now lets Kullman bring in digital video systems: Now, players who fan against fireballing pitcher Randy Johnson can immediately go to the clubhouse to compare the video of their latest strike out against more successful past at bats against the Big Unit -- and use that knowledge in their next at-bat in the very same game. Kullman, like a growing number of league executives, has also embraced statistical analysis when making player acquisitions and draft choices. To help hone this process, writers and analysts for the Baseball Prospectus, a perennial best-seller on Amazon.com, have also hired themselves out as consultants to major-league teams. Previously, most player-acquisition and drafting decisions were made based on judgment calls from scouts and a few stats such as batting average, home runs, and runs batted in. For the most part, that old-school effort relied on a scout's eye for talent. That has given way to heavier reliance on computer-generated statistics, which many general managers have started to view as key pieces of additional information to give them an edge.
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