As the Data Turns

Do you want to be a major league sport? Perhaps it's time to open that Al Gorian "lock box" we have on our data.

Wolfram Alpha, a possible google competitor, is called a "computational knowledge engine", and the queries are top notch. In Search Engine Land yesterday, it was shown how free NFL statistics help fans and searchers learn more.

• I am a long time admirer of Wolfram|Alpha and I’m happy to report that my admiration continues to grow, as you can now access NFL (National Football League) statistics using Wolfram|Alpha.

Here's the query for "Tom Brady versus Joe Flacco passing yards". In the words of CDP track announcer Vance Cameron, "Boom, just like that."

Now, let's check the results for "Triple Crown Winners" via a query here.

Ugh.

This afternoon on twitter, o_crunk noticed Tennis is getting its act together too.

• Tennis Australia has exposed match analytics for the Australian Open to the public for the first time, allowing onlookers to dig into the same statistics made available to coaches, players and sports journalists. Served from IBM's US-based private cloud, the updated SlamTracker web application pulls together 39 million points of data collated from all four Grand Slam tournaments over the past seven years to provide insights into a player's style of play and progress.

I remember in about 1982 when my cousin, a sports bettor, needed to know the score for the Falcons-Dallas game at Fulton County, because he bet on it. He called information, got the phone number of the stadium, and called. A nice sounding southern woman said "oh, it's 21-13 for us, honey". It seems racing is still a lot closer to the 1982 NFL, than it is to 2012 tennis or football.