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Welcome to another Sunday and another Sports Viz Sunday weekly round-up. Catching my eye in the world of sport this week are the early stages of the Cricket T20 World Cup being hosted in Australia. The home nation getting a thrashing by neighbours New Zealand probably wasn't part of the script but with all these cricket tournaments there is an excellent opportunity to recover and I fully expect Australia to feature in the latter stages along with the usual candidates, New Zealand, India, and of course (hopefully!) England.
The Premier League juggernaut continues but with the ever looming presence of the World Cup on the horizon (now just under a month away). Every player that takes an awkward fall is now under the will they/won't they compete in Qatar speculation. Unfortunately, we've already seen some top players ruled out of contention, let's hope the demands of the regular season and short turnaround time doesn't restrict the quality of players and therefore play we'll be witnessing in the desert.
On to the round-up. I can imagine many folks hunched over their computers gathering data, cleaning data, still thinking about data, and working on their #ironviz entries. I have never failed to be impressed by the dedication that goes into these visuals; the topic's passion is unmistakable to see in each design. Being that this year, the topic is sports/games related I am paying even closer attention to seeing what comes through. Good luck everybody and remember, if you enjoyed doing it and maybe learned something along the way, you've already won.
Let's start with #IronViz and it was fantastic to see Sports Viz Sunday regular Ant Pulley dust off his snooker cue and refresh his already amazing viz focusing on the remarkable career of Ronnie O'Sullivan. I remember fondly the original and the update doesn't disappoint either. A simple yet beautiful design that plots the journey of the seven time world champion.
As I mentioned, one of the most special aspects of #IronViz is the passion that comes through in each design. This next entry is a perfect demonstration of this. Nicole Klassen's epic focussing on the world of rock climbing is jam-packed to the rafters (or should that be crevices?!) with amazing detail around this sport which is growing in both popularity and visibility. So much to explore here, enjoy, and congratulations, Nicole!
Our final #IronViz feature this week takes a look into the world of basketball and in particular, the amazing career of Steph Curry who is widely accepted to have redefined the sport. A fantastic example of storytelling from Ali as he takes us through Curry's journey from "too small and frail to compete in basketball" to "three-point shooting master". Great job, Ali!
This next viz got a lot of well-deserved attention on social media this week. Steve Fenn takes a look at the 2022 MLS soccer wages with this treemap/bar chart combo. Clearly showing the disparity between clubs and also players within clubs this is an fascinating design to explore interactively and delve deeper into.
Brett2point0 shares an intriguing look at the "Top 20 most unlikely catches" in American football. I like the takeaway title that says just 5 quarterbacks account for over half of these epic claims. Isn't it great the sheer amount of data that comes from the world of sport, just about anything can be measured and visualised!
GET YOUR BOOKMARKS READY. This resource below from Brendan Kent list's over 40 (YES 40) free sport-related data sets. Ever in need of motivation? Still looking for that #IronViz inspiration? Look no further! Thanks for sharing, Brendan!
Our man, CJ Mayes has emerged from his tech lair with this fantastic piece of code that allows the tracking and archiving of specific Twitter hashtags. I'm excited to see how we can leverage this to track our #sportsvizsunday tagged tweets.
Finally, I wonder whether our co-lead Simon Beaumont and Paul Chapman @cheeky_chappie managed to sprinkle some good luck over this McLaren F1 car for Lando Norris at the recent Alteryx conference in Amsterdam. We'll need to wait until Sunday night (UK time) to see how he has performed in the US GP.
Take care everyone, and have a great week ahead.
Simon and the Sports Viz Sunday team.