You wanted it, you got it. The final 2020 QB STEW composit…

When we started @CourtsideVC in 2016, the biggest question we faced was "Can you really generate venture returns investing in sports?". 5 years later, we have enough data to share. This is the story of how we turned our passion for sports into a business.
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First, some context. When I started my sports analytics software company in 2009, I was unable to raise a single dollar in venture capital. I ended up having to cobble together $10K, $25K and $100K checks from individuals to get things going.

At the time, there were no venture funds focused on this space and generalist VCs simply did not believe in the market size of sports companies. As a result, almost all of them ran to the hills when they heard the word "sports".

Even when we got to ~$10M in recurring revenue, there was nobody knocking on our door to try and give us growth capital to see if we could build something big. Ultimately, this forced us to sell short to private equity guys who destroyed the business.

Fast forward to 2016 and we felt the sports, fitness and gaming markets were on the verge of exploding - these were three places where the next generation was spending its money & yet there were no early stage funds setup to fund these entrepreneurs and strategically open doors.

Jayesh
@jayeshvk16

THREAD - HANUMA VIHARI'S INSPIRING JOURNEY.

Joined the St.Johns Cricket Academy at the age of 11. And after few days his father passed away. But the next day, Vihari scored 80 in the final and won a school tournament.

VVS was the first of five cricketers who came from St. John’s academy and went on to represent their country followed by Mithali Raj, MSK, Tarun Sai and Hanuma Vihari.

2012 - Picked as a last-minute replacement for the injured Manan Vohra for the 2012 U19 WC. India won the World Cup but he could only score 73 runs in 6 matches.

"That moment I told myself, I would be the first one to play for the national team from this U19 WC squad 2012."
- Hanuma Vihari in Spicy Pitch episode (cricbuzz)

2013 - SRH brought him in the IPL. Vihari opened the bowling as an off-spinner and removed Chris Gayle for just 1, also scored 46* in the same match while chasing and was awarded Man of the match in his 2nd IPL game.
Scored 241 runs in 17 games in IPL 2013, with two MOM.

Kirsti Miller
@KirstiMiller30

Female athletes are still subjected to the equivalent of a sex test, based on whether they appear feminine.

Dutee Chand in her successful appeal against the validity of the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, the Athletics Federation of India (AFI) originally began investigating her after complaints that she “ran like a boy”.

Chand was banned in 2014 after the AFI decided that her androgen (testosterone) levels were above the 10 nmol/L permitted by the IAAF’s hyperandrogegism regulations, resulting in her missing the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games.

Androgens, including testosterone, are naturally produced in significant – but varying – levels by both men and women.

Endocrine profiles in 693 elite athletes in the post-competition setting’, found that 16.5% of the ‘male’ athletes had low testosterone levels, and 13.7% of the ‘females’ had high testosterone levels, ‘with complete overlap between the

$Peter A. L\xf8hmann$

Peter A. Løhmann
@ploehmann

#swfc are finally back in league action tonight 8pm GMT away to Coventry #pusb

A relegation six pointer to kick off our second half of the season with 7 points separating us in 23rd and them in 16th.

A look of our numbers and theirs below and what they can tell us.

[thread]

I looked at the survival prognosis for teams in our position yesterday (https://t.co/rmVT8b5sFl).

Thankfully a prognosis is not a prediction, but it does bear out just how important tonight's game is.

#swfc Derby's latest win over QPR leaves Wednesday six points adrift of 21st and safety with two matches in hand.

How have teams in those circumstances done in the previous 22 seasons?

[thread] pic.twitter.com/LxENys45wC
— Peter A. L\xf8hmann (@ploehmann) January 27, 2021

Can we quantify match importance then?

Well, @FiveThirtyEight have given it a right good go and how they've done it is explained here: https://t.co/ObjB079Fjw

Their match importance rating ranges from 0 to 100 for a team.

In a game with a high match importance vs. a team with low match importance, a team's likelihood of winning increases: All else being equal, if match importance is 100 for the home team and 0 for the away team, the home team's odds of winning drop from Evens (50%) to 8/11 (58%).

If we look at the combined match importance ratings for both teams, tonight's game ranks 14th of the 317 matches with match importance ratings. Pretty important then!

Of our matches only the win against Bournemouth had a higher combined match importance than tonight's match: