This summer, the FIFA Soccer World Cup will take place for the first time in an African country, South Africa. The Final Draw, the decider of which teams will be grouped together took place on December 4th. For many, this highly anticipated event officially kicks off the World Cup season. I am admittedly not much of a sports fan except for every four years when the geographer and traveler in me goes absolutely mad for the FIFA World Cup. Like many, I watch every game and savor the country to country battles over domination of their group and depending on where the games are taking place stay up late or wake up early to watch the elimination matches (remember 2002 in South Korea/Japan). The Would Cup statistics are perfect for making maps in Maker!. I have uploaded a bunch of different dataset in Finder! and have created some cool maps on World Cup 2010 as well as world cups of the past. This first map shows the world team rankings by points along with the groups chosen on December 4th. Each group contains one of the top rated teams. The other 3 teams in each group are randomly chosen but are kept as geographically separated as possible. Spain, also the European Cup champion, is #1 followed by Brazil and the Netherlands. Click on the map to see it in Maker! Although the next Women’s World Cup is not until 2011, I included a map of the women’s world team rankings by points. The USA is currently the #1 team followed by Germany and Brazil

Click on the map to see it in Maker!

As I mentioned, 2010 will be the first time the World Cup is hosted in an African Country. This next map shows the locations of past World Cups.

Click on the map to see it in Maker!

There have been 18 World Cup Games since 1930. From those games only six countries can call themselves the winners, with Brazil winning five times and Italy winning four including the most recent. Also, of the 193 countries that compete for FIFA only 75 countries have ever had the chance of playing in a Men’s World Cup Game. This next map shows the countries by the number of appearances made in a world cup game. The dots show the countries who have won by the number of wins.

Click on the map to see it in Maker!

Attending the games this summer in South Africa would be a once in a lifetime opportunity. If you are planing a trip for the games, knowing where the stadiums are located could be helpful in deciding on hotels and other details of your trip. This last map shows the locations of the World Cup 2010 stadiums in South Africa by their capacity.

Click on the map to see it in Maker! Enjoy the Maps…and the Games!! 176 days 16 hours 54 minutes and …..44 seconds to go! GOOOOAL!

Popularity: 11% [?]

Recently in the news there have been stories of worker strikes in South Africa that are affecting the construction of stadiums that are to be used in the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The workers are demanding pay raises and are halting their efforts in constructing stadiums until their demands are met. Organizers of the 2010 FIFA World Cup are confident that the issue will soon be resolved. I decided to look into this further and see just how much work is being done to make the 2010 World Cup happen as planned.
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Above is a map of all the stadium sites for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. (Use the interactive map to zoom in/out and explore information about each stadium by clicking on the different flags). So how much construction is needed for all of the stadiums to be completed and ready for the World Cup? Below is a map that shows which stadiums are being newly built, having major upgrades, having medium upgrades, and having minor upgrades. (click on the map for a larger view)

Stadium Construction Type, 2010 FIFA World Cup, South Africa

From the map above you can see that 5 of the 10 stadiums that are being used in the 2010 World Cup are going to be brand new stadiums. One will go through major upgrading, two through medium upgrading, and two through minor updating. All and all, there is a lot of construction that needs to be done before the start of the cup. Another issue is the size of the stadiums. The map below shows the gross capacity that each stadium will have during the 2010 World Cup.

Stadium Gross Capacities, FIFA World Cup 2010, South Africa

These are all fairly large stadiums that will require a great amount of work to be completed. Will the work be done? Let’s hope so, because if it is not, it may dampen the atmosphere of the world’s greatest soccer tournament in 2010.

Popularity: 15% [?]

The 2008-2009 NHL Season has been a thrilling one and it continues to be with the start of the playoffs. The game’s popularity has been growing and a rise in attendance figures has been a direct result. The Total NHL Attendance figure was broken this year for the fourth consecutive year. This news made me want to take a closer look at the data.

I first went to espn.com and looked at attendance figures from the 2008-2009 season. After looking over the stats I saw that some teams had regular sellouts and other teams struggled to fill the seats. The map below shows the percentage of seats that were filled throughout the season for each team. (click on the map for a larger view)

Why did some teams sell out every game while others showed poor attendance? I decided to investigate by using Finder! and Maker! to run correlations to determine why a team could or could not get fans in the arena.

The first thing I wanted to correlate was a team’s finishing place in the league and their attendance capacity percentage for the season. This is because a common theme in sports is that fans only go to watch a team if that team is winning. I mean who wants to go see the last place team in the league play.

