Sarah Rudd

{{Short description|Sports analyst (soccer)}}

Sarah Rudd is one of the early pioneers of sports analytics applied to soccer.{{Cite book|last=Sumpter|first=David|title=Soccermatics|publisher=Bloomsbury|year=2016}} In 2011, Rudd developed a method, based on Markov chains, for evaluating the performance of players.{{Cite journal|last=Rudd|first=Sarah|date=2011|title=A framework for tactical analysis and individual offensive production assessment in soccer using Markov chains|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CbLoQVzC-4 |journal=New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports}} This method was later adopted by several other companies, academics and bloggers to evaluate actions from soccer event data.{{Cite web|title=Soccermatics: could a Premier League team one day be managed by a mathematician?|url=https://livestream.com/oxuni/sumpter|last=Sumpter|first=David|date=18 September 2019|access-date=9 May 2019}}

Soon after presenting her work, Rudd worked for startup StatsDNA which was acquired by Arsenal FC in 2013.{{Cite web|title=VIDEO: Arsenal-owned StatDNA on why football data matters|url=https://arseblog.news/2017/06/video-arsenal-owned-statdna-on-why-football-data-matters/|last=Andrew Allen|date=2017-06-13|website=Arseblog News - the Arsenal news site|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-09}} She is currently head of Analytics and Software Development at the Arsenal FC Data Analytics group. Her work is reported to have been highly influential within the club.{{Cite news|last=Smith|first=Rory|author-link=Rory Smith (journalist)|date=2017-02-03|title=How Arsenal and Arsène Wenger Bought Into Analytics|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/03/sports/soccer/arsenal-arsene-wenger-analytics.html|access-date=2020-05-09|issn=0362-4331}}