Hard pass - I’m not here to staff a person and incur that headache and expense just so 6/8 can make more $$.
It also feels like they’re being paid twice - Futures raised prices, the note was the games now included Gols and 6/8 scoring - but now the users also have to pay for 6/8. It’s not the $$ - it’s the principle.
Individual players don’t have to pay 6-8 for the stats to be there, so that is a misconception. The 6-8 subscription has more assessments than that and typically used most by people doing the 6-8 programs, and also a lot of training aids, etc. It is does not matter if you pay the fee when it comes to your team tracking games. The team still gets all the data for the players.
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Ah yes I love it when I hear people complain about companies like 6/8 or Kap7 making money. Both companies started by water polo people trying to improve the sport.
If we are worried about rising tournament costs, how about the publicly funded school districts increasing pool rental fees to exorbitant amounts. Since we fund those pools as taxpayers that seems like a crazy double dip to charge $200 an hour for use of the pools. This is the main driver of these insane tournament fees.
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Throwing my two cents into this discussion because I compare my son’s water polo experience to his basketball experience, and the lack of statistics for water polo as compared to basketball is shocking.
In CIF-SS, most good basketball programs pay HUDL for an add-on solution that allows the team to submit game film the night of the game to a HUDL AI bot, that within 24 hours provides a statistical analysis, along with a fully clipped game film, that is on average, about 95% accurate. The coaches can then go in and correct any misidentified statistics. By fully clipped, I mean that any basketball team member can log on to HUDL, and sort his statistics, and review a clip of each one of those plays. For example, if a player had 4 turnovers, you can simply click on the 4 turnover link, and each turnover is played back-to-back in a clip for that player. The same is true for all shots, rebounds, assists, etc. It’s fairly amazing.
Basketball teams have no issue paying a person to film the games, and have no issue paying a subscription service to provide this service. Personally, I think water polo clubs/HS programs should be attempting to do the same thing, whether through 6-8 sports, or through their own use of HUDL (without the easy basketball AI tool). Statistics, coupled with video review, should be much more prevalent than they are now at all programs, not just the powerhouses. Video review of games/practices/scout games should be happening daily, during player’s downtime, while on their phones. High school basketball players are walking around campus, laying in bed, sitting at their desks, while watching video clips of their plays, as well as scouting clips of upcoming games. This is what other sports do, and they are willing to pay for it. Why shouldn’t water polo?
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Good points @retiredguy and @rharlan51. I am seeing an interest in stats and data. For those down on the idea or model I would encourage you to take the time to research it a bit and you may find it has a place, providing value, and filling a need in the system.
Great perspective on what is available statwise and film-wise for basketball v WP. Seems like almost all other high school sports have great options for both. If HUDL works for water polo, I would think it’s a no brainer that teams would be using it. There is one 14u club I see tracking stats via ipad for every game. Surprised there are not more.
Maybe on paper it’s $200/hour but in reality the HS coach trades pool use for tournament entry fees.
In the age of Facilitron trading for pool time is becoming a thing of the past.
School districts want not only pool time but custodians, and locker room rentals.
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I developed the 6-8 game desk and app with Tony and Maggie. Ask me anything! My kids were athletes # 1 and 2 in the system.
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Awesome. Thanks for the offer. Can you share the scoring weights that make up the overall number?
Sure. It’s something you could definitely figure out by playing around with the apps. We debated for a while as to whether to make the values configurable, but settled on the idea that the consistent benchmarking was more important than the “number”. Because everyone is scored the same, there’s standardization and consistency across the entire collection of athletes and games for years!
I’ve used it with my kids club and school teams for years. The discussions the kids have about it are super important. Parents don’t give a crap. I’ve never had a parent ask about the stats of their kid. For the athletes it’s the realization that a strong defensive game or a playmaker can be a huge positive for the team.
The values are:
Goals +1
Exclusions -.7
Assists +.9
Steals +.7
Offensive -.9
Turnover -.9
EarnedEjectjon +.9
Blocks +.8
Saves +.8
Stating a water polo game is tough. I’ve done several hundred and still often use a spotter!
6-8’s app strength is that the stats flow to a larger database and to the individual player profiles in their mobile app. Smart coaches understand the stats tell the story about what is happening in the game and understand how to spot trends and use the data to educate the athletes about the game. Weaker coaches view it as a threat because they are making gut decisions and not objectively observing performance.
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Good stuff, thanks for sharing and supporting our community.
BayPolo: Thanks for the explanation. What is number for a missed shot?
Can we manually enter these stats for each game?
Appreciate the insight! Supportive of more stats in the sport and motivating players to look beyond just goals scored. Curious whether the weights were determined based on the contribution of the player or incentivizing player behavior in-game or something else entirely?
Missed shot has no impact, but the data will show shooting percentage.
There is no value to a missed shot. This is another thing we debated, but there’s no REAL value to the shot (no turn over or advantage) only the outcome. It was also felt that putting a value on missed shots could invent poor behaviors. We do however track shooting % so the conversation with the athlete that went 2 for 15 should be around taking good shots and looking at film to see where the missed opportunities were!
Yes! I have a paper sheet that I sometimes use that makes it easier to track during the game and then I manually enter into the game desk after or I sometimes do stats against the video…that’s harder since you don’t see all the calls clearly.
Let me know if you want a copy of the paper sheet.
Weighting was based on:
-Conversations with college and Olympic coaching staff for men and women
-Analysis of other +- algorithms for other sports
- Trial and error along with experience
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that will be awesome if you can share the paper sheet. How do we enter into the app without creating a full new game? game name, dark team ,white team, etc… Is there another way ? Thank you