Research+Paper

Paper Reflection: a.) I am happy with my paper because I feel that it is a well researched topic and I was able to elaborate and prove my thesis through my research. b.) I wish I would have changed how I chose my topic about my process because I wasted time while I struggled to find a definitive topic or thesis. c.) I recommend to all future seniors of Senior Seminar that they should not be afraid to ask for outside guidance, along with making sure they know how to properly write a research paper to make their lives easier and develop a quality research paper. d.) Going forward with my project and presentation, I have to keep in mind that I will have to continue with my habits of continuing the research and work because it allows a better and more well rounded project, along with a less stressful environment.

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Dave Canfield --> Matt Dugan: A. Introduce ESPN and Sports Illustrated in introduction B. Bring up the early use of statistics in 1900s C. Better define the difference between quantitative and qualitative evaluation D. Talk about the statistical revolution has changed the average fan

Tierney Carabba --> Matt Dugan: A. Fix block quote format, page 9 B. Correct paragraph 3 format page 7 C. Correct spelling error at end of page 7 D. Remove slang in page 4, "blow up"

Sal D'Angelo --> Matt Dugan: A. Delete repeated sentence in page 4 B. Edit transition sentences C. Add original thought, page 4 first and second paragraph D. Redo 4th sentence, page 1



A minimum of 2 total pages due: Monday, March 8, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due: Friday, March 12, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due: Tuesday, March 15, 2010

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due: Thursday, March 18, 2010

Below is where I am supposed to upload the content of my paper.

A minimum of 2 total pages due: Monday, March 8, 2010

Americans have always held sports figures to greatness. Yet, what exactly determines an athlete’s greatness? Is it their amazing visual feat, defying the odds, or is it based on something more? A lot of how athletes are viewed by the public depends on sports journalism. Sports journalism has existed almost as long as sports have. Since the start of competition, writers have covered sports in one way or another. Sports journalism has been traced all the way back to the time of 850 BC in Greece, when Homer wrote about the first known draw in wrestling, as Achilles raised the hands of both Ajax and Odysseus in victory. The sports of wrestling, throwing, boxing, and racing were all covered during the times of the ancient Greeks. Sports have always been popular around the world. People find the need to judge the athletes not only qualitatively but quantitatively. People wanted to prove why their favorite athlete was the best with hard evidence, not just opinion. With that, the need for statistics in sports grew. Soon sports were being quantified and counted. The time in a race was counted, how many home runs were hit, how many free throws one has made. As time went on, the statistics started to become more advanced and complicated. It started to alienate the average fan from one with a more mathematical, scientific view. This developed into sports analytics. Analytics is the science of logical analysis, which is what many journalists and statisticians are using to better evaluate sports. The study of sports analytics, specifically baseball and basketball, is better for the evaluation of ability in sports than the more original, visual and simple statistical evaluation. While sports writing has existed for some time, it did not come prevalent until recently. In the middle 1800s American writers began to write exclusively as sports writers, but they were still few in number. During the time before the 1900s sports writing existed, but was still not widely accepted. It was not until 1914 that sports was written and spread in circulation, and the job of a sports editor was considered an actual job. Sports began to grow at a quicker pace after 1850 because of the introduction of baseball, and new interest in team sports in general (Andrews). With the higher interest in sports, came more stories about the topic and several publications like the New York Herald and the Spirit of the Times recorded sports events in their papers (“A Brief History of Sports Journalism”). During the early 1900s, the importance of news increased and thus, the amount of sports covered increased as well. It was during this time that the average amount of sports coverage had its largest increase from the decade before with 10.4 columns being dedicated to it and 14.6 percent of advertising space (Andrews). Media began to gain popularity in every field, not just sports. “It appears that when the papers doubled in number of pages, they doubled the size of the sports section. This was only reasonable, since reader-interest surveys rated certain features of the sports section higher than anything else except the most striking news story, the comics, and picture pages” (Heath). Separate departments for sports writers were not set up until Joseph Pulitzer expanded in his New York World newspaper. He hired a sports editor in 1883. Many of the major cities copied Pulitzer over the next few years, and by 1892 every large newspaper had a sports editor (Andrews). However, during this time sports news was condensed into two or three columns of coverage, but it would soon change. As the popularity in sports rose, the need for it to be covered only grew larger. Soon the field of sports journalism took off. As basketball and football slowly gained popularity in America, baseball’s popularity sky rocketed, becoming the country’s national pastime. People followed the Major League Baseball avidly, and the need for sports journalists to cover it only grew. By the 1920s, sports journalism was hugely popular section of journalism, and the sports section was included in most newspapers. Athletes like Babe Ruth were beloved by America, so soon the writing called for more than just recaps of the game. Sports writers began to write pieces about certain athletes and things that contributed to their success. The 1930's marked the first time newspapers hired executive sports editors to oversee all content produced by the newspaper. As the 1940s came along, sports cartoons became a big part of the sports page with Willard Mullin of the New York World-Telegram and Al Papas of The Sporting News leading the industry (Heath). The creation of the Associated Press sports wire on April 16, 1945 helped put sports into the national scope (Andrews). It was also around this time that sports became worthy of being front page news. One of the biggest effects on sports journalism occurred when the television was introduced in the 1950s. Baseball and Football saw a large increase in sports coverage in the television industry, and sportswriters were forced to adapt. Newspapers became the second hand method for receiving sports news, because television offered all the news of a newspaper with pictures.

