The foundational concept that is at the heart of True Champion Sports was born from three main sources in my life. Being a life-long sports fanatic, my academic career doing a Sports Business degree, and one of my favorite hobbies- being a fantasy sports commissioner and running online leagues.
Life-long Sports Fan
As a young sports fan I would often engage in discussions/ debates with my friends regarding the performance history of team sports and how the franchises compared to one another. I was captivated by this type of sports history. Examples like:
I was frustrated that these curiosities could not be fully answered. Often these debates would become opinionated, but more problematically, these conversations inevitably would focus on Championships won, and maybe appearances in the League’s Championship Game or Series- but almost always excluded all other types of performance & results. Although Championships are certainly the most notable form of success, the large majority of a franchise’s history was omitted and seemed unquantifiable in these debates.
These discussions couldn’t possibly summarize and account for all categories of historical performance, and contextualize them in the most meaningful way. Some of the factors that go unaccounted for are:
Academic Experience
This frustration continued once I got to university. As a student, I was lucky enough to take certain courses were sport-fan-oriented, and these types of fan-discussions I had in my personal life would also come up during my educational career. A primary example of this occurred in a course called “Professional Sports in North America” where the discussions we engaged in during seminars would often be these types of fan-oriented debates.
It became clear to me during this experience, that the sports community did not have a way of quantifying and contextualizing all of a franchise’s performance. That’s why these discussions were only able to focus on the most notable of performance results. I saw a need that had gone unfilled.
I also began to take note that even when my favorite sports talking-heads engaged in these discussions, they inevitably ran into the same issue. I started thinking that there must be a way of quantifying and summarizing all of the franchises’ performance for the purpose of having more meaningful historical discussions and overcoming the opinionated element of these conversations.
Role of Fantasy Sports’ in the Creation of TCS
I have been an avid fantasy sports commissioner for the past 10 years. I have always obsessed about creating scoring systems for my leagues that quantify athlete's in-game performance as accurately as possible. Over the years, I’ve conducted many research projects in an attempt to perfect my highly customized scoring systems. I noticed a trend that as my scoring systems were refined and became more and more accurate, by the end of the season when looking at my League’s rankings based on fantasy points, the correlation between the fantasy points and player’s perceived real-life value became almost indistinguishable.
The foundational concept of fantasy sports, is that a precise scoring system, that assigns points for various types of in-game performance, can accurately rank a player's individual game or season versus other similar players with tremendous accuracy. This main premise of fantasy sports, in combination with my experience as a life-long fan, and my educational background, ended up leading to a much bigger idea being born:
It would be possible to apply similar scoring principles to franchises, in great detail; to generate the most accurate ranking system ever created that would definitively reveal precise historical standings.
With this idea in mind I asked myself:
1. Can I create a series of scoring models/ complete algorithm, which accurately QUANTIFIES the various categories of performance results?
2. If I can succeed at #1, can I successfully CONTEXTUALIZE all of my findings?
And these are the 2 key words that are at the heart of all True Champion Sports projects. Quantify & Contextualize. I needed to find a way to quantify the vast history of each team’s performance, and contextualize my findings by bringing to life all of this history and analysis.
And thus, in January of 2012, True Champion Sports was born. I embarked on a colossal mission to Quantify and Contextualize the complete historical performance of the teams and leagues we adore.
Despite all of the hardships, discouraging times, and soul-searching throughout my journey, I was determined never to quit until I was able to provide fans with the most accurate, detailed, intricate, all-encompassing project of its kind ever conducted.
Finally, after more than 4 years, True Champion Sports is starting to take shape. Welcome fans; welcome.
