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Happy Sunday, sports fans! I write this with half an eye on England's 2nd test against India. TNT sports is one of the subscription packages I don't have and so I'm at the mercy of the BBC Sport notifications to let me know when a wicket has fallen. When England are batting, every 'buzz' on my phone is accompanied by a nervous glance and when it's India's turn I feel like notifications have been silenced! As I write, England have made a positive (when are they not, nowadays!) start to their run chase of 399. Surely they can't win this one....
Onto the round-up. First up, we have SVS regular Adam Green and the world of Snooker. I implore you to look further than the visual here. Not only has Adam produced a fantastic design showcasing the incredible achievements of Ronnie O’Sullivan at the UK Snooker Championships but he has built in within a thoughtful post articulating his design choices and the pros and cons of the chart used for this visual: the dot plot.
I just love this idea from Rob Taylor who decides to track his indoor rowing progress through the month of January by visualising how far his activity would have taken him in a real world environment. In this case, the River Ouse. It certainly puts into sharp focus the achievements Rob has managed and provides a great sense of perspective. I can foresee each months endeavours being plotted on different rivers around the world by way of a small multiple design :-) Great title too, Rob. Not least because it includes my surname! :-)
When I first saw this series of dots from Matthew Antoine, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. The simplistic beauty of the design, however, tempted me to dive into the interactive view where I was thrown into the world of baseball stats. After much exploring, clicking and hovering I came away with some thoroughly fascinating insights from this incredible piece of work. Brilliantly done, Matthew!
On Thursday, I was taking a short break and as I normally do, check my phone my any sporting updates. When I saw the ‘breaking news’ headline I had one of those moments where I had to take a couple of seconds and re-read the information, just to make sure it’s genuine. The news of Lewis Hamilton moving from Mercedes to Ferrari in 2025 was genuinely shocking and Anastasya has captured the moment with this perfectly timed viz. Showing the team branded colours works well here creating an immediate connection and while Lewis is the headline there are plenty of additional insights to be discovered.
I wasn't surprised to see some Hamilton-related vizzes this week and this stunner from Naresh Suglani charting the key details of the Mercedes and Ferrari F1 teams. As Naresh says, time will tell if Lewis has made the right move but one thing's for sure. It's placed a huge level of intrigue on the upcoming season. Beautiful work, as always, Naresh!
We turn to the world of Women’s Soccer in the States next with this weather-related design from Alison Gale. Tracking the temperature for each of the team's home games across an average of 5 years this impressive heatmap gives a great indication of when (and where) you are going to need to wrap up warm and when it’s time to break out the sun cream. There are some serious fluctuations here from around 40 degrees Fahrenheit (4 degrees Celsius) all the way to around 90 degrees (33). Great stuff, Alison!
For those familiar and regular readers of Sports Viz Sunday will no doubt be familiar with the work of Samuel Epley. On many occasions, Samuel’s designs are jam-packed full of information to explore and this latest, looking at birthplaces for all the players of the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49s doesn’t disappoint either. If you are based in the States, are there any players that herald from your hometown?
Every time I see this design from Ben Griffis I have a chuckle. Such a clever way to visualise the shots this season for Tottenham (an impressive array by the way) by way of a scannable QR code. Once again, I can easily imagine a small multiple of other teams ‘QR codes’, too. Brilliant stuff, Ben!
And last but not least, the Premier League transfer window might be closed but that doesn't have to stop you from analysing the data. To help with that, our very own CJ has written up a tutorial on how to use Python to grab the all important player movement data into a dataset from which you can add your own visualisation flare.
That's a wrap for this week, folks. Have a fabulous week ahead and keep those sporting vizzes coming.
Simon and the Sports Viz Sunday team