Sports Reference

Last updated

Sports Reference, LLC
Company type Private
Industry Sports statistics
FoundedAugust 2004;20 years ago (2004-08)
FounderSean Forman
Headquarters,
US
Products
Website www.sports-reference.com OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg

Sports Reference, LLC is an American sports statistics company that operates databases of several sports. They include Pro Football Reference for American football, Baseball Reference for baseball, Basketball Reference for basketball, Hockey Reference for ice hockey, FBref for association football (soccer), and pages for college football and basketball. [1] [2] Sports Reference also operate the online sports trivia game Immaculate Grid and the statistics-based subscription service Stathead. The company previously maintained Olympic Games stats from 2008 to 2020.

Contents

History

The company was founded in Philadelphia by Sean Forman in 2004 and incorporated as Sports Reference LLC in 2007. [3] [1] [4] The company operates databases of sports statistics for several sports. They include Pro Football Reference for American football, Baseball Reference for baseball, Basketball Reference for basketball, Hockey Reference for ice hockey, FBref for association football (soccer), and pages for college football and basketball. Sports Reference maintained a section on the Olympics from 2008 to 2020. [5] The sites attempt a comprehensive approach to sports data. For example, Baseball Reference contains more than 100,000 box scores while Pro Football Reference contains data on every scoring play in the National Football League (NFL) since 1941. [1] The college basketball section includes data on NCAA Division I men's basketball, with incomplete data going back as far as 1892—predating the first NCAA divisional split (1956) and the NCAA itself (1906). Division I women's basketball stats were added in 2023. [6] Sports Reference purchased the baseball trivia game Immaculate Grid on July 11, 2023, and integrated it with its sites. [7] [8]

Olympics

Sports Reference Olympics logo SR-Olympics.png
Sports Reference Olympics logo

Sports Reference added a site for Olympic Games statistics and history in July 2008. [9] [10]

The company announced in December 2016 that the Olympics site was to be shut down in the near future due to a change in its data licensing agreement. [11] Since that time, data for the 2016 Summer Olympics has been added, [12] but the site was not updated for the 2018 Winter Olympics. [13] [11] Sports Reference closed its Olympic site on May 14, 2020. [14]

The providers of the Olympic data, known as OlyMADmen, launched a new site called Olympedia in May 2020. [15] [16] [17] [18] According to Slate , editing of "Olympedia [was] restricted to about two dozen trusted academics and researchers who specialize in Olympic history." [19] The site is owned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). [20] On December 29, 2023, OlyMADmen member Bill Mallon announced that they would no longer be able to update Olympedia because the IOC declined to renew the contract necessary to permit them to do so. [21] [22]

Related Research Articles

The 1900 Summer Olympics were held in Paris, France, from May 14 to October 28, 1900, as part of the 1900 World's Fair.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1998 Winter Olympics medal table</span> Award

The 1998 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XVIII Olympic Winter Games, was a winter multi-sport event held in Nagano, Japan, from 7 to 22 February 1998. Twenty-four nations earned medals at these Games, and fifteen won at least one gold medal; forty-eight countries left the Olympics without winning a medal. Competitors from Germany earned the highest number of gold medals (12) and the most overall medals (29). With 10 gold medals and 25 overall medals, Norway finished second in both categories. Denmark won its first – and as of 2018 only – Winter Olympics medal, while Bulgaria and the Czech Republic won their first Winter Games gold medals. Azerbaijan, Kenya, Macedonia, Uruguay, and Venezuela competed for the first time, but none of them won a medal.

