The first studies of sports analytics were in baseball. Oakland Athletics owner Billy Beane as he tries to rebuild his team without money or resources. He has just lost a few key players, so no one thinks that the Athletics will be successful. The team scouts are trying to choose players, but Beane ends up hiring a new analyst Paul DePodesta from the Indians. Together they got injured or unwanted players and built them into a team that could compete. The first season Beane uses this new system started out rough (19-25), but later the A´s turned it around, winning a record 20 straight games. This season ended with Oakland losing in an AL Division Series to the Minnesota Twins. Later that year, Beane was offered a contract with the Boston Red Sox, which would have made him the highest paid GM in the history of sports. Billy Beane turned this down, staying at the Athletics and continuing to play ¨Moneyball¨.
Football
If you have ever seen football before, you would know that going for it on fourth down is a very rare occassion. It would probably seem dumb to go for it on fourth down at any time that isn't at the very end of the game, much less every single time. Still, studies have started to show that going for it on fourth down every single time would leave you better off than never going for it. In the past, punting was very effective. Teams gained yardage at a much slower rate, so a after a good punt teams would have a very hard time scoring. Now with the fast-paced games with lots of passing and scoring, a punt does not help as much. Even though going for it may be the right choice, it would still be very hard to do without being criticized tremendously. Since a punt is the "normal" thing to do, nobody will be upset if you punt. If your team fails on fourth down, however, this would look much worse than just punting straight away. Coaches have started to become aware of just how much they could benefit from going for it, but doing this is still far from the standard of the NFL. If one team starts to do it, and fans and coaches see how beneficial this strategy would be, more teams could start to do it as well.
Hockey
Many studies have been done on puck possession in the NHL. Basically the rink is divided into three zones. These are offensive, neutral and defensive. A team or player will have a performance ¨number¨ for each zone. By seeing players styles, and how effective they are in each zone, analyst have been able to determine good strategies for scoring. Some of these include attacking the blue line (a line that is between the half line and goals) with speed and passing to the weak side of the rink. The Los Angeles Kings have been number one overall in puck possession in 2015-16, and are on track to do the same in 2016-17. Studies of puck possession have come a very long way in the past few seasons, and as more studies come out, teams might totally change the way they play.