SAW2026 Program
Monday 4 May 2026
12:45 -13:35 REGISTRATION
13:40-13:50 Welcome by Ioannis Ntzoufras
13:50-14:40 Nial Friel, University College Dublin, Ireland
Statistical models for pairwise comparison data.
14:40-15:05 Dries Goossens, University of Gent, Belgium
How to measure the uncertainty of a tournament draw: The case of the UEFA Champions League.
15:05-15:30 Mario Guajardo, NHH Norwegian School of Economics, Norway
Team Travelling Distances in the FIFA World Cup.
15:30-16:00 Coffee Break
16:00-16:40 Jim Griffin, University College London, England.
Bayesian nonparametric ranking and selection in sport.
16:40-17:05 Roberto Macri Demartino, University of Trieste, Italy
Adaptive Bayesian dynamic models for football prediction using commensurate priors.
17:05-17:25 Sheikh Badar Ud Din Tahir, University of Trieste, Italy
Extending Bayesian Double Poisson Models for Football Forecasting with Match‑Level Covariates.
17:25-17:45 Shobhit Gupta, IIM Bangalore, India
Within-game forecasting in T20 cricket and its usefulness in strategic decision making.
17:45-18:05 Pigi-Eva Vyltanioti, AUEB, Department of Statistics, Greece
Bayesian Modelling for Anti-Doping Analysis.
18:05-18:35 Coffee Break
18:35-19:25 Soudeep Dep, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
Optimizing Football Squad Selection: A Multi-Objective Approach to Transfer Strategy under Budget Constraints.
19:25-19:50 Roberto Rondinelli, University of Naples Federico II, Italy
Profiling football playing styles through pitch-based passing networks and archetypal analysis.
19:50-20:15 Jordi Cortés Martínez, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain
Protected Ranking in Men’s Professional Tennis: Epidemiological Trends and Competitive Outcomes.
20:15-20:40 Andreas Groll, Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany
Practical research with football clubs.
Tuesday 5 May 2026
12:15-12:40 Georgios Nalbantis, University of Tübingen, Germany & Vasileios Manasis, EKPA, Department of Physical Education and Sport Science, Greece
Sharing the Brand, Splitting the Viewers: Cross-Sport Substitution in European Basketball and the NBA Europe Dilemma.
12:40-13:00 Tazio Panzani, University of Perugia, Italy
Two Products, One Game: Price Sensitivity in Italian Football Before Live Broadcasting (1963–1993).
13:00-13:18 Andrei Smirnov, University of North Carolina, United States
When Luck Looks Like Skill: Evidence on Decisive-Event Bias.
13:18-13:36 Leonidas Ntrekos, AUEB, Department of Statistics, Greece
Keep it simple: Evidence from Football Modelling in Major European Leagues.
13:36-13:54 Sotiris Margonis, Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Conditional heatmaps in football.
13:54-14:24 Break
14:24-14:42 Frantsuaza Li, HSE University in Moscow, Russia
Anomalies detection in figure skating refereeing.
14:42-15:00 Thodoris Sagias, AUEB, Department of Statistics, Greece
Predicting Peak Performance: A Statistical Analysis of Major Marathon Winning Times (1897-2018).
15:00-15:20 Paris Spiliotis, AUEB Dept of Statistics & Allwyn, Greece
Quantifying Anticipation in the Air: A Spatiotemporal Metric for NFL Pass Plays.
15:20-15:38 Dimitra Alexopoulou, Eleni Sideri (AUEB Department of Statistics, Greece) & Dimitris Dallas (Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria)
NBA Draft Predictions for International Prospects.
15:38-15:56 Afroditi Fasoi, AUEB Department of Statistics, Greece
PageRank ranking for sports allowing for home advantage.
15:56-16:26 Coffee Break
16:26-16:41 Paola Zuccolotto & Marica Manisera, University of Brescia, Italy
Advanced Basketball Data Science With Applications in R.
16:41-16:56 Ioannis Ntzoufras, Dimitris Karlis (AUEB Department of Statistics, Greece) & Leonardo Egidi (University of Trieste, Italy)
Predictive Modelling for Football Analytics.
16:56-17:11 Tim Swartz (Virtual), Simon Fraser University, Canada
Insights from Sports Analytics.
17:11-17:36 Myrte Marlin, Clutch Data & ESCP Business School, France
Scouting Roles, Not Players: Probabilistic Basketball Player Archetypes for Any League.
17:36-18:01 Brendan Bernegger, Tippstrat
From Growth to Modelling: Structuring a Statistical Framework for Mixed Martial Arts.
18:01-18:26 Vasileios Zografos, OPENBET
Teaching a Model to Think Like a Trader: Curriculum Learning for Rare Event Detection in Live Sports Betting
18:26-18:56 Coffee Break
18:56-19:21 Arnold Baca & Philipp Kornfeind, University of Vienna, Austria
Low-cost tools for tracking human motion – Selected practical applications.
19:21-19:46 Michalis Nikolouzos, AUEB Department of Statistics, Greece
From Activity Tracking to Human Load Monitoring: Advances and Challenges in Sport Sensor Technology.
19:46-20:06 Tobias Harringer, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Expected Pass Value (xPV): A Holistic Framework for Evaluating Passing Situations in Soccer.
20:06-20:31 Robert Bajons, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Beyond expected value: A context-aware framework to evaluate passing decisions in soccer.
Wednesday 6 May 2026
14:00 - 17:00 Short Course on Sports Management - Lecture 1
18:00 - 21:00 Short Course on Coaching by Numbers - Lecture 1
Thursday 7 May 2026
14:00 - 17:00 Short Course on Sports Management - Lecture 2
18:00 - 21:00 Short Course on Coaching by Numbers - Lecture 2
Friday 8 May 2026
14:00 - 17:00 Short Course on Sports Management - Lecture 3
18:00 - 21:00 Short Course on Coaching by Numbers - Lecture 3
Monday 11 to Wednesday 13 May 2026
18:00 - 21:00 Short Course on Football Analytics
*All times refer to the Greek time-zone (GMT+3)
Organized by
Ioannis Ntzoufras
Dimitris Karlis
Sotiris Drikos
Administrative Assistant
Argyro Damoulaki
