Ask HN: Sandbaggr: rate your stats against your friends and the pros.
When you play Angry Birds on the iPhone, you know where you rank compared to every other Angry Birds player in the world with the help Apple Game Center.

If you play Chess, you know where you rank compared to every player in the world with the help of Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE)'s ELO Ranking system.

Why can't it be this way with all sports?

At Sandbag.gr we're building a platform that allows friends, teammates, and competitors to track their performance against each other anywhere in real time. We want to make it as easy to use as Game Center on the iPhone, but for games in the physical world too. :)

Why do this?

Statistics are poorly managed and as a result people are overlooked for a variety of biased reasons and perceived flaws.

We feel that Sandbag.gr sits at the nexus of several trends in the venture backed space and that now is the optimal time to enter the market with a peer-2-peer skill ranking product.

Big Data - For years country clubs, local athletic clubs, and student athletic associations, have kept track of sports data independently. This data, although sometimes streamlined on a national level in the case of the USGA, remains largely disorganized. There lies a huge opportunity to organize this data and apply it in a fun and intuitive way. For example, Muthu Alagappan, a Stanford University Senior, recently used a data set from the NBA 2011-2012 season on 452 players to determine which positions would best serve their strengths. In analyzing the data he created 13 new positions to better describe the way each player participates in scoring points for the team. One fun example that he pointed out was that statistically Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics had more in common with Miami Heat forward Shane Battier than with fellow point guard Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs. Alagappan built his database with the following fields: points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots, turnovers and fouls. These are stats that every athletic association in the first world keeps. The same observations that Alagappan made about professional players could be applied to the high school or adult recreational level making gameplay more fun and preventing young players from being "undervalued" by the coaches, scouts, and fans. Muthu's experiment is just one example of how sports data can be utilized when organized in a standardized way. Further more, Xbox Live and Apple Game Center have data about all video games played. With the help of the unofficial Xbox API and Apple Game Center API all of this data could be ported to Sandbaggr.
Smartphone and Tablet Proliferation- There were an estimated 487 million smartphones shipped in 2011, and tablet computer proliferation is growing exponentially. Dozens of score card apps have popped up on smartphones making it easier and easier to keep score on an iPad or iPhone than in a book. This presents a phenomenal opportunity for Sandbag.gr to cater to anyone from jet setters keeping each other in line while playing a skins game on the golf course to athletic associations keeping track of their team's stats in real time on an ipad.
Real Time - The rise of derby.js and meteor have proven that time time is ripe for a realtime consumer web applications to be deployed. Although these projects and their brethren are still in their infancy, many sports associations across the country still use traditional pen and paper as a means of keeping track. Realtime applications allow coaches and scorekeepers to update the statistics they are recording in real time, and would allow audiences, coaches, and players to engage with those statistics immediately. Although this has become commonplace for professional and college sports, game statistics methodology remains in the same state it has been since the 1950's.
Gamification - One of the most popular buzzwords among marketing communities in lie of Four Square's success has been "gamification." It seems like everyone in a marketing role has been professing the inevitable gamification of western consumerism(i.e. badges for buying stuff). At Sandbag.gr we think its silly to spend time "gamifying" things such as shopping or watching T.V. when games and sports that people play every day and have been playing for years have not been optimized by Web 2.0 technologies. Having said that, we think the implementation of badges and awards, in a way that has been fun and successful with XBox live, would add another level of competition to sportsmanship.
p2p Meetups - We love DinnerForStrangers and think it is extremely innovative. We think the same "matchmaking"/ "geo-social" principles that ideas like DinnerForStrangers and Match.com use to match people nearby can apply to pick-up games and challenges.

Monetization

Ideally we would like Sandbag.gr to be free for anyone to use, but because it is important for there to be an ultimate strategy we have brainstormed a few monetization scenarios.

Goods upgrades - EA made a phenomenal foray in the the internet gaming space in 2010 with the creation of Tiger Woods online which allowed users to customize their player by buying different clubs and shoes. We think that advertising and specific product upgrades in real life such as shoes and could be fun way to rack up affiliate Amazon
Skilled Game Wagers - When handicaps are more open and honest, everyone who wants to put a friendly skilled gaming wager with a friend has the ability to do so in a safe and controlled environment. Companies such as Betfair and . Skilled gaming betting for physical games remains largely legal within the United States and other economies.
Charge - If all else fails we think a subscription model could be viable alternative. This model has worked within the Golf Community. Currently golf rankings are kept by the USGA through a system called Golf Handicap Index Number (GHIN) although the rankings are free to view, to keep track of the rankings through your usually costs $30-50 a month through a country club. We believe we can dramatically reduce this cost (probably to zero).
In the last five year, startups like Groupon/Living Social and fun things like StrangersForDinner have challenged us to go outside and engage socially with the world around us, but there are exists a wide range things that have yet to be modernized with the technologies that have largely democratized other aspects of daily life. There are plenty of fun things that people can do without paying for a coupon. Sport is part of our culture. We don't know why we like sports, but for some reason they're important to us. :)

Conclusion

At Sandbag.gr we're a small group of engineers, economics geeks, and entrepreneurs that want to make the world of sports and games more open and honest. We think there are huge inefficiencies throughout the world in the way we evaluate each other.

The list of things that we can do with well organized data is endless, but we want to start small. Right now we are developing a simple ELO ranking system that can be applied to everything from rap battles to arm wrestling (2). We think the next step are sports where handicaps play a large role like golf or bowling.

So sign up for the beta, ask us a question, or reach out to us and get involved to show us what you got. Because, after all, nobody likes a dirty Sandbaggr. ;)

Sign up at Sandbag.gr