Wait, what? No statistical data-compelling pieces? You would have to completely ignore a bunch of articles by Zach Lowe/Kirk Goldsberry (basketball), Bill Barnwell(football), or Rany/Jonah Keri(baseball, I don't follow that as much.)

Rany was one of the baseball prospectus guys, and Barnwell ran with football ousiders, both groups that developed a bunch of the advanced stats used in the sports now. It's not always the most advanced stuff, but they certainly bring compelling data to the table (Barnwell in particular), they just don't hit you over the head with it as it tends to be more embedded in the text rather than presented in a graph (except Goldsberry, he's a graphical dude by profession/professorship).