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 4 pages total) due: Friday, March 12, 2010

A major factor in both the history and growth of the field of sports journalism is the periodical, //Sports Illustrated//. Although the magazine was not the first to try an all sports periodical, it was the first successful one. Two other magazines named Sports Illustrated were started in the 1930s and 1940s, but they both quickly failed (Wilson). At the time, sports journalism was considered to be a lower class of journalism, and many journalists looked down upon the field, classifying it as fake journalism. Even people who respected the field questioned if it could fill a weekly magazine, especially during the winter (Wilson). One of the creators of //Time//, Henry Luce tried to create the magazine, something that many associates scoffed at the idea. After offering $200,000 in an unsuccessful bid to buy the name Sport for the new magazine, they acquired the rights to the name Sports Illustrated instead for just $10,000 (MacCambridge). The magazine sought out not to just be a sports magazine, it strived to be the quintessential magazine about sports. The magazine was not popular or very profitable at first, taking 12 years before gaining a profit, but it would eventually find it stride due to good timing. Sports in the United States was about to blow up, creating a craze about sports that still exists today. This occurred because “the big boom in the spectator sports business was about to happen, fueled by Eisenhower-era prosperity, the suburbs, and television” (MacCambridge). Today, //Sports Illustrated// remains to be one of the most popular magazines in the world and continues to be the top periodical for sports. //Sports Illustrated// did more than reflect the society's changing interests in sport. It helped shape and influence attitudes as Americans moved away from active participation in sports to the role of spectators (Wilson). //Sports Illustrated// became the leader in investigative and serious reporting in sports. While //Sports Illustrated// made a huge impact on the popularity of sports and the field of sports journalism, it was not until ESPN that sports and the coverage of them took over the culture, coming into the nation’s everyday lives. ESPN, Inc. was the brainchild of Bill Rasmussen, an unemployed sports announcer. ESPN was the brainchild of Bill Rasmussen, an unemployed sports announcer. His goal was to achieve a way to broadcast college basketball games through different cable television networks. He eventually found a way by renting satellite time by the hour, though he soon realized it was actually cheaper to rent a 24 hour period rather than increments of 4 or 5 hours (Freeman). He then decided to offer a 24 hour programming to be available on a national basis. He called his company Entertainment Sports Programming Network, Inc., or ESP Network for short. ESPN's early financing came from Getty Oil, which invested $10 million in the company in 1979 for a controlling interest (Evey). In 1984 it was sold to ABC, Inc., and three years later began broadcasting National Football League games on Sunday nights (Smith).

