With statistics playing such a big role in modern sports, data visualization can often assist in helping fans or viewers understand these complex statistics.
In 2013, Bleacher Report published an article entitled, “The Unofficial 2013 NBA Player Census, Visualized“. The article gives 12 visual interpretations of NBA players broken down by their height, weight, salary, and place of origin. This article gives NBA fans a chance to visually see the make-up of all the NBA players with just a quick glance at a few charts.
This chart shows the average age of players on each NBA team.
Recently, on Twitter, the NFL put out an interactive map for NFL fans to see where teams are most supported throughout the country. The map is so specific that one can type in their county name and find out which team their home county supports. This map is great for fans to see where teams get most of their support from.
Interactive NFL following map.
Additionally, data visualization has become so popular in the world of sports that websites and companies are entirely revolving around the visualization aspect. For example, the website SportingCharts offers data visualization for every major league in the country. Fans can check out stats for specific teams or players. Each week the site offers a “you pick em” contest where fans can pick who will win each matchup and the results are put into visual format so fans can see where the votes are coming from.
Overall, as the sports industry is growing more popular and fans are becoming more involved in statistics, there is a greater need for data visualization tools. Data visualization is useful for both the fans who are interested in and understand statistics and the fans who don’t understand them at all but like to see visual representations.
I would love to see more use of data visualization techniques in the future of sports journalism. I believe that these techniques really add a different perspective to stories and can invite fans in to a world of statistics that they might not typically find appealing.
Sports and society 