Assessing player performance in Australian football using spatial data

This research introduces a method for determining the best player in the Australian Football League (AFL). All of a player’s involvements in games are assessed using a concept of equity – the expected value of the next score to occur in the game. Players who consistently improve a team’s likelihood of scoring, or decrease the opponent’s likelihood of scoring, are rewarded with high performance measures. A summary of player performance over the past two seasons of games has been adopted by the league as the Official AFL Player Ratings.