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Traditionally, but not recently. Sports has been very focused on statistics for at least the last decade, probably longer. Most large sports organizations have

• icelancer 13y ago
  There is a big difference between "focused on statistics" and a valid statistical approach. Quoting ERA, Wins, RBIs, and even advanced metrics like WAR/FIP/VORP is totally different than validating methods through regression, machine learning, and the like. Everyone is happy to point at "stats." Almost nobody wants to hear about confidence intervals.
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    You can only expect so much dedication to the numbers from people who watch a thing for entertainment.
• mjn 13y ago
  That's a good point. I was thinking more about sports commentary, rather than what happens in the teams themselves, but it's true that teams have been all over statistics for years. I do think commentators, perhaps conscious of their role as public faces of an entertainment product, have been more resistant to statistics-driven commentary, and have instead played up horse-race type narratives.
  • jamesaguilar 13y ago
    To be fair, when you're watching the game, horse-race commentary is just straight up more fun to hear. I love hearing a radio announcer just get excited about what's happening. However, even live, they do throw in some statistics. Admittedly, these are the sort of post-hoc statistics that aren't good for anything (e.g. "they win 90% of their away games that fall on Friday"). Offline, fans of some sports are almost exclusively about statistics and numbers. Baseball is famous for this.