Professional sports organizations are multi-million dollar enterprises with millions of dollars spent on a single decision. With this amount of capital at stake, just one bad or misguided decision has the potential of setting an organization back by several years. With such a large amount of risk involved it requires a critical need to make good decisions, and hence it’s an attractive environment for data mining applications.

Sports Data Mining has experienced rapid growth in recent years. The task is not how to collect the data, but what data should be collected and how to make the best use of it. From players improving their game-time performance using video analysis techniques, to scouts using statistical analysis and projection techniques to identify what talent will provide the biggest impact, data mining is quickly becoming an integral part of the sports decision making landscape where managers and coaches using machine learning and simulation techniques can find optimal strategies for an entire upcoming season. By finding the right ways to make sense of data and turning it into actionable knowledge, sports organizations have the potential to secure a competitive advantage over their peers. To read more how it has been used: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/psychology/data-mining-in-sports-in-the-past-few-years-psychology-essay.php