Virtual Talk with Ulrich Brandes

Abstract

I will present team sports analytics as an opportunity to teach and develop computational methods for the study of collective behavior and applied data science more generally.

Football is the most popular sport in the world, in part because its fluidity and randomness allow for many alternative interpretations of the same events or, in other words, accommodate millions of pundits relying on experience and anecdotal evidence. The discussions around data-informed or even data-driven decision-making illustrate nicely the conflict between naive eagerness to apply, and ignorant dismissal of, soccer analytics.

Using examples from our ongoing research I will discuss opportunities and pitfalls in the (un)critical application of computational methods.

Given that so many seem to know so much about the subject, I expect a great deal of willingness to question any choice of representation or data-suggested conclusion. Why, then, should similar methods be more applicable in unregulated social environments?

Zoom Registration

Please register with sekretariat@ae.cs.uni-frankfurt.de to receive the Zoom login.