No matter what you think of “DeflateGate,” you’ll have to admit the analytical research by Warren Sharp raises significant questions about the Patriots’ ability to legally hold onto the football. In fact, Sharp’s research has been the most significant information to emerge from the claim that New England illegally deflated its footballs during the AFC championship. As Sharp writes about his research: “The beauty of data is the results speak for themselves.” That’s a significant point. In an era where media access is limited by teams and where athletes can talk directly to fans through social media, data analysis offers sports journalists another way to reveal new perspectives about games, teams and athletes. Analyzing stats can yield far better insights than interviews with unresponsive and antagonistic athletes.

Here are a few other sports analytics websites to bookmark: Nate Silver’s Five Thirty-Eight Sports, FanGraphs, Society for American Baseball Research, Fantasy Football Analytics, Advanced Football Analytics, Basketball Analytics, Hockey Analysis (soon to be Puckalytics), Behind The Net, plus the four Reference sites for baseball, basketball, football and hockey.

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