The Rest Is Science – "Can We 'Solve' Sports?"
Released: February 3, 2026
Hosts: Professor Hannah Fry (mathematician) & Michael Stevens (Vsauce)

Overview

In this engaging episode, Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens explore the fundamental paradox at the heart of modern sports: as data analysis, optimization, and scientific advances make teams and athletes more efficient, are they unwittingly making their sports less exciting to watch? The hosts examine how data and technology have altered everything from baseball and football to Formula 1, and raise provocative questions: Can sports be "solved" by optimization? Should we introduce new rules simply to preserve unpredictability and entertainment? And is there a place for pushing human performance limits through "enhancements"? With characteristic wit and accessible explanations, Fry and Stevens reveal why the very essence of sport may depend on unnecessary obstacles—and some human error.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Optimization vs. Entertainment in Sports

• Dirty Air in Formula 1 as Metaphor [00:03]

  • Fry introduces "dirty air"—the turbulent air behind a Formula 1 car making overtaking hard—not to discuss cars per se, but because it's a symbol for how technical optimization can make a sport less fun:

  "Whether engineering perfection, optimizing for a team, ends up ruining the sport itself." (Fry, 00:08)

• Baseball’s Data Revolution: The Three True Outcomes [04:04]

  • Stevens outlines how baseball shifted heavily toward data-driven strategies, focusing on the “three true outcomes”: strikeout, walk, or home run.

  "When most people think of naked mole rats..." (ad break, skip) "On these little Usenet groups, people were investigating the statistics behind baseball players...it was noticed that there was one player...Rob Deer...he achieved half of the time what they called a TTO, one of the three true outcomes..." (Stevens, 04:13-05:04)

  • The “defensive shift,” enabled by data, makes play more efficient but less dynamic:

  "Defensive shifts powered by the statistical data coaches had was a game changer...But in a lot of ways, it may have made the game quite boring." (Stevens, 08:23)

  • Rule changes had to be made to bring excitement back:

  "We're going to limit the defensive shift in baseball because it just gave too much of an advantage to the defense..." (Stevens, 28:07)

2. Human Optimization and Physical Limits

• Player Body Types and the Limits of Human Achievement [11:00–14:27]

  • Analysis of how selecting for height in basketball and optimal body shapes in swimming/athletics has nearly plateaued performance improvements (e.g., world records now improve by hundredths of a percent).

  • Notable stat:

  "If you are an American male between 20 and 40 and you're 7 foot tall or higher, there's a 17% chance that you're in the NBA." (Stevens, 11:00)

• Marginal Gains and Innovations [16:16–17:43]

  • As advances slow, marginal differences come from the finest details (e.g., humidity, swimsuit tech, pool depth).

• Regulations as a Balancing Act [24:16–27:13]

  • Formula 1 car design repeatedly overhauled to compensate for teams optimizing past the point of enjoyment; e.g., DRS, “boost button” for trailing cars to enable overtaking.

• Sport as “Unnecessary Obstacles” [20:46, 27:13]

  • Stevens paraphrases philosopher Bernard Suits:

  "A game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. And when you start removing the unnecessary obstacles...it's less fun." (Stevens, 20:46)

3. Science and Data in Team Strategy

• Simulation in the NFL and Soccer ("Football") [31:46–42:52]

  • Player tracking data, AI simulations, and how playbooks are now data-driven, not intuitive.

  • Potential pitfalls:

  "...coaches have this AI on a tablet, and they're able to use quantum computing to go through so many options that they know exactly what play to run. And all of us at home have the same app on our phones...it just feels so automatic that we don’t really even need to have the games anymore." (Stevens, 35:05)

• Expected Goals & “Moneyball” Invasion of Soccer [36:38–42:52]

  • Analysis of how Liverpool, Brighton, and others used data to find undervalued players and optimize play, resulting in more predictable gameplay and fewer “maverick” players.

