9 replies to this topic

[Mike in STL]

Much to my chagrin, Pro Football Focus is doing away with their signature stats. Well, not completely. You'll still be able to access them with a special media account that is "substantially more expensive" according to the email conversation I had with the guys there. Waiting to hear back how much more expensive we are talking here. 

 

In it's place they are rolling out a new grading system that if you have been to the site, it's the top ten lists they have listed by position over the last couple months. One stat, one number, that encompasses everything. Rather than being able to look at a number of stats and see where the players strengths and weaknesses are. Looks like if you went to FanGraphs and all that was listed was WAR. 

 

The email also said that 19 NFL teams uses these grades for evaluating matchups. I guess that's supposed to give it validity. But I checked out their trial version, It's not complete, but I think  It seems pretty weak. For example, you pick a matchup, I chose Ravens/Bengals, and you get  to see that Steve Smith has an 82.7 grade. Pacman Jones opposite him has an 80.8 grade. Advantage Smith...I guess. Marvin Jones is an 80.5, and Lardarius Webb is a 74.1, Advatage Jones...I guess. 

 

I hope the full version offers a hell of a lot more when it comes out. 

[SportsGuy]

Haven't heard of this analytics site before but it was cited by yahoo.

They still like the Ravens btw.

http://massey-peabod...power-rankings/

[Mike in STL]

After chatting with guys at PFF last year when they did away with premium stats available to regular Joe's like us, in lieu of basically, Madden ratings, they included me in their "Media Correspondent Program". It's a fancy way of saying that I get an email late week previewing the upcoming Ravens game, and a email Sunday night or Monday morning reviewing the game just played. Usually a paragraph for each team, and it says "Player X got a grade of ____" "Player Y got a grade of _____". They want you to share the info for them on your outlet, but without the premium stats to back up the grade, what's the point? 

 

So I just got their email asking if I wanted to opt-in for it this year. Included a survey on last years service, and what can be done to make it better. Needless to say, I politely asked to throw us a bone with some premium stats to back up the grading, and then I'd be inclined to share.

 

If anyone is interested, you can request a quote to get the full premium stats again. They have it broken down into three categories. Corporate (NFL/NCAA team, scouts, coaches). Media (Us, beat writers, local TV), Non-publishing (Gambling, fantasy, die-hard fans). Corporate and Media are likely very expensive but you can publish their data. I'm sure it's in the thousands of dollars. The non-publishing is just that, so hopefully much cheaper. Might just request a quote for shits and giggles. 

 

But I wonder if I say on a message board "Hey guys, Joe Flacco has deep ball accuracy of 75%" if that counts as "publishing"

 

Still bitter about this. Lol. 

[Mike in STL]

Haha... No, seriously.

 

Hi Michael,

 

Thank you for your interest in our Premium Stats. We know that you'll love this product. PFF is happy to offer fans like you 12 months of access to this commercial-grade product for $1,500.

 

GTFOH. It was I think, $39 a year, maybe $19, can't remember. Do whatever you want with it. Now it's $1,500 and you can't tell a soul. I can only imagine what the corporate package is. First born...left nut...arm and leg...all four?

 

What a joke.

[Mackus]

Capitalism, baby!

[Mike in STL]

Got PFF's email today about their new subscriptions. Premium stats, and basically everything you could ever want is available to the public again...for $199.99 a year. 

 

Still way too steep. But it's a $1,300 reduction in price from a year and a half ago, and at that point you were not allowed to publish anything of theirs. Research purposes only.

 

At this pace, next year it'll be a reasonable $50/year and I might jump back on board.

[Dupin]

They must've lost profits.  I know I cancelled my subscription.

[Mike in STL]

They must've lost profits.  I know I cancelled my subscription.

I think they wanted their rights to be exclusive to big media. But I think even big media with millions of dollars to throw around had to even be like, "This used to be $19.99. Now you to charge us $10K?"

 

Feel like PFF thought big media would care more about exclusivity, but when it comes to statistics, they don't care if you or I have access to the same info they do. Big media dumbs down their content anyway so that even the casual fan can read the paper or watch a sports report and understand what happened. You start talking about yards per route run or pass rush productivity percentage in The Sun Paper, you'll have a lot of people being like, "huh?"

 

What PFF should try to capitalize on is trying to get a one hour show on NFL Network similar to what MLB Network has with "MLB Now". Take one hour a day and talk about a higher lever of analytics. The other 23 hours you can talk about the same boring crap for the large group of casual fans. 

[Dupin]

That would be nice, sort of a like the advanced metrics version of NFL Matchup but every day (instead of buried in a timeslot that gets 0 viewership).

[Mike in STL]

That would be nice, sort of a like the advanced metrics version of NFL Matchup but every day (instead of buried in a timeslot that gets 0 viewership).

Exactly.