An interdisciplinary group of University of Michigan faculty from the School of Kinesiology and the School of Information have come together for a massive open online Sports Analytics Performance Specialization to share the science behind sports analytics.

Working with the Center for Academic Innovation, the team of Stefan Szymanski, professor of Sport Management, Wenche Wang, assistant professor of Sport Management, Youngho Park, lecturer of Sport Management, and Pete Bodary, clinical assistant professor of Applied Exercise Science and Movement Science, will launch the first three of five courses on May 17. The initial courses on the Coursera platform will introduce sports analytics, take a closer look at the Moneyball sabermetrics approach, and show how to use various prediction models with sports data. Included is a discussion about responsible sports gambling.

The fourth course, set to launch in June, will focus on the increased use of sports performance wearable technology—consumer-level smart devices like Fitbits and Apple watches to more sophisticated equipment used in sports practice and play. The fifth course scheduled for July is on machine learning. Students will program statistical models that learn from historical data, such as match outcomes and sensor information, in order to predict future results.

• Read the full Michigan News article.
• Watch the YouTube course intro by Dr. Pete Bodary: youtu.be/FjaVPCCaq_4