Big data firm Bluekai signed a deal with MLB Advanced Media to create custom ad products to "reach an affluent, engaged male audience." MLB Advanced Media is Major League Baseball's interactive media arm.
The Baltimore Orioles are in the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. The author, a life-long O's fan, has tracked the season via blinking dots on an iPhone, then Facebook, then through a pricey app. Somehow he's still married.
For the hard-wired and digitally wired baseball fan, the season doesn't start when pitchers and catchers report to spring training. It starts when At Bat reports to the iTunes store. The wildly popular app, made by MLB Advanced Media (BAM for short), puts live game video, live stats, and the latest news and scores at your fingertips on a smart phone or tablet.
Analyzing the massive explosion of baseball information capitalizes on a growing trend toward "big data," the tools and processes to harness insights found in gigantic data sets. A project to uncover Twitter sentiment around this year's post-season play provides an example of how the sheer amount of information need not outstrip our capacity to manage or access it in useful ways.
How do you assemble a great American pastime? With bats, balls, beer--and a pro league that nets $6.1 billion in revenue. As the World Series looms, we break down what's driving Baseball Inc.
For 80 years, baseball stats have been relegated to tiny, tedious logs in the back pages of newspapers, their visual drama about as exciting as a Yahtzee scorecard. That’s starting to change as data viz techniques wend their way into professional sports. And representing a big leap forward is Pennant, Steve Varga’s comprehensive -- and theatrical -- interactive history of baseball.
