In October, the Sports Analytics Club hosted a 2024 NFL season kickoff predictions contest among members. In the contest, each member came up with five picks for the Sunday NFL game, and the winner got a $25 gift card. The contest quickly turned competitive, eventually ending with sophomore Debesh Das Sharma beating junior Soumei Ogata in a tie breaker when Das Sharma won two picks out of three.
These are the sorts of activities that the sports analytics club does regularly.
It was founded in 2022 by four juniors, co-presidents Rian Khetani and Ansh Chaudary, officers Anthony Tran and Alan Zhang under the advisory of P.E. teacher Liz Alves. They currently have 25 active members who come to meetings, which are held on Red Thursdays in the Team Room.
“I was really into sports, and in freshman year, I dealt with a lot of injuries, but I still wanted to somehow stay in the sports realm, so I founded the Sports Analytics Club. It was always interesting to watch NBA games and see the statistics,” Khetani said.
At a typical club meeting, the officers go over athlete picks, cover odds for hypothetical sports betting and recent trade acquisitions in the NFL and NBA and discuss their predictions on which players are likely to perform well in upcoming games. Additionally, meetings may also consist of trivia questions on sports and interesting sport facts.
Club members use ESPN to see the statistics of athletes as well as their previous matchups to other athletes to help predict player performances.
Tran says that the club plans to hold meetings where they study statistics in sports further in detail. For example, they may try to analyze the chances of a quarterback getting sacked in a certain amount of time, as opposed to observing simpler statistics like general trends in the points earned or yards passed by athletes.
According to Tran, the club may hold a baseball or basketball-related competition in the future since the MLB season and NBA playoffs are starting up.
“One of our biggest goals is to try and work with the sports teams at Saratoga High,” Khetani said. “We could analyze their game footage and statistics to help them come up with winning strategies and even possibly strategies to prevent injuries because I know the basketball team this past year had over 10 concussions.”