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 6 pages total) due: Tuesday, March 15, 2010

Though a cable network, ESPN competed with the established networks in producing live sporting events. In 1990 it paid $400 million to Major League Baseball to broadcast 175 games annually for four years (Freeman). National Hockey League games, college basketball and football games, including bowl and all-star games, and bowling, golf, martial arts, tennis, and lacrosse matches were among the more than 65 sports broadcast (Smith). Initially the idea was laughed at for trying to compete with newspapers and bigger networks. By 1996, that was all forgotten when it received its title for being the largest cable network available to over 68 million homes. Today, the network is available in over 90 million homes with that number steadily climbing (Smith). The network is also available to over 140 different countries (Freeman). ESPN quickly became a media giant, expanding into an empire. It produced numerous other television stations, an expansive website, magazines, restaurants, expansion to different countries, and more. The popularity of ESPN allowed not only sports to grow, but also the field of sports journalism to blossom. Journalists who only had a chance with newspapers or large networks now had an entire company devoted to the craft. Out of all the major American sports, baseball is the one that is most easily broken down using statistics. Since its popularity in the early part of the 20th century, baseball has been intertwined with statistics. Players were judged on their batting average, home runs, or some other sort of statistic. Baseball arguably puts to use math much more so than any other sport does. It has always been a game that has been intertwined with the use of algebra, geometry and statistics. For instance, the trajectory of a curveball or knuckleball can be solved through trigonometry equations. Some even say that due to the advancement of technology and statistics, one does not even have to watch any baseball in order to evaluate the team or players. This is due to the fact that baseball is essentially an individual sport comprised into one large team sport. The pitcher is alone, the batter is alone, and there is little room for teammates to help them. Due to this, analysts and journalists have been able to quantify a player’s effectiveness on the field without even watching them play. Due to the very close relationship baseball has with statistics, the advancement of complicated statistics in the game was all but certain. This relationship caused the creation of sabermetrics, which is what most people in the baseball world now use. Sabermetrics is the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, especially baseball statistics that measure in-game activity rather than industry activity such as attendance (Okrent). The term is derived from the acronym SABR, which stands for the Society for American Baseball Research and it was coined by Bill James, who was one of its pioneers and has long been its most prominent advocate and public face (Okrent). James is considered the godfather of the sabermetric movement and currently serves as a senior advisor to the Boston Red Sox. His //Baseball Abstracts// attracted new disciples and helped make statistics and analysis more accessible to the public, although penetration into the world of baseball decision-making itself would be scant until 1997, when Billy Beane became general manager of the Oakland Athletics (Lewis). Essentially, this is a system that scouts players on paper, rather than the old fashioned way of sending a scout to go see the player in person. Sabermetrics has gained momentum in recent years for several reasons: new advances in ball tracking which provide more data from which to build more powerful statistics, and the general success of teams which adhere to sabermetric principles. In many ways sabermetrics exists on the opposite end of the spectrum from scouting, and arguments often fall along the lines of traditional scouts, usually ex-players, versus young academics and statisticians. One reason for the tension between these old and new schools of baseball thought is that sabermetric conclusions often challenge conventional wisdom.

At least 2 additional pages (minimum of 8 pages total) due: Thursday, March 18, 2010