The correlation shows some interesting results. It appears that the place of your team does not always affect the amount of fans you put in the seats. The correlation between the two factors was only .48 (high correlations are values close to 1 or -1). For example, the Ottawa Senators were able to fill 105% of their seats during the year yet they finished 22nd out of thirty teams in the league. Also, the Carolina Hurricanes who finished 11th in the league out of thirty teams only filled 88.5% of their seats (rated 10th worst in the league).

Now I looked at running some other correlations to see if any other factors resulted in getting people into the seats. Below is what I tried.

- Number of Consecutive Playoff or Non-Playoff Seasons (shows if a team has been continuously successful or unsuccessful)

- Unemployment % for February 2009 (If you’re broke and without a job, you probably won’t be spending your money to go to a hockey game)

- Average Temperature During Hockey Season (Hockey is a sport that is heavily followed in colder climates)

None of the correlations faired much better. Surprisingly Average Temperature During Hockey Season was the closest (-.59) This led me to the conclusion that it is a combination of different factors that determine if a team is able to get people in the seats for their games. Now I took several factors and gave them specific values and combined these to come up with the “The Kev Score”. I am hoping that “The Kev Score” will show how certain factors combined will determine if an NHL team will achieve their maximum attendance capacity.

Here is how I computed “The Kev Score”

Factors:
- Finishing Place (if in 1st place = 30 points, 2nd = 29 points, and so on)
- Temperature (Coldest City = 30 points, 2nd Coldest City = 29 points, and so on)
- Canada Factor (if a Canadian team you get 15 points added to your score)
- USA Hockey IQ Factor – if a USA city is known as a town known for hockey
o Good IQ (10 points added)
o Poor IQ (No points)
- City Population (Highest City Population = 30 points, 2nd Highest City Population – 29 points)

The Formula:
Finishing Place Points + Temperature Points + Canada Factor + Good USA Hockey IQ Factor + City Population Points = “The Kev Score”

The correlation between the Arena Full Capacity Percentage and the “Kev Score” is reasonably high at a score of .81. So is the “Kev Score” a reliable way to predict how to get fans in the seats. I decided to use the formula again but to test it with statistics from the 2007-2008 season. Here is what happened.

At a much lower correlation of .60 it seems that the “Kev Score” does not prove itself to be a strong indicator of fan attendance for the 07-08 season.

Was “The Kev Score” a reliable way to judge if a team would or would not have a strong attendance? Well not really but it worked better than all the other things I tried. See if you are able to discover your own “Kev Score” and help Hockey Team owners around the NHL discover how to bring more fans to their games.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Spring is around the corner and what does this mean to me? Yes it is lacrosse season and one of my favorite things to do is catch an early season college matchup. But, where can I go to watch a game? I decided to use the help of Finder!, Maker!, and also LaxPower to find a game close by for this upcoming Saturday.

The first thing I do is check out the game schedule calendar on LaxPower’s website. Here I can get a list of games that are occurring on a specific date. I then find the lat/lon locations of these sites and map them with other pertinent details that include: matchup, time, city, state, etc … Then I load all the information into Finder! and Maker! and here is what I get: (Click on the Maker link for an interactive map, Click on the map below for a larger view of the map)

Data Layer in Finder: NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Matchup Locations, USA, 2.21.2009 and map in Maker: NCAA Men’s Lacrosse Matchups, 2.21.2009

I coach high school lacrosse and I constantly tell my players to go out and watch college games and learn from them. Only trouble is I don’t know where and when games are going on that are close by for my players. Now with Finder! and Maker! I can be on top of all games and help my players catch a game that is close by to them. Here’s an example for this week.

Since I coach in Washington DC I zoom into the Washington DC area. Here, I am able to find that I have two games relatively close by. One game is at Catholic University and one is at the University of Maryland, College Park. Now I can alert my players so that they can watch a college game and learn from what they see.

I am planning on do this on a regularly basis on all Saturdays throughout the 2009 College season. I will continue to map the locations throughout the season and put them up on Finder! and Maker! every Monday for the upcoming week as I have done for this week. To see my weekly list simply go to Finder! and/or Maker! and type in “lacrosse matchups” in the search box. Then choose the appropriate date.

I think my locations of playing sites are fairly accurate but I know they are not all perfect. This is where I need help. If I have a location wrong please tell me and I can make the necessary changes. Thanks in advance! The more help the better!

Popularity: 7% [?]