Members
Director: Dr Ian McHale is Reader in Statistics, Chair of Statistics in Sports Section of the Royal Statistical Society and Associate Editor of the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, a journal of the American Statistical Association. Ian has published research in top-rated peer reviewed journals on forecasting in sport, identifying ability of competitors, ranking in sport and gambling related issues. He has worked on several high-profile consultancy projects, including the creation of the EA Sports Player Performance Index, the Official Player Rating System of the Barclays Premier League.
David Percy, Associate Director and Professor of Applied Mathematics: Dave’s main academic contributions to sports business analytics include theoretical and practical work on paralympic sports, Alpine skiing, badminton, lotteries, snooker, darts and bar quizzes. Specific projects include investigating methods of prior elicitation for robust model fitting, a rolling contract for randomness testing with the National Lottery Commission, developing a variety of optimal sporting rules and tactical strategies, constructing interactive shrinkage methods for class handicapping and formulating hybrid intensity models for repairable systems.
As well as publishing research papers and contributing conference presentations on sports business analytics, his other notable research dissemination includes invited lectures on mathematics in sports and games at the IMA Mathematics conference (2011) and at a meeting of the Manchester Group of the Royal Statistical Society (2003). He co-chaired IMA international conferences on mathematics in sport (2007, 2011) and edited conference proceedings on both occasions. He also edited special issues on mathematics in sport for Management Mathematics (2009, 2013) and for Mathematics Today (2012).
Rose Baker, Professor of Statistics: In recent years Rose has written extensively on sports related topics including forecasting in annual contests and American Football and time-varying rankings of teams and players in various sports.
Her research has been published in several highly-rated peer reviewed journals.
Chris Brady, Professor of Management Studies: Chris is an expert in football business and finance and has authored several books on the subject, including Rules of the Game, End of the Road, and the best-selling The 90 Minute Manager. His two most recent books are The Extra Mile, which deals with employee engagement, and Intelligent M&A, an analysis of the intelligence function within the M&A process. His current research interest focuses on all aspects of the business of sport. Chris is a regular contributor to BBC TV News, Sky Business News, Radio 5; he is also an occasional contributor to BBC Newsnight and a variety of other news media outlets.
Dr Mark James is a Reader in Law and is one of the UK's leading sports lawyers. Mark has written widely on sports law issues and in particular on the regulation of football spectators, the legality of football banning orders, consent to injury and the regulation of the Olympic Games. He is an Editor of the open access Entertainment and Sports Law Journal, on the Editorial Board of Law in Sport and author of the leading textbook, 'Sports Law'.
Phil Scarf, Professor of Applied Statistics and Operational Research: Phil Scarf has organised three conferences on “Mathematics in Sport” on behalf of the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications and edited proceedings associated with these conference. He is co-creator of the EA Sports Player Performance Index, the Official Player Rating System of the Barclays Premier League.
He has published papers on sports analytics in top-rated peer review journals. He was principal investigator on the EPSRC funded project “Optimum Strategy in Sport” (EP/F005792/1) working with the English Institute for Sport and British Cycling, co-investigator on “Modelling training and performance in elite cyclists” (EP/F006136/1).
Tony Syme, lecturer in economics: Tony is an economist who has delivered courses in sports economics at undergraduate and postgraduate level at the Universities of Salford and Birmingham. His research in this field lies primarily in two sports: (i) football, in which he has written papers on the topics of home advantage, 'fairness' and the design of the Scottish Premier League, the impact of new stadia upon sporting performance, and the efficiency of in-play betting markets; and (ii) professional golf, in which his papers include applications of tournament theory to prize structure within the PGA and European Tours, the impact of marriage and children upon the labour supply of Tour golfers, the effect of home advantage upon performance, and the incidence of the 'hot hand'.
His latest sports research project is a collaboration with the PGA Tour that utilises game theory to investigate strategic decision-making in professional golf.
Peter Williams, lecturer in sports studies: the main context for much of Pete’s research has been rugby union, with published work on how significant changes to its operating environment have influenced governance of the sport. More recently, this has extended to using sports business analytics to evaluate the effects of policy making on competition. This has resulted in the publication of a detailed study on competitive balance in elite English rugby and ongoing comparative studies of professional leagues across Europe.
