Friday, February 05, 2016

AUDL Updating to Box Score, Still Room for Improvement

The American Ultimate Disc League showed off their box score anticipated to be used in the 2016 season (their 5th season).
AUDL box score via
In the 2015 season, only a handful of teams (Charlotte, Los AngelesSan Jose) utilized a box score that conveys game progression from quarter to quarter. These teams comprehend that an ultimate score is more than just two numbers. In the sports world, box scores are an accepted way to show a game recap. This would be a welcomed improvement if/when all AUDL teams adopt the box score.

However, what the AUDL is planning is a basic box score. Definitely an upgrade to what has been used (or not used) in the past but still just a box score duplication.

There is room for innovation! And the sport of ultimate should be leading, not following. Such as, demonstrating offensive points versus defensive points and when each of those occurred during the game.

Here's one idea. Below is a suped-up box score for the 2015 AUDL Championship game between San Jose Spiders and Madison Radicals.

O = point scored by team that started on offense (hold)
D = point scored by team that started on defense (break)
X = offense failed to score and allowed a point to be scored (broken)

The benefits of displaying the scoring method is to better convey game flow and provide instant analysis. Let's examine quarter-by-quarter...
1st quarter: clean game, no breaks.
2nd quarter: San Jose broke Madison twice, taking a 2-point lead into half.
3rd quarter: San Jose offensive line remains perfect.
4th quarter: Madison finally breaks San Jose, but the game ends in a Spiders 17-15 win.

FINAL: San Jose scored 13 points on offense + 4 defensive points (17) versus Madison scored 14 points on offense + 1 defensive point (15). Spiders' offense started the game 8/8 on O points and gave up 1 break the entire game while its defense scored 4 total goals.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

MLU has a new box score as well: http://mlultimate.com/welcome-to-the-new-box-score/

Sludge said...

Noted. http://sludgeonline.blogspot.com/2015/12/mlu-upgrades-ultimate-box-score.html

Sports & Design said...

MLU's version is much more solid in terms of design and stats. AUDL should adopt something similar. To have a new page per game on the site (similar to box score pages on ESPN) would be ideal instead of the short summaries they use now. That way anyone can quickly analyze key factors from the game without heading to ultianalytics.com or reviewing twitter feeds.