About the map

Premier League football returning was a welcome moment for many across the country who have missed watching football for several months. In the build up to the matches starting, we created a series of maps showing how far each team will travel from their home stadium to their opponents’ stadiums to finish the season. The simple grid style of the map allows for the supporters to find their team easily.

Why it works

This map was released into the media just days before the Premier League restarted. The timing of this map saw it utilise the increasing anticipation of footballs return. Ranking football teams against each other always caused a sense of pride, and this was no different for each team’s estimated travel times. The maps included the key features, stadium locations and travel routes.

Requirements

Data and software

These maps were created in ArcGIS Pro 2.5 using the Network Analysis tools.

Analysis

We created a dataset of all the stadiums for the premier league teams and used Network Analyst to calculate the drivetime distance between each stadium. We then applied a filter to extract the relevant statistics based on the remaining fixtures.

Time

Each of the 92 matches had to be added into a spreadsheet manually, including information about the team and stadium, which took several hours. Once the network was complete and the design decided on, making each map only took five minutes.

Tips and tricks

Custom Basemap

We used a custom basemap created in ArcGIS Vector Tyle Style editor to give us a simple basemap.

Definition Query

Once we had our network, we wanted to see the routes between the stadiums that each away team would need to take. We had set up our data so we could use a definition query which allowed us to filter the network to only show each away teams route.

GIF

Using an online gif creator, you can use several images to create a eye-catching gif comparing the results.

Links & Resources

The Times Article
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Map Author

Max Tindal

Max Tindal is on the Graduate Programme and has enjoyed experiencing the variety of departments at Esri UK. He enjoys the creativity of map design, as well as their ability to fuel mountain walking and orienteering trips.

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