This interactive data visualization looks at the 2017 MLS standings (Major League Soccer). This project is an attempt at making visual representations of soccer / football’s traditional “table” more widely adopted. In fact, sports standings across all leagues worldwide would be more effective and engaging if they were displayed visually compared to their usual spreadsheet-like formats. For more on the benefits of data visualization applied to sports, see Using Tableau to Bring Sports Standings into the 21st Century or chapter 13 of the book Sport Business Analytics: Using Data to Increase Revenue and Improve Operational Efficiency .

In the visualization, 2017 MLS Standings, the end user can choose from any of the 22 teams currently in the league to update all of the visuals. On the first tab, interactivity includes the ability to hover over the running points total to learn about the story of the selected team’s season. The end user can also hover over any of the “splits” seen below the fold to see how that team is doing in context of the rest of the league or conference. Lastly, navigating to the “2017 MLS Results Map” tab will display the outcome of every game played during the current season and each team’s points total.

The data for this visualization is sourced directly from mlssoccer.com using publicly available data about the result of each MLS regular season match. The visualization is updated daily after the conclusion of all games.

Interactive Data Visualization: 2017 MLS Standings