Sports Reference Blog

Archive for February, 2017

Baseball-Reference.com Relaunches with a New Responsive Template

22nd February 2017

Update: A March 9th update on where the redesign stands

First off, change is hard. I know that. We've moved a few things and some things have changed, but please be assured that we had very good reasons and have tried to make the redesigned site more useful than it was before. It's not perfect, but neither was B-R last month. Please keep an open mind for a day, and if you still hate it, please let us know.

If you follow me on twitter, you know that this work has been a long time coming. Starting in January of 2015, Adam Wodon, Adam Darowski, and I started throwing around ideas for a more mobile-friendly version of our sites. Our mobile experience could have been charitably described as limited and functional. With over two-thirds of our visits coming from handheld devices, we clearly needed to up our game there.

This led to a complete review of how we present data on desktop and how we can make that usable on a small screen. It's not easy and after months of design, user testing and work, we have an approach that we believe will serve both desktop and mobile users better than they are now. If you use our other sites, this is not a surprise as all of those sites were re-launched last summer and into the early fall. That left the baseball site and its 17 years of code that needed some changing, rewriting, upgrading and general improvement. It's taken awhile, but the entire Sports Reference team has pulled together to get this out before the games start this spring.

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Redesign | 106 Comments »

Who Will Break These NBA All-Star Game Records?

15th February 2017

LeBron's mad at his team, the New York Knicks are weighing a number of absurd trades, and Lance Stephenson is on a roster. That can only mean one thing: It's February in the NBA and everybody could use a break.

Fortunately, we've made it to All-Star Weekend! While it's a bummer to have to survive a few days without real, competitive basketball, All-Star Weekend gives us the chance to take a breather, take stock of the season, and see the NBA's biggest stars in a looser environment.

The highlight of this weekend, of course, will be the NBA All-Star Game, now in it's 66th year of existence. The event and the league have both come a long way from 1951, when George Mikan went 4-17 as the West fell to the East 111-94.

So, to get ready for Sunday night, we're going to take a look back at a few NBA All-Star Game records. Some of these have stood for decades while others were just set in the last few years. And for each one, I'll identify a couple of players who just might manage to break them this year. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in All-Star, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com | Comments Off on Who Will Break These NBA All-Star Game Records?

Everything You Need to Know About Super Bowl LI

2nd February 2017

After 20 weeks of football (and an extra week of skills challenges and half-contested exhibition action in the Pro Bowl), we've arrived at the Super Bowl. And in between the commercials, the (sometimes overly enthusiastic) questions from reporters, Media Day, Opening Night, the NFL Honors show with awards like NFL Most Valuable Player and the announcement of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2017, more commercials, Lady Gaga, and the Jack Bauer-free return of 24, there's an actual game to played!

The good news is that, on paper, Super Bowl LI seems like it should be a good one. The bad news is that I also said that last year and, unless you're a Denver Broncos fan, there wasn't much to enjoy in that one. However, between the quality of the two teams, especially at quarterback, and the extremely high-stakes historic implications in play for the outcome, there's plenty in this year's matchup for us to dig into. Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Super Bowl | Comments Off on Everything You Need to Know About Super Bowl LI