I wanted to learn web scraping in order to make website for basketball, so I created this dataset as part of my learning. I will try to keep it updated as much as possible.

A January 2024 survey in the United States revealed that almost 60 percent of NBA fans who attended or watched games were male. Meanwhile, just over 40 percent of NBA fans were female.

Context

This data set contains combined on-court performance data for NBA players in the 2016-2017 season, alongside salary, Twitter engagement, and Wikipedia traffic data.

Further information can be found in a series of articles for IBM Developerworks: "Explore valuation and attendance using data science and machine learning" and "Exploring the individual NBA players".

A talk about this dataset has slides from March, 2018, Strata:

https://www.slideshare.net/noahgift/social-power-andinfluenceinthenba-89807740?qid=3f9f835a-f3d7-4174-8a8c-c97f9c82e614&v=&b=&from_search=1

Further reading on this dataset is in the book Pragmatic AI, in Chapter 6 or full book, Pragmatic AI: An introduction to Cloud-based Machine Learning and watch lesson 9 in Essential Machine Learning and AI with Python and Jupyter Notebook

Followup Items

• You can watch a breakdown of using cluster analysis on the Pragmatic AI YouTube channel

• Learn to deploy a Kaggle project into a production Machine Learning sklearn + flask + container by reading Python for Devops: Learn Ruthlessly Effective Automation, Chapter 14: MLOps and Machine learning engineering

• Use social media to predict a winning season with this notebook: https://github.com/noahgift/core-stats-datascience/blob/master/Lesson2_7_Trends_Supervized_Learning.ipynb

• Learn to use the cloud for data analysis.

Acknowledgement

Data sources include ESPN, Basketball-Reference, Twitter, Five-ThirtyEight, and Wikipedia. The source code for this dataset (in Python and R) can be found on GitHub. Links to more writing can be found at noahgift.com.

Inspiration

• Do NBA fans know more about who the best players are, or do owners?
• What is the true worth of the social media presence of athletes in the NBA?

A September 2024 survey in the United States revealed that 16 percent of NBA fans had a preference for the Los Angeles Lakers. In second place, the Chicago Bulls were liked by 11 percent of fans.

During the 2024 NBA Finals, Game 5 had the highest rating in the United States with an estimated 6.3 percent of households having tuned in to watch the Boston Celtics secure their record-breaking 18th NBA championship title against the Dallas Mavericks. Game 4 had the lowest rating with 4.7.

The National Basketball Association is a professional basketball league for men with 30 teams competing against each other in the United States. A survey conducted in March 2023 in the United States showed that 40 percent of black respondents had no interest in the NBA.

This is my take on the tiresome topic of who is the NBA GOAT. I've always had my strong opinion, but this takes a deep dive into the stats to prove it with numbers. I took a dataset of the career stats for all NBA players and organized it or narrowed it down to the top 10 players with the most points all time. I then took a look at their individual stats compared to each other. I figured to keep it easy, I only looked at the # of games played, minutes played, total points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and turnovers. I then took a deeper look at who most people think is the GOAT, either LeBron James or Michael Jordan. I looked at their total career stats, then per game stats, then per minute stats. But this could still be an unfair comparison because LeBron James has played roughly 500 more games than Michael Jordan did. So I did a what if scenario to show what the stats would look like if the total games and minutes played were reversed, but they each kept their individual stats averages for points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and turnovers. The results are impressive! Take a look, and enjoy.

I was unable to create a notebook with a sample of my work using R because I passed the time limit for the free trial after I exported the data to excel.

The minimum salary for players signing contracts in the 2024/25 NBA season amounted to 1.16 million U.S. dollars. This represented an increase of around 3 percent from the previous season, when the figure stood at 1.12 million U.S. dollars.

We examine whether social data can be used to predict how members of Major League Baseball (MLB) and members of the National Basketball Association (NBA) transition between teams during their career. We find that incorporating social data into various machine learning algorithms substantially improves the algorithms' ability to correctly determine these transitions in the NBA but only marginally in MLB. We also measure the extent to which player performance and team fitness data can be used to predict transitions between teams. This data, however, only slightly improves our predictions for players for both basketball and baseball players. We also consider whether social, performance, and team fitness data can be used to infer past transitions. Here we find that social data significantly improves our inference accuracy in both the NBA and MLB but player performance and team fitness data again does little to improve this score.

NBARank is an annual preseason tradition at basketball sites like ESPN and Slam. Aggrieved at some of the rankings, CJ McCollum suggested that writers get ranked instead. I set up an allourideas.com survey to do exactly this and let twitter decide who the best writers are.

Ahead of the 2024/25 season in the National Basketball Association (NBA), the luxury tax threshold totaled 170.81 million U.S. dollars. This was an increase of 3.3 percent from the previous season and over double the threshold from a decade prior. The NBA operates with what is known as a soft salary cap. According to the rules laid out in the collective bargaining agreement, franchises that go over the salary cap have limited freedom in transfers. However, if a team's spending on salaries goes over the luxury tax threshold, which is always higher than the salary cap, it pays a tax to the league, which is partly redistributed among the franchises that did not exceed the threshold.

As of 2024, the largest luxury tax bill footed by a team in the NBA came in the 2023/24 season, when the Golden State Warriors were taxed 176.9 million U.S. dollars by the league. The Warriors also held the other top-three spots, bringing their overall luxury tax payments from 2021/22 to 2023/24 to 510.9 million U.S. dollars.

