Sports Reference Blog

There's no shortage of big names in the 2016 Pro Football Hall of Fame Class, as legends like Brett Favre, Marvin Harrison, and Tony Dungy head to Canton. But despite the star power, statistically and historically, this year's crop of Hall of Famers can seem a little lacking.

Favre's best season was 60th all-time in passing yards, behind predecessors like Dan Marino, contemporaries like Drew Bledsoe, and, of course, the next generation of star quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Peyton Manning. Harrison's game lacked the electricity of Randy Moss or the showmanship of Terrell Owens. Dungy always seemed to be outfoxed by his rival, Bill Belichick. Since 1990, 40 defensive players have made more All-Pro First Teams than Kevin Greene.

The game has changed at such a rapid pace that it's diminished some of the raw statistics by this year's Hall of Fame class. But make no mistake, these are some of the greatest players of all-time. Perhaps even better than you remember. Let's take a look. Read the rest of this entry

There's a few days that every baseball fan has saved in her Google Calendar. Opening Day, the All-Star Game, and Game 1 of the World Series all loom large, but another highlight of every year is the Trade Deadline.

This year's Trade Deadline looks like it could be a little slower and less star-packed than last year's, when stars like David Price, Cole Hamels, and Troy Tulowitzki were on the move. However, four of the six division leaders have a team within 4 games of them, and both Wild Card races are still wide opening, meaning a lot of teams are incentivized to make a deal. Read the rest of this entry

With the announcement of Mike Piazza's induction to the Baseball Hall of Fame, everyone's attention turned to one question: What logo would appear on Piazza's cap on his plaque? Would he select the team that famously drafted him in the 62nd round, the Los Angeles Dodgers? Or would it be the team he went to in 1998 and led to the 2000 World Series, the New York Mets?

One team that likely did not receive consideration: the then-Florida Marlins. While the idea of Piazza wearing a Marlins logo in the Hall may seem as outlandish as him in a Braves or Phillies cap, it wasn't totally out of the realm of possibility. That's because, for eight glorious days in 1998, Mike Piazza was a member of the Marlins, playing 5 games before moving on to the Mets. Though it's now a largely forgotten mini-chapter in his Hall of Fame career, Piazza may never have been a Met were it not for the Marlins.  Read the rest of this entry

The writing was on the wall for the San Antonio Spurs. At the end of the third quarter of Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals, they trailed the Oklahoma City Thunder by 26 points. They had lost three of their last four games vs OKC and found themselves overwhelmed by the size and physicality of Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook, and, most surprisingly, Enes Kanter.

On the San Antonio bench, Tim Duncan pulled Gregg Popovich aside for a quick conversation. After the conversation, Duncan played the entire fourth quarter. Even as the game entered clear garbage time and Andre Miller and Kyle Anderson replaced Tony Parker and Kawhi Leonard, Duncan stayed on the floor. Read the rest of this entry

If you follow me on twitter, you know that this work has been a long time coming. Starting last summer, Adam Wodon, Adam Darowski, and I started throwing around ideas for a more mobile-friendly version of our sites. Our mobile experience is probably charitably described as limited and functional and with now over 2/3rd's of our visits coming from handheld devices, we clearly needed to up our game there.

This led to complete review of what we have on our sites and how we present that 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. This is the first in a series of posts we'll publish about our redesign.
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The hype entering the 2016 NBA Free Agency period suggested that this would be the wildest one in league history. An unprecedented salary cap spike gave essentially every team in the league enough financial leeway to aggressively pursue ways of improving their team.

At the same time, while many of the league's best players were set to become free agents, there were few true superstars in the market. On paper, it seemed extremely unlikely that either of the best players on the market this year - Kevin Durant or LeBron James - would leave teams that at least made the Conference Finals and, in LeBron's case, hoisted the trophy as winners of the 2016 NBA Finals. As basketball fans prepared for nuttiness, it seemed just as possible that this year's feeding frenzy would be a little more laid-back than we expected.
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If you are a friend of Sports Reference, you'll know that sponsorships, which launched in July of 2002, were our second revenue generator (the first being just asking for money). For those who want to know, Charles Saeger sponsored Scott Erickson on July 21, 2002 to kick things off. For a number of years, sponsorships were our main revenue generator and paid all of the bills. Since 2006, however, sponsorships have become less and less of our overall revenue, now representing less than 4% of our annual revenue.
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Head spinning from all of the reports as NBA Free Agency kicks off? Bookmark our 2016 NBA Free Agent Tracker which will update constantly with the latest reports.

The 2016 NBA Draft will take place Thursday night, June 23. Here's some draft info you should check out before, during & after the draft:

• 2016 NBA Draft Preview: See the top picks of all-time from every slot, as well as Expected Value of each pick.
• Full history of the NBA Draft, with every pick: See every NBA Draft, as well as breakdowns by franchise.
• Play Index Draft Finder: Make customized searches through every pick in NBA Draft history.
• Play Index Player Season Finder: Filter your searches by draft classes.

About 9 months ago, we added NFL Players of the Week back to 1997 on Pro Football Reference. Shortly after that, we were able to extend that data back to 1989. Now, thanks to an assist from football researcher extraordinaire John Turney, we have completed this data back to 1984, which was the first year that the NFL handed out these awards.

These winners can be seen on the pages we have built for each NFL Week (such as Week 1 of 1984) and also in this register of the all-time NFC/AFC Player of the Week winners. You'll notice that Special Teamers were first awarded in 1993.