QSAY at the RSS International Conference 2025
QSAY at the RSS International Conference 2025
QSAY was well-represented at the RSS International Conference 2025, which took place in Edinburgh from 1-4 September, 2025. Jess Hargreaves and Ben Powell attended the conference as invited speakers for the session on Statistical Modelling in Sport. Jess gave a talk on “The Lioness Effect: investigating the determinants of stadium attendance in elite women’s football” and Ben’s presentation discussed “Neural density estimation with application to sports data.”
The Statistical Modelling in Sport session formed part of a full day of sessions on Statistics in Sport (Thursday 4 th September). There was also a session of Contributed Talks under the umbrella of “Mixed effect models and stepped wedge trials in sport and physical activity”. This was followed by presentations from the Statistics in Sport Section Prediction Competition Winners 2025, who discussed their approaches to predicting Wimbledon 2025 (in a new share-based format).
Finally, there was a panel discussion (chaired by Jess) on “How data-driven approaches have transformed football” with: Matthew Benham (Owner of Premier League club Brentford FC); Aldo Comi (CEO & Co-Founder at Soccerment): Liam Henshaw (Football Data Analyst & Scout at Unique Sports Group) and James Reade (University of Reading and Oldham Athletic FC).
We are already looking forward to the “Sports Day” at the RSS International Conference 2026 in Bournemouth!