Current Events > Do Americans in general love intense sports stats or is that just ESPN?

(+) Yeah! (+)

As I understand that's a joke network anyway, but curious about this. Whenever I watch sports with American commentary there's...a lot of stats. Like a lot a lot.
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I do in general. I like interesting stats and I like simple and advanced baseball stats. I like comparing numbers though.

It gets weird when they are like "Team A just did *obscure stat* for the first time since February!" I expect something like 20 years when they lead off with that.
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those stats are very relevant to the gambling industry in knowing how to set the odds and who to bet on for the biggest chance of winning.
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"Fancy stats" tell the story better
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I don't know about other sports, but sabermetrics in baseball is great
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Lmao do Europeans literally just washemplae
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myzz7 posted...

those stats are very relevant to the gambling industry in knowing how to set the odds and who to bet on for the biggest chance of winning.

This. All kinds of stats, even seemingly random ones, can help betters and odds makers get their stuff right.

Damn_Underscore posted...

I don't know about other sports, but sabermetrics in baseball is great

Also this. Baseball is by far the sport that focuses the most on individual statistics and metrics.
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Butterfiles posted...

Lmao do Europeans literally just washemplae

Europeans prefer to think that when a player is exceptional it's because of a sort of magical "je ne said quoi" quality that needn't be stated.

For example, Europeans describe Lionel Messi in single statements. "Magical, ethereal, from another planet, I've never seen a goal like that and never will again", etc.

What we don't like is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpg8C0JGCwQ

Like I don't really need or want to know the exact distance in inches that he cleared the goal by nor the specific speed he accelerated at with the ball -_-
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Yeah I love advanced stats in basketball
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pinky0926 posted...

Butterfiles posted...

Lmao do Europeans literally just washemplae

Europeans prefer to think that when a player is exceptional it's because of a sort of magical "je ne said quoi" quality that needn't be stated.

For example, Europeans describe Lionel Messi in single statements. "Magical, ethereal, from another planet, I've never seen a goal like that and never will again", etc.

What we don't like is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpg8C0JGCwQ

Like I don't really need or want to know the exact distance in inches that he cleared the goal by nor the specific speed he accelerated at with the ball -_-

Why open a thesaurus when you can explain how much better he is than everyone else? There's not really an order of magnitude when you start using those adjectives. Saying they will never see a goal like it again is just exaggerating for effect anyway.
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KainWind posted...

Why open a thesaurus when you can explain how much better he is than everyone else? There's not really an order of magnitude when you start using those adjectives.

I can only speak for British culture and using the "European" category is too broad, but we certainly don't want a drilldown of every single detail in a play in order to understand why it was amazing. Mostly we're just in it for the big statement. Brits think of these sports moments in romantic terms, not objective terms.

So what I'm saying is, Brits don't want a million different stats to explain why Messi is better than everyone else. They just want to see him play. If you had British commentary breaking down a play, they'd say things like "and he nutmegs him here, there's probably only 2 other players in the league that could do that and neither could do it running full speed". They wouldn't say "and that's his 243rd nutmeg in his career, which puts him in the upper 0.5% percentile of successful nutmegs among all players in the last 40 years who played for Barcelona".
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I get that and I also realize that too many stats is overwhelming and unnecessary. I think we (some of us? a lot of us?) just prefer comparisons and it's easier to do that with numbers.

Do you guys have endless debates on who the greatest player ever was for a sport like we get for Jordan vs LeBron vs Kobe? How do those usually go?
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pinky0926 posted...

Butterfiles posted...

Lmao do Europeans literally just washemplae

Europeans prefer to think that when a player is exceptional it's because of a sort of magical "je ne said quoi" quality that needn't be stated.

For example, Europeans describe Lionel Messi in single statements. "Magical, ethereal, from another planet, I've never seen a goal like that and never will again", etc.

What we don't like is this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tpg8C0JGCwQ

Like I don't really need or want to know the exact distance in inches that he cleared the goal by nor the specific speed he accelerated at with the ball -_-

lol that's ridiculous. and yeah, never seen stuff like that with football(!) before.
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myzz7 posted...

those stats are very relevant to the gambling industry in knowing how to set the odds and who to bet on for the biggest chance of winning.

aka, only poor people dont care or know...
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