Live and breathe sport? Combine it with maths and data to kick off an amazing STEM career
Numbers are a huge part of sport. Data from matches and training sessions gives coaching staff key info, like top speed, number of interactions and distance travelled – knowledge that can help them decide how to best utilise athletes, improve match results or tailor training sessions.
If you’re keen on mixing maths and data with sport, there are plenty of awesome study and career paths to jump on.
You could be a sports statistician. These number crunchers gather real-time info on sports performances and use their maths and computer skills to create formulas, programs and apps that turn stats into new data.
Coaches and athletes then use that data to strategise about future games or competitions, and journalists and sports organisations use it to report on matches and track performance.
Or, you could get into sports data analytics. This field is all about interpreting data to gain insights that could assist with performance, player health and gameplay. In this role, you also get to analyse fan behaviour, including what merch they buy and social media trends!
Then there are sports scientists. They use biomechanics, psychology, biometrics and data to improve an athlete’s performance and help them recover from injuries by designing personalised training and rehabilitation programs. Sports scientists can work anywhere from sporting organisations and gyms, to health clinics and universities.
If these jobs sound interesting to you, then get inspired by the following stories, then start hatching your own game plan for your future career.
Mighty athlete
Meet Cameron McEvoy, the reigning Olympic champion in the men’s 50m freestyle, and the first Australian man to win a gold in this event. You might’ve seen his face while cheering on the Australian swim team at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But did you know that Cameron also studied maths and physics at uni?
He’s been known to show off his love of STEM in the pool too. At the 2016 Olympic trials, he wore a swim cap displaying the signal of two merging black holes, and a year earlier he donned one with a Feynman diagram.
What’s even cooler is that he uses maths to improve his sporting performance. One way he’s done this is through performing tests, producing graphs and velocity profiles, then using his maths skills to compare them and improve his training program. By training more efficiently, Cameron was able to significantly cut back how far he swam each week. Plus, he got to ditch the 5am starts every morning. Thanks, maths and data!
Cameron’s top tip
“Sport has taught me the value of consistency, adaptability and resiliency in high-pressure environments, whilst my degree in physics and mathematics has introduced me to critical problem-solving skills and a large toolbox of analytical approaches.”
Maths & Data + Sports stars
Check out these STEM role models using maths and data in their sports gigs.
Dr Stephanie Kovalchik, senior manager of data science
In her 9-to-5, Stephanie uses maths processes like statistical modelling, probability and machine learning
to quantify things like how an athlete’s physicality might affect their performance. Read more about Stephanie.
Jake Ward, sports scientist
After initially studying business, Jake retrained and now has a career that’s taken him from the Olympics to the Queensland Reds rugby team and the Queensland Academy of Sport! Read more about Jake.
Dr Tuguy Esgin, sports scientist
A PhD in exercise physiology and a Master of Business Administration have proved to be a formidable combination for Tuguy. His career has seen him tackle noncommunicable diseases in Indigenous health through exercise and sports science. Read more about Tuguy.
Watch this
Check out the Numeracy In Sport series on ABC iview. It explores how maths is used in sports like sprinting, tennis, basketball and football, and why it pays to be numerate! We love the real-life examples and demonstrations in these five-minute episodes.
Start your career here
Maths & Data + Sport + Study
- Bachelor of Exercise and Sports Science, Macquarie University
- Bachelor of Data Science, Deakin University
- Bachelor of High Performance Sport, ACU
- Bachelor of Data Science, QUT
- Bachelor of Statistics, ANU
Maths & Data + Sport + Jobs
- Sports statistician: $99K–$174K
- Sports scientist: $70K–$120K
- Data analyst: $58K–$109K
*Salaries according to salaryexpert.com, Exercise and Sports Science Australia and payscale.com
A version of this article also appears in our latest issue of Careers with STEM: Maths and Data 2025.
