The term “big data analytics” should be familiar to most people by now, partly because the practice has fully penetrated into every aspect of life. Whether it is TikTok, Amazon, or academic websites used by students, big data is everywhere. The ability to sift enormous amounts of data changed the direction of information and quantification. My own interest in the relationship between big data and sports emerges from the historical highlights and data overviews of the Orlando Magic and Chicago Bulls that I once saw on social media. The interesting conclusions drawn from the data analysis made me anxious to go to an in-person game on Thanksgiving to verify the veracity of the conclusions.

       The analysis and application of big data have had far-reaching influence on the sports industry. Teams have utilized analytics to develop strategies and win competitions. When it comes to this, no one understands the role of data analytics better than Oakland Athletics. The general manager of this baseball team uses in-game stats to analyze who may be underrated. The practice led Athletics to the playoffs on a very low team budget. This feat was once the subject of a feature film, the famous Moneyball.1 The team's coaching staff uses big data to develop customized strategies to help individual athletes. Other sports teams, including the Chicago Bulls and the University of Michigan football team, have started using this approach. In addition to being helpful to the teams themselves, big data also drives customer engagement, improving and changing the way marketing is done and how the business is run. Sports organizations can detect patterns of digital engagement, run statistics on what content fans are most interested in, and count viewing time through online logins, and more.2 Teams can also use social media as the most effective data-driven and collection platform for the purpose of connecting with marketing tickets. Because of this, social media is the perfect place to market. For example, Ticketmaster launched Live Analytics in 2011, which was designed to help major sports organizations that conduct events in the field better communicate with their fans and drive ticket sales.3 Analytics for all areas can also become more rational and efficient in terms of procurement, logistics, and personnel management. A good example is the scheduling of games and the use of data to maintain relationships with customers.4 While helping operations, big data is also very important for expanding business and partnerships. From sponsorship to advertising to team negotiations and player transactions, data is needed to build effective partnerships.5 In the past, when teams negotiated, lack of information led to limited negotiating tools. With a lot of data and an optimized solution, a significant amount of money can be saved. Each of the above can be seen as a help and benefit of big data for the sports industry, but does big data bring more benefits and advantages to consumers?

       With the widespread use of big data analytics in the sports industry, the industry will experience certain contradictions and problems. As we all know, the analysis and application of big data is first of all based on the size of the data volume. Popular sports with large audience bases, such as football, soccer, and basketball, will have a more rapid development momentum. This may raise some concerns. The "rich-poor", "strong-weak" phenomenon in the sports industry is likely to become more and more serious. Some "niche sports" that have fewer participants and a generally smaller number of spectators may lose out to massive sports that are taking over social media and online publicity channels. At the same time, some mass teams and leagues in under-developed countries will also find it harder to gain attention and progress. As they are gradually marginalized, the gap between them and other high-level leagues in the world will further increase. The end result could be that, in a few decades, the majority of the population will be playing a fixed number of sports. People will have lost choice. In addition to this, the massive collection of consumer habits and information by teams and merchants' technology platforms is also a cause for concern. By heavily collecting information about people's habits, the right to privacy may be invaded. Merchants and teams gain more financial benefits and notoriety by collecting consumers' daily habits to push more appropriate and attractive information. In contrast, big data creates much less value and revenue for consumers. When big data collects information about people, it is useful to have some protection measures in place. At the same time, it should be a benefit to consumers to analyze the injuries and causes of professional players in games and practices to remind people how to avoid and protect themselves when playing similar sports. This is one way in which more data provides benefits to fans. But apparently, the vast majority of teams and sports companies have little or very little analysis and application for this.

       With the massive increase in data volume and the growing maturity of big data analytics, the concept of the metaverse has gradually become the subject of research in the sports industry. The continued development of the metaverse has brought many new opportunities and challenges for sports rights owners and brand partners. The core concept of the metaverse is a "successor state to the internet."  Experiencing your physical location in a place other than the real world or the virtual world will become a reality.6 All the ideas that emphasize the metaverse continue to stress that this concept is more interactive than big data. Every sports club that is aware of the metaverse is trying to gradually bring the club closer to the fans. They are bringing a larger amount of content and interacting with fans in a more unique way. Nike has launched its own virtual world in Roblox.7 Players can interact with each other in a free sports game. Every participant in the world can compete with other players in swimming, track and field, etc. Relying on the growing AR and VR technology, Nike's Roblox is also generating increased profits. Predictably, the emergence of Nike's own metaverse will allow them to start offering branded virtual apparel and products that allow users to wear their avatars, a business model that is undoubtedly less costly but has very strong future growth. Many large sports clubs are now trying to develop their own metaverses. As such, this model is undoubtedly becoming mainstream. However, virtualization and interactivity may also bring more threats. In the future, the metaverse may make the game virtual or partially virtualized, and it seems that the virtualization of the audience will also become an inevitable trend as a result. No one can predict how this will affect the game, and whether the impact on the sports industry will be positive or negative. When players and coaches are already allowed to play without the constraints of the field, using only their own uploaded data as a benchmark, does this already defeat the original purpose of sports and athletics?

       In my opinion, the metaverse still has a lot of room for improvement. The metaverse thrives on interaction and participation, so it exists to create opportunities for users to collaborate and encourage creativity in each group. Every metaverse holder and brand must first move away from the idea that the virtual format is "only" appropriate for gaming. Roblox exists to show that the metaverse can provide a platform for users to interact like never before. On this platform, people can discover new things and express themselves. At the same time, people can establish or maintain social connections on a virtual platform. If the development of social media in the past 20 years has been centered on "sharing", then "participation" will be the core of communication technology for at least the next 20 years. The metaverse also offers greater scope in marketing.8 One of the things that everyone in the industry should think about is that, in order to successfully promote sports, they must develop new formats that adapt to the evolution of the Internet. However, they must also think about how their target customers should change. The ultimate goal of the metaverse is to make people's interactions easier and create more added value. Take Nike as an example. Nikeland aims to allow people who use Nike's metaverse to make sports and games a way of life, and people can live what they want to be in the metaverse belonging to Nike. Someday in the future, the metaverse belonging to the sports industry will allow Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, etc. to play a game at their peak status. Perhaps deceased players might to return to the field. Everything will become possible, and the existence of the metaverse is to provide infinite possibilities for such a future.

       Whether it is big data or metaverse, any new technology should be applied for the sake of people's greater happiness. The very purpose of technology is to explain the world and help it. Whether it's the sports industry, the entertainment industry, or any other, new ways of doing things are meant to give people more of a future and more choices. Big data and the metaverse provide people not with final answers, but with reference answers, providing us with temporary help so that better methods and answers can emerge in the future. It is also a constant reminder that each of us should use big data as a tool with all the humility we can muster, keeping in mind the nature of human nature.

1, forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/31/how-data-analysis-in-sports-is-changing-the-game/?sh=75df64963f7b

2, forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/31/how-data-analysis-in-sports-is-changing-the-game/?sh=75df64963f7b

3, ticketnews.com/2011/03/live-nations-ticketmaster-division-launches-ambitious-data-analytics-venture/

4, forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/31/how-data-analysis-in-sports-is-changing-the-game/?sh=75df64963f7b

5, forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2019/01/31/how-data-analysis-in-sports-is-changing-the-game/?sh=75df64963f7b

6, ticketmanager.com/the-metaverse-threat-or-opportunity-for-sports-organizations/

7, nhregister.com/business/article/Nike-gets-ahead-of-the-Metaverse-and-creates-16642538.php

8, beyond-the-match.com/en/insights/metaverse-new-opportunities-for-sports-marketing/