A specific example of the growth of sports analytics comes from a recent baseball season. Each year, the MLB has year-end awards that are voted on by sports journalists who base their vote on various categories that an athlete may have excelled in for that particular season. The Cy Young Award is an honor given out to best pitchers in the MLB, each for their respective leagues. In the American League, the race was clearly between two excellent pitchers. The pitchers were Felix Hernendez of the Seattle Mariners and Zach Grienke of the Kansas City Royals. Both had great statistical seasons, but clearly Grienke pitched better overall, when only judging by advanced statistics. Grienke won by a landside, which came to a surprise to many in the baseball community. Tyler Kepner of the //New York Times// writes, “But his decisive margin of victory over Seattle’s Felix Hernandez was a sign that voters overlooked his deficiency in another bedrock statistic: wins” (Kepner). Wins is a categorical variable that is shunned by advanced baseball statisticians, as it is too many variables that count against the pitcher’s actual ability and effectiveness. Voters have cited that Grienke had the best FiP, which was their reason for voting him as the top choice. FIP, or Fielding Independent Pitching isa formula that measures how well a pitcher performed, regardless of his fielders (Kepner). It is a formula that measures how well a pitcher performed, regardless of his fielders. With Grienke winning, it shows that journalists around the baseball community are coming to terms the statistical revolution in sports. While statistics have always been prevalent in baseball and recently the advanced statistics have made it closer to the norm in evaluating players, the progress in basketball analytics is a slower moving one. Basketball is a much harder game to evaluate through statistics than baseball, creating a much bigger schism between the two sides. Journalists will say that the advanced statistics are overblown and misleading, while these statisticians will cite the complexities of them, saying by their formulas at all costs. The use of advanced analytics is growing in the NBA. According to interviews with every team, The Wall Street Journal found that half the league’s teams this season have at least one of these statisticians who helps make in-game, draft-day and trade-deadline decisions (Biderman). Taking off of baseball’s sabermetrics system, basketball analysts have developed a similar system. APBRmetrics is the analysis of basketball through objective evidence, especially basketball statistics (Abbott). Statistical analysis has its limits, of course, especially in a game in which nine other players can have more influence on a player's numbers than the player himself. The only box score stat that isn't affected by a player's teammates or opponents is free-throw percentage (Schuhmann). However, that does not mean that any statistic should be ignored. Dan Oliver says, “This is something that’s new over the last six or seven years. It hasn’t been a part of basketball…Anyone who has been in basketball for the long-term is used to making decisions without this kind of analysis. Historically, some people have made very good decisions” (Abbott). It is comparable to the stock market in the 1950s and 1960s. The stock market used to function without these kinds of numbers, and some people did very well (Abbott). Once this kind of analysis was introduced, there was a new way to inform decisions, and it changed things, and some new people were able to get in and do well. An example of the statistic revolution taking hold in the NBA is the Houston Rocket’s general manager, Daryl Morey. Morey came to the Rockets after serving three years as Senior Vice President of Operations and Information for the Boston Celtics. While with the Celtics, basketball operations was a key part of his responsibilities, including the development of analytical methods and technology to enhance basketball decisions, such as the draft, trades, free agency and statistical advance scouting for the coaching staff (Neel). His hiring follows the recent trend of moving away from pure qualitative scouting in favor of more statistical-based analysis. While many other teams have started hiring people with a non-basketball background, the Rockets are the first one to have a general manager. Morey holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science with an emphasis on statistics from Northwestern University, an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management and he served as the professor for the MIT Sloan class, “Analytical Sports Management” while he continues to be the chairperson for the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (Neel). As the statistical revolution takes a hold of sports, many are still against it or slightly opposed the heavy use of this. The majority of these people are older journalists or executives, who spent the majority of their career in an era that relied more on a qualitative view. However, there are still issues regarding relying heavily on statistics. Another issue is that with the reliance on mathematics, different professions in the field suggest that a mathematical background would be more valuable. However, many coaches and presidents of the teams are former players who often rely on instinct and the visual component of scouting rather than analysis of data. One of the biggest issues and advancement people against the advanced statistics in the NBA would like to see in the next decade is for the creators and those in the vanguard of the statistical revolution to make numbers more relatable to the common fan. One Western Conference executive referred to the Sloan conference as “people who haven't won anything, who think they have something to teach us” (Schuhmann). Some argue that statistics analysis takes away integral parts of the game, almost taking the joy and spontaneity out of the sport. Overall, as popularity of advanced statistics in sports grows, there will be some opposition to the change, but the advancement of statistics in sports only increases the overall quality of the game. Journalists and executives now have more concrete way of evaluating a player’s effectiveness. Statistics is already very heavily relied upon in the MLB and baseball, and is taking hold in other sports, specifically the NBA and basketball.