Team Statistician

The responsibilities of a statistical crew include:

1. Recording statistics as events happen
2. Auditing stats with play-by-play
3. Preparation of final stats for league records
4. Serves as official scorer for both teams
5. Computer data entry
6. Preparation of final and midgame summary reports for the media
7. Keep up to date on changes in statistical scoring rules
8. Involvement in resolution of disputed calls

Is your position as a sports statistician a full-time or part-time position?

All of us who compile sports statistics are part-time except possibly for a few persons who perform one or more statistical functions at the game, who work full-time for the team (e.g. computer specialist)

What skills and academic training (e.g. college courses) are valuable to sports statisticians?

1. Ability to add, subtract, divide in your head (no calculator - you don't have time to pick one up)
2. Ability to write very legible numbers and letters - hundreds of sportswriters will be reading your work.
3. You must be able to check and double check your work all the time. It's so easy to make a mistake. We audit all our work against the play-by-play.
4. Team work is essential. No one person can record stats accurately. We are constantly talking to each other.
5. Ability to read and understand a technical statisticians guide and make split second judgments during the game.

• Start getting experience while you are still at school.
  
• Volunteer to keep stats for any sport. The coach and players will appreciate your help.
  
• Contact the sports information office at the college you are attending and apply for a paid or voluntary position as a statistician for any sport available.
  

Individual teams keep elaborate information on every other team (e.g. injuries, salaries, etc.) --and I mean on every player for every team in ALL leagues!

General Remarks:

Careers as a sports statistician are really quite limited and do not pay especially well. Most persons who do sports statistics do this on a part-time basis and are paid on a per diem basis for individual games. There are generally no benefits associated with this work. Typical per-game remuneration ranges from $50 to $100 per game for many of the persons who keep basketball, baseball, or football stats.

Of course, there are exceptions. All the major networks have one or more sports statisticians that do this on a full-time basis and are compensated pretty well. But there are less than a dozen people in the country who work in this capacity and, therefore, entry is practically impossible. There are also sports data agencies that accumulate sports results and supply the leagues and the media with relevant information for their clients diverse needs.

An additional new growth area in sports statistics is the use of hands-on computers to record the actions directly at the game site. This has added computer operators and software technicians to the game site. Again, the demand for new workers is very limited.

A friend of mine combined sports statistics with writing about sports (i.e., a professional journalist). This way he covers games, sometimes serving as an official scorer, but earns his basic salary from his writing, not the statistics.

In summary, while this field may be very attractive to you, few persons will be able to make a respectable living from this source. This field can be an exciting avocation (i.e., a part-time hobby or interest), but clearly cannot be a persons sole source of income.