HOT Lane Primer

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AFL Football is a great competitive game played in Australia during the winter months.

Statistics is the branch of mathematics involved with the practice and science of collecting and analyzing numerical data in large quantities.

When applied to Sports, Statistics is used to examine, “How Many”, “What Type”, “How Long”, “How Effective”, and so on.

Statistics have become a key part of AFL Football over the last few years, and it is hard to find any commentary of a game that is not filled with Statistics.

Here is a great two minute video about how Statistics are compiled in real time by “Champion Data” during an AFL football match.

Here is another excellent video about the mathematics involved with being a sports statistician.

If you enjoyed those videos, you might like to do some Sports Statistics of your own, for someone you know playing a sport, or even for yourself. Later in this post we will look at a very low cost computer devices that record and track Player Stats for a variety of different sports.

Learn Maths Through Footy

Image Source: Herald Sun Newspapers

The Melbourne newspaper the “Herald Sun” produces a very reasonably priced “Learn Maths Through Footy” PDF booklet each year during the Football season.It is an excellent publication, and we highly recommend it.

Unfortunately, this year’s booklet finished selling around mid August. So if you missed out, then keep an eye out for the booklet next year.

The Herald Sun “LMTF” workbook includes a wide variety of activities, which vary from graphing to problem solving and geometry.

Each worksheet provides links to current football statistics to increase interest and engagement among students.

Here is a list of the worksheets in the “LMTF” 2011 booklet.

1 A new angle 2 Accurate kicking 3 Club membership 4 Compare height & weight 5 Complex areas 6 Cost of lunch 7 Energy to burn 8 Evacuating the MCG – circles 9 Fitness 10 Football grounds & area 11 Football ladder spreadsheet 12 Goal-kicking percentages 13 Ladder logic 14 MCG facts & figures 15 Number lines 16 Player injuries 17 Player salaries 18 Predicting results 19 Problem solving 20 Problem solving with equations 21 Stem and leaf comparisons 22 Using calculators to compare 23 Using graphs to compare 24 What’s in a name – probability? 25 Who is the best player?

A typical Statistics type exercise provided in the Herald Sun 2011 Workbook asks a series of question about AFL Club Memberships, such as:

Is it true that Juniors and Concession ticket holders make up the majority of club memberships ?

If you do not have a Workbook, then there are some Free Worksheets available at the link below:

AFL Club Membership Statistics

One excellent activity covered in the LMTF booklet involves mathematically examining recent AFL Club membership numbers. There is a table of Membership Numbers, broken down by Adults, Concessions, and Juniors, at the following link.

Students can investigate questions like:

Which Clubs have had increases in Memberships between 2009 and 2010 ?

Which Club had the biggest increase in membership numbers ?

Which Club had the biggest Percentage increase in membership ?

Which Club had the largest decrease in membership numbers ?

Which Club had the largest percentage decrease in membership numbers ?

If the Club with largest number values, is different to the club with the largest Percentage value, then this could lead to some discussion.

Questions could also be setup about Adult versus Junior members and so on.

This is just one of many Statistics exercises that could be done using Football Statistics.

Other AFL Statistics activities could be working out Who is the best player, Which team is best at offence, and which one at defence, Which team wins most at which Ground, From what range are most goals kicked from, and so on.

AFL Statistics Websites

If you want plenty of AFL Statistics, including the ability to compare current players side by side, then this site is a must:

Another great site for Footy Stats, complete with comprehensive player rankings is this one.

The following site has plenty of AFL historical statistics

Doing Your Own Statistics

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“SportZstats” is a simple to use system that can be used to compile results for any team sport including soccer, basketball, netball, cricket, rugby union, rugby league, American football, hockey and AFL Football.

You can get access to online stats diaries at sportzstats.com, where you can record all your stats, and graph your progress.

Here is a quick thirty second video by Peter Daicos about Sportzstats.

SportZstats counters are available for around $30 at Rebel Sport and SportsMart and many other stores in Victoria Australia.

For a full list of suppliers, and information about how to buy online, Visit the SportZstats website at the following link:

That’s it for Footy Statistics. We will also be doing some other posts on AFL Football in the next few days, since it is Footy Finals month here in Melbourne Australia.

Great AFL Finals Moments Video

If you don’t think AFL is one of the most exciting fast paced games in the world, then watch this video.

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