The National Basketball Association has one of the highest percentages of African American players from the big four professional sports leagues in North America. In 2023, approximately **** percent of NBA players were African American. Meanwhile, ethnically white players constituted a **** percent share of all NBA players that year. After the WNBA and NBA, the National Football League had the largest share of African Americans in a professional sports league in North America. How do other roles in the NBA compare? When it comes to African American representation in the NBA, no other role in the NBA is as well represented by African Americans as players. Meanwhile, on the opposite end of the scale, less than **** percent of team governors in the NBA were African American in 2023. During the 2022/23 season, the role with the second-highest share of African Americans was head coach, with a share of ** percent. That season, the number of African American head coaches in the NBA exceeded the number of white head coaches for the first time. African Americans in the NFL In 2022, the greatest share of players by ethnicity in the NFL were African American, with more than half of all NFL players falling within this group. The representation of African Americans in American Football extended beyond the playing field, with **** percent of NFL assistant coaches being African American in 2022 as well. However, positions such as vice presidents and head coaches were less representative of the African American population, as less than ** percent of the individuals fulfilling these roles in 2022 were African American.

Sporting Events Market Outlook

The global sporting events market is experiencing significant growth, with a market size that was valued at approximately $600 billion in 2023 and is projected to reach around $900 billion by 2032, reflecting a CAGR of 4.5%. This robust growth is driven by an array of factors including the increasing popularity of sports among a global audience, advancements in digital technology that enhance fan engagement, and the rising investment in sports infrastructure across various regions. The expanding reach of sports through digital platforms and live streaming services has made sporting events more accessible than ever before, fostering a larger fan base and, consequently, greater revenue opportunities.

The growing globalization of sports, where international events are becoming more frequent and accessible, significantly propels market growth. Major sporting events like the Olympics, FIFA World Cup, and regional tournaments attract massive global audiences, translating into substantial revenue through diverse streams such as broadcasting rights and sponsorships. Technological advancements are also revolutionizing the way audiences engage with sports, with innovations like virtual and augmented reality enhancing the viewing experience. Additionally, the integration of data analytics in sports helps in improving team performances and in tailoring strategies to enhance fan engagement, further driving the market expansion.

Another substantial growth factor is the rising investment in sports infrastructure. Governments and private entities are increasingly investing in the development of new stadiums and renovation of existing facilities to attract major events. This trend is particularly evident in developing countries, where hosting international sports events is seen as a means to boost tourism and enhance the country's global image. Moreover, the proliferation of sports leagues and tournaments in these regions is generating numerous opportunities for market participants. Such investments not only improve the quality of sporting events but also contribute to the economic development of the host locations, thereby driving the overall market growth.

The commercialization of sports is an essential factor influencing the market's growth trajectory. Sports have become a lucrative industry, attracting investments from corporations looking to tap into the extensive visibility that sports offer. Sponsorship and advertising opportunities remain abundant, with brands keen to associate their image with popular sports events to reach a broad audience. This commercial interest has led to increased monetization opportunities within the sports industry, which is further propelled by the emergence of eSports as a competitive and financially rewarding segment. The inclusion of eSports in mainstream sporting events is expanding the traditional sports market, engaging younger demographics and tech-savvy audiences.

Regionally, North America continues to dominate the sporting events market owing to its established sporting culture and infrastructure. The region boasts several major sports leagues like the NFL, NBA, and MLB, which attract large audiences and generate substantial revenue from broadcasting and sponsorship deals. The Asia Pacific region, however, is emerging as a significant market player, driven by a growing middle class and increasing disposable income. The enthusiasm for sports such as cricket, football, and basketball is on the rise, along with the popularity of eSports, positioning the region as a key growth area. Europe continues to hold a strong position thanks to its rich sporting history and hosting of major events like the UEFA Champions League, while Latin America and the Middle East & Africa are showing promising growth due to rising sports participation and infrastructure development.

Type Analysis

The sporting events market is broadly categorized into team sports, individual sports, and eSports. Team sports, which include popular games like football, basketball, and cricket, dominate the market owing to their massive global fan base and extensive media coverage. These sports have a long-standing tradition and enjoy immense popularity across various continents, contributing significantly to the revenue generated from ticket sales, broadcasting, and sponsorships. The collaborative nature of team sports fosters community spirit and regional loyalty, which translates into sustained audience engagement and financial support from local businesses and global corporations alike.

Individual sports, such as tennis, golf, and ath

An average of **** million viewers tuned in to watch NBA regular season games across ABC, ESPN and TNT in the 2024/25 season. This marked a slight decline in the number of viewers from the previous season.

In 2024, it was estimated that the newly crowned NBA champions, the Boston Celtics, would pay a luxury tax of around 41 million U.S. dollars. Since the 2006/7 season, 14 of the last 18 NBA Finals winners paid a luxury tax on their way to championship glory. The largest sum paid by any one franchise came in 2022, when the Golden State Warriors paid a staggering 170.3 million U.S. dollars in luxury tax. As part of the NBA's salary regulations, as defined in the league's collective bargaining agreement, a luxury tax is levied on teams that surpass the luxury tax threshold. The taxable sum is then evenly distributed between the NBA and the non-tax paying teams.

Over the past few years, the US has seen a significant shift in the political sentiment surrounding sports betting and gambling, following the Supreme Court overruling a law which forbade states from...

The statistic shows a ranking of National Basketball Association stadiums/arenas built since 2000 by total cost of construction. The total construction costs of the Barclays Center amounted to 1.03 billion U.S. dollars.

Teams in Major League Baseball were estimated at an average franchise value of just over 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2023. Meanwhile, the average value of National Football League franchises reached a high of over 5.1 billion U.S. dollars in 2023.

The NBA and WNBA are the two top leagues for basketball in the United States for men and women, respectively. In the NBA, players took home an average annual salary of over ** million U.S. dollars for the 2024/25 season, with the league's minimum salary set at **** million U.S. dollars that year. In comparison, players in the WNBA received an average annual pay of ******* U.S. dollars in the 2025 season, with the highest-earning players in the WNBA receiving around ******* U.S. dollars annually.