| Data have begun to transform the management of professional sports. Managers who intelligently use data and analytics can improve asset acquisition and management, talent management, and operational performance. Billy Beane showed the world that his ideas about using analytics could produce a low cost baseball team that was competitive with those teams having a much higher payroll. Manager Billy, aided by assistant Paul DePodesta, first with the aid of a decision support system (AVM systems) and then on their own, broke down activities to predict a player's ability to score runs and used that knowledge to decide how to build and manage the lowest cost, winning team in professional baseball. This effort was so amazing that when the Major League Players Association created the Commissioner's Blue Ribbon Panel on Baseball Economics in 1999, they found Beane's Oakland A's to be an anomaly in their analysis. In fact, it was sufficiently troubling that the Commission asked Mr. Beane to appear to explain how he managed to be competitive. Some in baseball claimed he was just lucky. However, Mr. Beane knows that it is to the effective use of analytics in his organization. In fact, this use of analytical tools is chronicled in Michael Lewis' best selling book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game. |
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