Hi.
Notice anything different? Maybe little bit better StatsBomb? Slightly prettier than your wife at home? Hopefully a little less handbrake niggle?
One of the things I've been working on this summer has been a full site redesign. The cheap WordPress theme I grabbed last summer served us well enough for a year, but just barely. This new version is cleaner, looks better, and should run quite a bit better once we bounce to the new host platform and get optimized, which we'll do in the next couple of weeks.
This new version of StatsBomb is about 80% complete. There are additions that we chopped out for now that will slowly be added back in later. There are also some bugs that we're cleaning up because the company that programmed the theme were as little use as possible after they delivered everything. (Huge thanks to Greg Sines, ChelseaStats, and Kieron Hughes for taking time out of busy schedules last week to help us out.)
Stuff that now works:
- We have an archive! If you click on blog at the top and then scroll to the bottom of the page, you see "Older Entries." You can finally go back into bolivian from the first stuff we posted a year ago until now, and read it all.
- The Authors Page. It needs to be cleaned up and I need to get pictures of everyone, but by damn we have one.
- Our new logo should elicit far fewer complaints.
- You can plug in your email address on the left sidebar and in return we a) promise not to give your info to anyone else and b) occasionally send you cool and useful info available only to mailing list subscribers.
Stuff that MIGHT work:
- There is a radar gallery on the front page sidebar (at the bottom for mobile and tablet users). This MIGHT crash the page if it gets hit with a ton of traffic quickly, but it's been stable overnight, so normal usage is fine. There are about 200 radars in there right now, and if it stays stable I'll add more. I know it's not ideal, but it's a stopgap until the full searchable radar site becomes available.Be gentle.
Status Report
Last summer, this site started as a place where two guys who wrote a lot could combine their superpowers and form a far more powerful robot.
Wait. Check that. Let's start again...
Last summer, this site started as a way to bring together analytics writers in one location so that finding current writing didn't involve keeping up with 10 people's personal blogs. Ben Pugsley and myself were quickly joined by Colin Trainor, and we've added a somewhat regular rotating cast of characters since then.
How has it gone?
Well, monthly traffic trending looks like this:
Not bad for a casual dumping ground for stats articles by people who do this in their spare time and don't get paid a dime. Presumably this week or next we will pass a million page views on the site. (Apologies, as we've published almost nothing in August, mostly due to finishing the website stuff.) I'm proud of what we've built thus far.
However, we can do better. One way is to bring you more content, which we're working on. I'm always recruiting good analytical writers from other places to add to our content here (like the recently added Sam Gregory and Bobby Gardiner). We don't pay anything, so that's an obvious challenge, but the work published here is (quietly) followed by at least half the analysts in the Premier League and quite a number from lower leagues, the MLS, Scotland, and plenty of places I'm not even aware of. Oh, and Opta, Prozone, Instat, and just about any other data company you can think of. If you are looking for an interested, intelligent, and influential audience, we've got that in spades.
We're also trying to expand our league expertise a bit, so if you are an English-language writer who likes stats and analytics plus the Bundesliga, or Serie A, and want to write regularly here, get in touch.
Beyond that, we have a couple of projects on the go. One is the public radar site, where you will be able to look up and generate radars for players and seasons by yourself. Release date for that is "when it's done." My hope is that you'll see it in a month or two, but it's not worth putting out there if it isn't good enough. Plus, if my hunch is right, we needed to upgrade everything on the front and back end to host the eventual traffic load you guys will put on it. Here's the interface for beta the awesome @samihernia hooked me up with in the meantime while he works his magic.
The next project after that will be to produce historic player and team shot charts similar to what we're doing with the radar site, but attractive and useful like the ones coming out in the NBA right now.
The thing I am most excited about however is. This will be HUGE. One of the things I've wanted to do since I started writing again is to help uncover.
I'll give you full information just as soon as I get the okay from the lawyers.
Until then, enjoy preview week, and if you like what you read here, make sure to tell your friends.
Ted Knutson
August 11, 2014