SIS Football Analytics Challenge
Sports Info Solutions (SIS) is hosting a Football Analytics Challenge to raise money for the United Negro College Fund. All donations are appreciated and go to charity.
Learn more about the competition here.
Visit this link to register for the Football Analytics Challenge; a minimum $1 donation is required for entry.
To familiarize yourself with the data that you will be working with, check out this article.
To download the data: navigate to the Data folder, click on AnalyticsChallenge2020Data.csv, simultaneously press ALT + Left Click on 'View Raw' or click 'Download'.
Sports Info Solutions Football Analytics Challenge Rules
Collaborating is allowed, one submission per participant or team
Participants can collaborate and form teams of up to five members to create a joint submission. Each team or individual participant is limited to submitting one official entry.
Work must be submitted through competition platform
After registering, participants will retrieve contest dataset through GitHub and must submit their work through the same GitHub contest platform to be considered eligible.
Data restrictions
Participants authorized to use any additional data that is both free and publicly available. Participants must identify and cite data that goes beyond supplied contest data.
Competition Timeline
Start Date: June 24, 2020 Entry Deadline (Final Submission Deadline): July 19, 2020 11:59 PM ET Preliminary Judging Results: July 24, 2020 Final Judging Panel: July 29, 2020 (live video call)
Submission due date
Submissions are due by 11:59pm ET on Sunday, July 19. All submissions are final. See Submissions folder for instructions on how to submit your work.
Judging
All eligible entrants will have their work reviewed in a preliminary judging round conducted by the Sports Info Solutions Research & Development Department. Each submission will be judged by the evaluation criteria below. Three finalists will be selected to advance to the final judging round. Finalists must be available to participate in the live judging round on July 29, 2020 and must have the means available to participate in a live Zoom call.
Evaluation Criteria
Your task is to answer the following three questions using the data provided as a basis for your conclusions.
- Which is the most valuable defensive line position? You can define the positions however you like.
- What is the nature of the distribution of talent between the defensive line positions, as you define them?
- Not all situations are created equal. In which in-game or roster construction scenarios would the answer to Question 1 change?
You will submit the answers to these questions in the form of a presentation (e.g. PowerPoint or Google Slides), providing any additional information about the analysis that led you to your conclusions. The document provided should include, but is not limited to, the items below. Their weight in the grading process is also included.
• Final answers (15%) — The answers to each of the above questions, enumerated explicitly so they are easy to identify. While there isn’t going to be a “right” answer to any of these questions, it is crucial that: a) you provide clear and concise answers to the questions, and b) the answers you give are based on results found over the course of this project.
• Assumptions (10%) — The questions we are asking are intentionally a little bit broad so that participants have a chance to work through things in different ways. If appropriate, make sure to clarify any assumptions you might be making about information that wasn’t specified as part of the prompt, and explain why you settled on those assumptions. For example: How are you defining the different positions you’re considering? How relevant is defending the pass compared to defending the run?
• Evaluation Method (50%) — What criteria did you use to answer the three questions of interest? For Questions 1 and 2, you must explain the steps you took to come up with metrics that allow you to compare positions. For Question 3, explain how you identified the different scenarios to compare, and any changes in the evaluation metric(s) from Questions 1 and 2.
• Limitations and Future Analysis (10%) — We only provided you a slice of data to work with, and besides, no analysis is complete and final. What additional analysis might you have performed to answer these questions if you had more expansive resources, and what resources would those be?
• Presentation / Clarity of Communication (15%) — In any research context, it’s critical to be able to communicate the results of an analysis clearly and concisely. Convey the answers to the above questions as well as your methods in a clear and direct way that engages the audience.
• Other Data Sources — We are in a golden age of football analytics. Feel free to use other free, publicly available resources to aid in your analysis. You must provide details on any resources that you used outside the provided data, and it must be clear from your discussion what that data was used for. Of course, this competition is centered around the data provided, so don’t lean too heavily on other resources for your key conclusions.
Notification
The finalists will be notified of their progress via email by July 25th, 2020. If a finalist does not respond to the notification attempt within three (3) days from the first notification attempt, then an alternate finalist will be selected from among the eligible entrant pool.
Eligibility
To be deemed eligible, participants must submit a monetary donation of no less than $1 to the affiliated donation collection on GoFundMe and must register via the competition website. There are no geographic restrictions, but work must be submitted in English. Full-time employees of Sports Info Solutions are not eligible to participate.
Prizes
This is a charity event with all proceeds donated to the United Negro College Fund. Finalists will receive the unique opportunity to present their work to a panel of industry professionals. Finalist presentations may be promoted via SIS social media and blog. Winner will be invited to appear on the Off The Charts podcast with Matt Manocherian and Aaron Schatz. Winner will also receive a free one-year subscription to the SIS DataHub Pro.
Data usage rights
The contest dataset provided by Sports Info Solutions shall not be used for any purposes beyond this competition. Participants may not distribute, sell, transmit, brand, publish, copy, sublicense, reproduce, or transfer any of the contest data at any time during or after the competition without the prior written permission of SIS.
Intellectual Property
Participants retain the rights to their IP, including publishing the results of their research on any platform they wish.
ENTRY IN THIS COMPETITION CONSTITUTES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THESE OFFICIAL COMPETITION RULES.
This competition is a skills-based competition to promote and further the field of data science and raise money for charity. You submit a monetary donation of no less than $1 to the affiliated donation collection and must register via the competition website to enter. Your competition submission must conform to the requirements stated in this document. Your submission will be scored based on the evaluation criteria provided in this document.
Questions? contact challenge@sportsinfosolutions.com