Announcing the FOPSSS!

FOPSSS Showcase

-Bradley Orego

I am here today to share with you my vision of the newest and hottest thing in the field of Sports Statistics visualization. I bring you, the Field-Of-Play Sports Statistics System! This is a new wave of technology brought to you in order to make reading sports statistics easier and more intuitive.

How obnoxious is it to try to look through tables and charts and spreadsheets just to find whatever stats your favorite player has? Why is that so difficult? Now, with FOPSSS, you can simply select a player, get a view of the field of play of that player, and a cool visualization of their statistics.

There are two facets. This is how it works:

(Example: Hockey, and the NHL)

Player View:

Select your favorite player (via search, from a list, via the system, etc.). When you select them, their image  appears on the ice, in the natural position that they play (i.e. Evgeni Malkin appears at Center Ice, because he plays Center). From here, Evgeni's stat categories are splayed out on the other end of the ice, in the appropriate position of their usual occurrence on the ice (goals from in-front, hits in the corner, Penalty Minutes in the Penalty Box, etc). Each statistic is a different size to give you an initial view of how that player ranks compared to the league. League Leaders get special colors per category, as well. Upon mouse-over, you get the actual number of their statistic in Fish-Eye view, with the closest players to them, and what their current stat is. This allows the user to quickly and easily compare players based on this statistic.

Leader View:

This occurs on the other half of the ice. Selecting a statistic category from the ice will bring the user into Leader View, which will then highlight the positions on the right-hand side that have the highest number of players leading in that category. Upon mouse-over, these positions will reveal, again in Fish-Eye, the names and current stat of each player. The more players that are ranked highly in a category, the larger the size of the position letter (i.e. lots of Right and Left Wings in goals scored, with few Centers or Defensemen), as well as the position with the actual leader being highlighted in another color. Switching between statistics is as easy as clicking on another stat from the left-hand side, and the system automatically updates the sizes and colors of the positions on the left.

The cursor is even a cute image of a hockey stick (or football, etc) to make the user happy as well as to add a little zest. This system would be applicable to other sports (such as football), by using a similar system of player positions and approximate statistic occurence (touchdowns will be in the endzone, rushing stats at the line of scrimmage, reception statistics downfield on the sidelines, passing statistics in the pocket, etc). 

No longer do you have to strain your eyes on stats sheets and vomit at the obnoxious, boxy look of statistics pages. Now, with FOPSSS, statistics is as easy as watching the game itself!