Sports Analytics with Steve Hirdt

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Football fans still talk about Tony Dorsett scoring the first-ever 99-yard touchdown during a broadcast of Monday Night Football. The world can thank sports statistician Steve Hirdt for that.

Hirdt is the special guest of the East Brunswick Friends of the Library for a virtual lecture on, “Sports Analytics As Seen from a Sports Data Expert” on Thursday, May 13 at 7:30 pm. He has worked his entire career at sports data companies, including Stats Perform and Elias Sports Bureau.

With an impressive resume, Hirdt is considered the top expert in sports statistics. He spent 35 years as an Emmy Award-winning director of information on Monday Night Football on both ABC and ESPN. His work has also been featured in The Baseball Encyclopedia and on ABC Monday Night Baseball. He has worked with many top sports broadcasters throughout his career, including Al Michaels, Tim McCarver, Howard Cossell and Frank Gifford. He is also a frequent committee member for the Baseball Hall of Fame and guest in sports documentaries and talk shows.

Sports statistics go beyond providing information for sports broadcasting. A deeper look into these numbers affects how the game is played and the players in the game. This was the basis of the 2011 film Moneyball, which recounts how the Oakland Athletics used high-level mathematics to build a sports team.

“I never thought that my profession would be featured in a film,” Hirdt said. “Teams are much more interested in studying statistics to make personnel decisions than ever before.”

This program is sponsored by the East Brunswick Friends of the Library as part of their annual open spring meeting. The Friends of the Library holds several fundraising events throughout the year that benefits East Brunswick Public Library, ranging from the EB Create makerspace to the museum pass program to special events and programs like this.

This program is free and open to the public.