We’re over ten days into this year’s NBA playoffs, and several of the opening series have made it all the way to…Game 5. The NHL playoffs, which are entering their third week but only the second round, are also in no apparent hurry.
April 16, 2014• 4 minute read
Yesterday, I came across an interesting Vox.com article discussing Congressional district gerrymandering. In the article, author Andrew Prokop highlighted several of the country’s most gerrymandered districts. Having recently crunched some numbers on geographic data, why not try to quantitatively define the most gerrymandered districts and states?
Benn Stancil
Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer
April 11, 2014• 2 minute read
We’re less than two weeks into the 2014 baseball season, and most people would say that it’s too early to make any forecasts about the rest of the year.
Benn Stancil
Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer
March 28, 2014• 5 minute read
You come at the king, you best not miss. - Omar Little
At the start of this year’s NCAA tournament, FiveThirtyEight, the new website of reigning forecast champion Nate Silver, predicted each team’s chances of making it to different rounds of the tournament. In an update yesterday, FiveThirtyEight looked into how their forecasts were doing. Having made my own predictive bracket based on Las Vegas odds, I figured I’d do the same—and see who comes out on top.
Benn Stancil
Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer
March 18, 2014• 2 minute read
This year, Warren Buffett promised a billion dollars to anyone who picks a perfect bracket. Unfortunately, the odds aren’t in your favor—the chance of picking a perfect bracket if you pick every game at random is one in 9 quintillion (or 9,000,000,000,000,000,000).
Benn Stancil
Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer
February 27, 2014• 11 minute read
When Netflix wanted to create a hit TV show, it turned to data. By analyzing its viewers habits, Netflix uncovered that its customers particularly liked Kevin Spacey, director David Fincher, and political thrillers. In part because of these interests, Netflix brought the three together to create House of Cards—and thus far, the results have been tremendous.
Benn Stancil
Co-founder & Chief Analytics Officer