ATASS Sport Workshop - What’s the score? – A glimpse into the sports modelling world

What’s the score? – A glimpse into the sports modelling world

ATASS Sports hosted a 2-day workshop for PhD students in the UK & Ireland from Monday 3rd to Wednesday 5th April, to give an insight into sport modelling. Statistics postgraduate students, Eilidh Jack and Suzy Whoriskey, attended the event which allowed students to work with researchers, construct their own sports models and visit the Atass Research Institute in Exeter. Suzy said the following about the workshop:

“Eilidh and I arrived in Exter for the event on Monday 3rd April which allowed some time to wander around Exeter's beautiful city centre, to see the Cathedral and sample as many coffee shops as we could. On the Tuesday, we arrived at the ATASS office first thing in the morning and were allocated teams for the workshop. The goal of the day was to predict the in-running odds of the outcome of football matches. We were then given the chance to test our models out in the evening, after some fun activities and games, during the Man United vs. Everton Premier League match. A great chance to see some real stats in action!

The next day was tennis modelling where we predicted the winner of a match based on each player's ranking and other variables that were available to us. It was great fun - two very long days of tough working - but a fantastic environment to work in and with great people. Eilidh and her team won a trophy for Best Football Model, and my team and I won a trophy for Best Tennis Model – this just added to our enjoyment even more!”