Brian Burke, founder of the popular website AdvancedFootballAnalytics and one of the leading voices in NFL Analytics, is joining ESPN as a senior analytics specialist. He will be part of the Stats & Information Group’s (SIG) Analytics Team, starting Monday, June 15. He will be primarily based in the Washington, D.C., area.
Burke founded advancedfootballanalytics.com in 2007. The site includes tools such as in-game win probability graphics, 4th-down calculator, win probability calculator, NFL Draft Prediction model, and more. In addition to being the site’s primary writer, Burke has contributed to The New York Times, The Washington Post, Slate and other outlets. A regular speaker at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, he has also worked as an analytics consultant for multiple NFL teams and has supplied statistics and analytics insights to NBC Sports and ESPN the Magazine.
As a member of the Stats & Information Group’s Analytics Team, Burke will expand upon his previous work to ensure ESPN has the best-in-class football analytics. His years of experience will also help ESPN develop analytic tools in other sports.
“An innovator in sports analytics and a highly respected member of the industry, Brian will help power the future of ESPN’s use of analytics across sports and platforms,” said Jeff Bennett, vice president of Stats & Analytics, ESPN.
Burke added: “I’m excited to join ESPN’s talented team of analysts in the Stats & Information Group, and look forward to bringing the insights offered by analytics to a broader audience.”
Before entering the world of sports analytics, Burke had a distinguished career as an officer and aviator with the United States Navy. Much of those 15 years were spent as an F/A-18 carrier pilot. He flew numerous combat missions and was awarded the Air Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal, and numerous other personal and unit commendations.
ESPN Stats & Information Group and the Production Analytics Team
The ESPN Stats & Information Group (SIG) serves fans across all the company’s platforms with the fastest, most accurate and insightful statistics, scores, news and analysis. The Production Analytics Team is a multidisciplinary group where all members have a deep knowledge of sports, statistics, databases, programming logic and languages, and storytelling. Combining best-in-the-industry data with advanced mathematics and statistical modeling skills, Production Analytics has created storytelling tools and metrics that have improved the evaluation of team and player performance, such as Total QBR and predictive power ratings for college football, college basketball and soccer. These products make fans better informed and help keep ESPN at the cutting edge of sports statistical analysis.
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