The 1952 Winter Olympics, officially known as the VI Olympic Winter Games, took place in Oslo, Norway, from 14 to 25 February 1952. A total of 694 athletes representing 30 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) participated in the Games, taking part in 22 events from 6 sports.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May 1982</span> Month of 1982

The following events occurred in May 1982:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beth Jurgeleit</span> New Zealand field hockey player

Beth Ellen Jurgeleit is a New Zealand field hockey goalkeeper, who competed as part of the New Zealand women's national field hockey team at the 2004 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Olympics.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Kramer, Staci D. (February 17, 2009). "Fantasy Sports Ventures Takes Minority Stake In Sports Reference LLC". CBS News . PaidContent.org. Archived from the original on September 9, 2017. Retrieved September 24, 2021.
  2. Fisher, Eric (February 16, 2009). "FSV buys stake in reference sites". Sports Business Journal . Archived from the original on February 17, 2009.
  3. Wagner, James (February 13, 2019). "From a Church in Philadelphia, Sports Reference Informs the World". The New York Times . Archived from the original on February 14, 2019. Retrieved February 14, 2019.
  4. "Company Overview of Sports Reference, LLC". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on October 6, 2015. Retrieved November 8, 2013.
  5. "Sports Reference Main Page". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on February 1, 2010. Retrieved April 2, 2014.
  6. Lynch, Mike (February 15, 2024). "Sports Reference Expands Women's College Basketball Data". Sports Reference Blog. Sports Reference LLC. Retrieved February 18, 2024.
  7. Kepner, Tyler (July 11, 2023). "The Hottest Thing in Baseball Is a Grid of Nine Blank Squares" . The New York Times . Archived from the original on August 28, 2023. Retrieved August 30, 2023.
  8. Winkie, Luke (October 1, 2023). "The Trendy New Trivia Game That's Like Wordle for Straight Men". Slate . Archived from the original on November 11, 2023. Retrieved November 11, 2023.
  9. sean (July 9, 2008). "Olympics at Sports Reference Launches". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on July 26, 2008.
  10. "About This Site". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on July 29, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2018.
  11. 1 2 "Site Closing". Sports-Reference.com. December 16, 2016. Archived from the original on December 19, 2016. Retrieved November 13, 2017.
  12. "2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Games". Sports-Reference. Archived from the original on July 20, 2018. Retrieved July 20, 2018.
  13. "Winter Games Index". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on July 7, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2018.
  14. "Site is Closed". Sports-Reference.com. Archived from the original on October 3, 2019. Retrieved May 15, 2020.
  15. Lohn, John (May 27, 2020). "Comprehensive Olympedia Database Available to Public; Loaded with Information". Swimming World . Archived from the original on September 24, 2021. Retrieved September 24, 2021. OlyMADmen, an international group of Olympics experts and historians, have made their exhaustive Olympics database available
  16. Perelman, Rich (May 27, 2020). "LANE ONE: Staggering, brilliant, astonishing portal to Olympic history opens with debut of Olympedia.org". The Sports Examiner. Archived from the original on September 26, 2021. Retrieved September 26, 2021.
  17. Mallon, Bill (May 27, 2020). "Olympedia now open to the public". OlympStats.com. Archived from the original on June 6, 2020. Retrieved May 27, 2020. the result many years of work by a group of Olympic historians and statisticians called the OlyMADmen
  18. "About". Olympedia. Archived from the original on June 14, 2020. The group that has compiled the database refers to itself as MADmen — MAD being an acronym for several of the early members of the group, but also signifies their commitment to the project in another sense.
  19. Harrison, Stephen (July 26, 2021). "How to Use Wikipedia When You're Watching the Olympics". Slate . Archived from the original on July 26, 2021. Retrieved July 29, 2021.
  20. Bauernfeind, John (February 27, 2017). "IOC looks to acquisition of Olympedia as step toward modernizing Olympic recordkeeping". Sports Business Journal. Archived from the original on May 29, 2023. Retrieved May 29, 2023.
  21. Mallon, Bill [@bambam1729] (December 29, 2023). "In 2016 Olympedia was purchased by the IOC but we have had a contract with them to update it since that time" (Tweet). Retrieved April 4, 2024 via Twitter.
  22. Mallon, Bill [@bambam1729] (December 29, 2023). "As of 1 Jan 2024 our contract with the IOC is not being renewed. The OlyMADMen will no longer update Olympedia after today, 29 Dec" (Tweet). Retrieved April 4, 2024 via Twitter.