2020 Big Data Bowl

When an NFL ball carrier takes a handoff, how many yards should we expect the play to gain?

That’s what participants in the NFL’s second Big Data Bowl attempted to find out.

The 2020 data contest gathered analytically-minded fans across the world to better understand the factors that determine run play success.

Eleven participants in 2019 event were eventually hired by NFL teams or their affiliate vendors.

Next Gen Stats data — which includes location, speed, acceleration, and velocity for all players on the field — was one of several data sets that are available to participants.

Hosted on the popular data science site Kaggle.com, the competition ran through the end of the 2019 regular season.

Each submission to this year’s contest was judged using a leaderboard that updated weekly during Weeks 13-17. The top submissions will share $75,000 in prizes and get the opportunity to meet and share findings with team officials at the Scouting Combine.

In addition to the contest hosted on Kaggle, undergraduate and graduate students participated in a competition in which they shared their methods and results with NFL team analytics staff. The top collegiate finalists were chosen based on the innovation, accuracy, relevance and clarity of their submissions. The top participants will get the opportunity to present at the Scouting Combine.