After reading Jiri’s “3 Things I Want to See in for volleyball” article, I mentioned to him, that during the World Cup in Japan in August and September that his wanting for live statistics actually happened.

 

We are accustomed to seeing this shot now during FIVB events for men and women for the live score. And then this shot for live statistics, which are team statistics for the match. And then at the end of the match we see this shot for the individual match statistics by team (slide 2 – 4)

The most frustrating thing for me as a fan following a match is that you have cannot see statistics on digging, or serve receive in the match statistics for the individual players until after the match and only on the P3 sheets. Additionally, we cannot see hitting or serving errors for individual players as they are counted as a team total for opponent errors.

During the World Cup tournament in Japan, Fuji Television worked with the Japanese company Data Stadium and Microsoft to take the statistics portion of volleyball well beyond what fans are used to, with what they called “Digital Second Court.” The “Digital Second Court” was a combination of data and motion tracking, which allowed fans to see team and individual data throughout the match on a tablet or screen in addition to their television. Plus with the motion tracking, fans could vote for their favorite plays, albeit a spike, block or ace and you could see what the height of the player’s jump was and what speed the spike was at. For example here is a screen shot of Ishikawa’s spike against Russia which was timed at 124 kmph (75 mph). Most of these shots were done for the highlights after the match, but the data was provided to Fuji’s announce team and they did use it throughout the match. (slide 5)

However, the individual statistics portion of the “Digital Second Court” was just amazing because of the detail which I have taken from screen shots of my computer. This is completely in Japanese, and I have tried to put some text in English to explain what the text is. The screen shots were taken in real time from the women’s USA vs. Japan match on September 5th.

This is the shot of the screen at the beginning of the match with how the team totals page would look (slide 6)

So on the left you have the total team roster, points by set, and on the right the team totals for Spike% (Kills/Attempts), Serve Efficiency (Aces, Serves in play, errors/total serves), Dig Success, Serve Reception% and Blocks. It looks a little different than that of the FIVB site.

But after the match starts, we will look at the individual tabs across the top on the right. I took these follow screen shots in the second and third sets. (slide 7)

This shot is of Japan’s team statistics for spiking. You can see the grey lines, outlining the court and the net. The different colors show where Japan spiked the most, which at that point in the Japan was all over the court. Balls that finished outside of the court could have been off the block or hit on the fly out of the court. At the bottom of the screen you can see the 20 most recent points of the match. On the left side, you could see which players in red were on the court.

Now, if you wanted to you could see how Saori Kimura was doing with her spikes. (slide 8)

Out of Saori’s 18 swings, she focused on tips on the left side of the court or deep middle.

So of those 14 swings that were not kills, where did she hit the ball? In those same spots (slide 9). So where then did her 4 kills go? One off the block deep, one off the block by the side line, one tip just over the block and one crosscourt. (slide 10). Now let’s shift to the service statistics. (slide 11)

Again, you can see the court shape, and the depth of colors. Japan really targeted the middle section of the court against the USA through 2 sets. The circle in the lower right shows what type of serves of Japan’s serve. Out of 48 serves at that time, Japan had 1 service ace, 1 no touch ace (different serve), 8 effective serves (probably forcing the setter to move far away from the net), 32 in play and 6 errors.

So let’s shift to Saori Kimura’s stats. She had four serves, 3 of which were in play, 1 error (into the net) (slide 12)

So of the 3 serves in play, who were the receivers? 1 each to? (slide 13)

Now switching to the setting statistics, this was taken earlier in the second set. Miyu Nagaoka at the time had received 15 sets. And Japan was really focused on the left side of the net with their sets between Koga and Kimura. (slide 14)

Now let’s focus on where Saori Kimura was set. Which of course was on the left side. But she was set once in the back row. (slide 15)

If you wanted with a team that switches setters, you could see the difference is where they set. Sadly, I did not think about it at the time.

Now switching to the digging statistics. Again you can see the court outline, the lower right corner even breakouts how many times Japan had 0, 1, 2 or 3 blockers to that point in the match. As you can see Japan had to cover the center of the court. (slide 16)

Again let’s look at Saori Kimura’s play. She made was targeted in the middle of the court. 8 times when she had a chance to dig Japan had a double block. (slide 17)

Looking at what digs were effective (made the play), she made 2 of 5 digs in the deep center of the court, and 1 each crosscourt, in the center of the court and behind the block. (slide 18)

Next is serve receive. (slide 19) Again you can see the court and which parts of it the USA targeted. The circle in the lower right corner shows what types of passes came out of Japan’s serve receive.

When Saori Kimura is receiving serve, where is she receiving the ball? Mainly on the center and left side of middle of the court. (slide 20)

Where did she make an error on serve receive? In the heart and deep middle of the court. (slide 21)

Lastly is a blocking statistic. Fairly straight forward, Japan had 4 blocks all with a double block. (slide 22)

As these type of statistics were only really geared to the Japanese audience (albeit on the web, so technically available to all if you can read Japanese), the amount of information presented is much more than we as fans have ever seen. Much of the data shown is something that is only available to national or club teams.

As fans, we want to be able to see things to answer questions. As a fan of the USA, if the middles are doing well, does that open up the outsides? As a fan of Japan, you could ask, “Do we ever set the middles?” During the Japan-Russia women’s match, it seemed that Anna Malova was the target of Japan’s serves. She was targeted 71 times during the match, but you could have selected her data and then saw where Japan served her. Additionally you could see where they served the other receivers to see if Malova just happened to be in the same spot or not.

In my mind, this was a great step forward in what statistics for the fans can be. However, there are things that should be available, which still are not at this time. The number of points played in a match by a player is something that is easily trackable, but we cannot get that information. Substitutions are limited, but the FIVB only breakouts starters with a black box or white box. If we are lucky they will tell who they were substituted for, but most times they do not. If you look at an NBA game, I can see the number of minutes that a player played in the game. (slide 23)

This type of detail helps fans see if a substitute was effective or not. If a player is only on the court for 1 point, did that player block a ball to win the set? If they did, it was a great substitution by the coach. If not, then it was a wasted move.

Additionally, the FIVB does not breakout hitting errors by a blocked ball or an error. To the FIVB they are the same, but they are not. With Data Volley, some unofficial reports do have that breakout. This little detail helps us understand if a player is bad at recognizing the location of the block when swinging.

Lastly, because of the unique rotation system that is used in volleyball, it very difficult to judge whether a player is a good blocker or digger because statistics are not kept with the rotation. Such as how many spikes did a blocker or digger face, either in the front row or in the back row? As a middle blocker does not dig many balls due to that they only play one rotation in the back row, would a coach possibly leave them in if they were a good digger? Who is the best middle blocker in the World Cup? Sebastian Sole had the highest average per set, but did he face the most spikes? If a player faces more spikes, they have more chances to block the ball. But if a player faces fewer spikes, and blocks the same number of balls, they are a much more effective blocker.

These types of statistics are not yet available to the average fan. I am working as an outsider to try and create some of this data to help fans understand why teams and players are successful and to enjoy the game more.

I hope in the future that the FIVB will provide the Digital Second Court at other FIVB events to all of the matches, not the just the host’s matches. I understand why Fuji Television was promoting this only to the Japanese audience. They draw great domestic television ratings and want to help people watch the game. We may complain about Japan hosting FIVB tournaments due to the time difficulty in watch matches (early morning or late evening around the world). However, when the tournaments are in Japan, they work hard to provide a better match experience for the fan watching at home, which is what many of us are doing. If these types of experiments are successful there, the FIVB will work to implement those things in other events.