When Matthew Benham bought Brentford in 2012 his initial thought wasn’t to purchase players, spend on a high-profile manager or upgrade the club’s stadium, it was to invest in analytics.
For those that have seen the movie ‘Moneyball’ or are familiar with the concept founded by Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s in 2002, the MLB franchise utilized analytics and a sabermetric approach in order to construct their organization and compete with the top-spending teams like the New York Yankees.
The same concept applies to Brentford under Benham’s role as owner.
The former University of Oxford graduate spent nearly $10 million testing out his theory with another club he owns -- Danish side FC Midtjylland -- and then adjusted accordingly with Brentford.
His goal was to simply find out the dos and don’ts of sabermetrics and apply the best practices to the English club.
Instead of judging success based solely on wins and losses, Benham started using KPIs, or key performance indicators, to establish Brentford’s progress.
One of those KPIs was expected goals, which determines the quantity and quality of chances created during a match. This is something many teams have gone on to use as a means of determining how well players are actually performing, in addition to their total goals and assists output.