We start with the return of the NBA, which also means the return of our NBA prediction model, powered by our RAPTOR player ratings. We’ve gotten rid of some things — most notably the more predictive version of RAPTOR, which threw off our playoff predictions last year — and have also changed some things around […]
We know which athletes are great, but we know less about what makes them great. To help, FiveThirtyEight is compiling The Greatness Files, a compendium of, well, what makes great athletes great. First up, a rising star named LeBron James. This is not another LeBron James vs. Michael Jordan article. Whenever LeBron reaches another NBA […]
sara.ziegler (Sara Ziegler, sports editor): What a weekend in the NFL. Week 15 gave us an epic Saints-Chiefs matchup that could just be a Super Bowl preview, an entertaining tilt between former Oklahoma Sooners Jalen Hurts and Kyler Murray, and an AFC East title won by the Buffalo Bills for the first time since 1995. […]
Over the course of 2020, FiveThirtyEight’s visual journalists covered a historic election, an unprecedented year in sports, a raging pandemic and an economy in free fall. So to cap off this long, strange, difficult year, we’re continuing our tradition of celebrating the best — and weirdest — charts we’ve published in the last 12 months. […]
In the first edition of the College Football Playoff, the sport’s new method of selecting a champion worked almost exactly as intended. The four teams chosen to play for a national title in 2014 were four of the Power Five conference champions — 12-1 SEC champion Alabama, 12-1 Pac-12 champion Oregon, 13-0 ACC champion Florida […]