I'm done gatekeeping SportsBall

Hi there! I'm a nerd. Or a dork. Or whatever you want to call the type of person who absolutely adores data visualization.

A few months ago, I discovered an account on TikTok/Instagram/YouTube called "SportsBall" and it has been pushing out absolutely incredible sports visualizations seemingly every other day since.

I have not shared this account with many people, which is mean. Well, I vaguely talked about it on the podcast a few weeks ago when Darren and I were discussing ABS system for baseball and I talked about a video that laid out changes to the strike zone over the years (see below).

Anyway, they're still small-ish and growing and I want to support SportsBall (beyond subscribing to their newsletter and YouTube channel and social media accounts), so now I get to share this incredible plethora of video content with all of you.

Here's an example of one, this one being about the MLB strike zone. Take it for a spin, see if it does anything for you. If it does, they have 160 more of these videos for you to dig through.

Now, I would love to embed these videos onto this page and as regular parts of the Front Row Seat newsletter, but all of their videos are vertical (the kind you see on TikTok or in Instagram stories).

When I embed a vertical video onto this page, it does two things (and neither of them are good):

1. It makes itself as wide as the page. Which, suffice to say, is HUGE.
2. It does not fit itself to your screen, as it would if you were on your phone and in a video-serving app.

Often, you're left watching just a small part of the actual video and getting lost. So, for now, this post will have to do.

There is so much that is easily explained through these short videos that I feel like they should almost be required watching for sports fans. I better understand the things I'm watching, and have answers to the "why" and "how" of most of what is going on, simply because of these videos.

Here's one about how the different sports leagues make money, which I have rewatched a few times now because it's not often you get this kind of information across the leagues lined up right next to each other like this.

I am a visual learner. I'm learning a ton from SportsBall. You should, too.