About

Hi! For those who don’t know me, my name is Swetha Prabhakar. I started this sports blog when I turned 23 (in honor of the #YearoftheJordan) in order to tell insightful, data-driven stories to sports fans interested in understanding key historical, cultural, and statistical trends. Through this project, I am able to express my passion for sports while leveraging my background in statistics and programming. This blog will initially focus on the NBA, but I hope to expand it to other leagues as its readership grows.

So, where does this love for sports come from? Well, I guess you can say that I was an aspiring athlete at a young age. After I got held back in tee ball twice (maybe even three times but who is counting), I found some solace in basketball. Growing up in the Bay Area during the Steve Young era, I could not help but follow football, too. While I am at it, those MJ v. Mia Hamm Gatorade commercials also made me appreciate soccer.

And numbers? Well, I actually grew up hating math (combining like terms used to make me cry in middle school), but I eventually graduated from Stanford with a bachelor’s in applied math and a master’s with a focus on operations research. It is still a running joke in my family how this transformation happened. After graduation, I spent my days at Facebook working on interesting data problems on ads, search, locations, and crowdsourcing. However, I would often burn the midnight oil thinking about the latest trends in sports. Beginning in the fall of 2013, I turned some of my favorite findings into analyses that became the basis for this blog. With the help of various SB Nation affiliates and the support of friends, family and strangers, these posts have had over 100k views to date!

In the spring of 2014, I left Facebook to focus on sports full-time. After some soul-searching, I pulled the trigger and founded Fanvana, a Palo Alto-based startup in the sports and tech space. While I love blogging and hope to continue to share my analyses from time to time, I am excited to begin my new adventure! Check out the company’s website or contact us at info@fanvana.com to learn more.