Sports Analytics: A Guide for Coaches, Managers, and Other Decision Makers

Benjamin C. Alamar founded the first journal dedicated to sports statistics, the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports. He developed and teaches a class on sports analytics for managers at the University of San Francisco and has published numerous cutting-edge studies on strategy and player evaluation. Today, he cochairs the sports statistics section of the International Statistics Institute and consults with several professional teams and businesses in sports analytics.

There isn't a better representative of this emerging field to show diverse organizations how to implement analytics into their decision-making strategies, especially as analytic tools grow increasingly complex. Alamar provides a clear, easily digestible survey of the practice and a detailed understanding of analytics' vast possibilities. He explains how to evaluate different programs and put them to use. Using concrete examples from professional sports teams and case studies demonstrating the use and value of analytics in the field, Alamar designs a roadmap for managers, general managers, and other professionals as they build their own programs and teach their approach to others.

Benjamin C. Alamar is a professor of sport management at Menlo College and a sports analytics consultant/researcher. He has consulted with a variety of teams in the NFL and NBA, including five seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder, and with a variety of companies in sports analytics. He has published numerous research studies in sports analytics and has written on sports analytics for outlets such as ESPN, Analytics Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. Additionally, Alamar is the founding editor of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, the first peer-reviewed academic journal for research in sports analytics.



Dean Oliver is the director of Production Analytics at ESPN, leading the development of sports analytics for the network. He worked for seven years in the NBA with the front offices of the Denver Nuggets and Seattle Supersonics, using analytics to improve trades, free agency, the draft, and coaching tactics. The contents of his book, Basketball on Paper, are now used broadly across the NBA. Oliver has a Ph.D. in engineering and has years of experience as an advance scout, collegiate scout, and coach.