Thesis Defense - Ozan Can Eren (MSDS)

Ozan Can Eren - M.Sc. Data Science

Assoc. Prof. Okan Örsan Özener – Advisor

Asst. Prof. Erinç Albey – Co-Advisor

Date: 17.08.2021

Time: 13:00

Location: This meeting will be held ONLINE. Please send an e-mail to gizem.bakir@ozyegin.edu.tr in order to participate in this defense.

Finding the Determinants of Player Market Value in

Association Football Using FIFA Video Game Data

Thesis Committee:

Assoc.Prof. Okan Örsan Özener, Özyeğin University

Asst. Prof. Erinç Albey, Özyeğin University

Asst. Prof. İhsan Yanıkoğlu, Özyeğin University

Asst. Prof. Başak Altan, Özyeğin University

Assoc. Prof. Mehmet Güray Güler, Yıldız Technical University

Abstract:

Football has been one of the most popular sports in the world in the last decades. In line with its rising popularity, football has become a growing multi-billion-dollar market. Large amounts of money are being paid as transfer fees for the top players in the big European leagues. One of the open problems in this field is finding out the determinants of the players’ market values. While some of these determinants have been researched before, the focus has usually been on the on-field performance statistics. In this study, we use a unique dataset and focus on the intrinsic features and attributes of football players that are provided in the FIFA video game. Player market values are acquired from “transfermarkt.com”. We analyzed the players who played in any of the top 5 leagues in Europe. We build OLS regression models to find out the most important demographic, team-related, physical, technical and mental features and attributes that make a player playing in a sub-position of defense, midfield and attack valuable in a playing season.

Bio: 

Ozan Can EREN was born in Istanbul. He graduated from Istanbul Erkek High School in 2014. He started his B.Sc. studies in Industrial Engineering in Ozyegin University in 2015. He worked as a research assistant at Oregon State University in 2018. He received his B.Sc. degree from Ozyegin University in June 2019. After his graduation, he worked at Bravia Capital as an analyst in New York City. He then joined the Master of Science program in Data Science at Ozyegin University. His main interest areas are explanatory and predictive data analytics.