The numbers game

The main objective of this thesis was to illustrate how big data analytics and performance metrics have had socio-economic impacts on the sports industry. By historicizing and contextualizing the role of quantification, statistics and metrics, the researcher sought to provide a critical foundation for forthcoming ‘big data’ and ‘performance metrics’ found in the sports industry today. In order to enunciate why big data is collected in the first place and how it becomes productive in the world of sports, the author traced the ‘becoming industry’ of sports, with the ongoing commercialisation of sports, fundamentally including the use of statistics. In addition, she described how the use of data and statistical analysis in sports helped to turn it into an industry (so helped to commercialize it).