  • Pros and cons of optimization: more effective, but potentially less "beautiful" and dramatic.

4. Human Psychology and the Persistence of Drama

• Action Bias and Hero Moments [43:18–45:09]

  • Even when statistics say standing still might be optimal (e.g., a goalkeeper not diving), the human urge to do something for the crowd wins out.

  "Standing still allowed the goalkeeper to stop the ball about a third of the time. But…they dive 94% of the time. Oh, because to not move looks like you're a lazy bones." (Stevens, 44:26–44:46)

5. Innovation, Cheating, and the Boundaries of Fairness

• Reverse Swing in Cricket and Ball Tampering [46:47–53:30]

  • Discovery of “reverse swing” via creative (and sometimes illicit) ball manipulation by Pakistani cricketers, leading to accusations of cheating and subsequent regulation.

  "It is...an aerodynamic trick...the mathematicians and aerodynamicists have spent many, many...writing academic papers trying to work out how the hell this is even possible." (Fry, 49:33)

  • Question of whether such innovations are "within the spirit of the game" and how the boundary between ingenuity and unacceptable behavior is defined.

• The “Tush Push” in NFL: Game-breaking Tactics and their Aftermath [54:02–57:16]

  • The Philadelphia Eagles’ nearly unbeatable 4th-and-1 move; tension over whether to ban it.

  "If the Eagles were in a fourth and one situation...they were going to get a first down...And so, a lot of people said we need to ban this move because it's just not fun." (Stevens, 54:02–55:13)

6. The Future: Four-legged Running, Enhanced Games, and Meta-Rules

• Enhanced Olympics & Pushing Limits [18:23–20:46]

  • Discussion of "Enhanced Games" allowing performance-enhancing drugs, and why this might not be as exciting—or safe—as it sounds.

• Meta-Competition and the Evolution of Rules [57:16–61:39]

  • The continual process of innovation vs. regulation is tantamount to a meta-game over time.

  • Humorous consideration of humans running on all fours to break the 100m world record:

  "I think that there's a fun option here and it's that we should start allowing people to run on all fours." (Stevens, 57:16–58:11)

  • Fry checks the rules, finding there's currently no explicit ban on four-limbed sprinting in track events! [60:06]

  "There is no specific rule that says you've got to run on two legs." (Fry, 60:06)

• Optimizing Fun vs. Optimizing Winning

  • The essential tension: "We want to watch problems, not solutions." (Stevens, 36:15)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Nature of Games:

  "A game is a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles. And when you start removing the unnecessary obstacles...it's less fun." (Stevens quoting Bernard Suits, 20:46)

• On Data and Human Limits:

  "Olympic records are being set at a slower and slower pace...We’re getting down from ‘whoa, you blew it out of the water’ to ‘oh my gosh, the gravity caused by the granite under that stadium gave you a microsecond advantage.’" (Stevens, 14:27–16:16)

• On AI and Predicting the NFL:

  "...We just don’t really even need to have the games anymore. We can just have a computer simulate the whole season..." (Stevens, 35:05)

• On Reverse Swing in Cricket:

  “Reverse swing is something...the Pakistani cricketers worked out...if you have your cricket ball and you absolutely brutalize one half of the ball...you get something called reverse swing...” (Fry, 48:54–49:32)

• On Four-Legged Running in Track:

  "We should start allowing people to run on all fours. ...the path has already been cleared for this future and I think that's what we need to embrace—not the tradition of the game's rules...but the spirit of the competition." (Stevens, 58:11–60:27)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [00:03] — Introduction to Paradox of Optimization (Dirty Air)
• [04:04] — Baseball & the “Three True Outcomes”
• [11:00] — Height, Optimization & the Limits in Basketball/NBA
• [13:03] — Body Type Optimization in Swimming and Track
• [16:16] — Diminishing Returns and Olympic Margins
• [20:46] — Bernard Suits’ Philosophy of Games
• [24:16] — Formula 1: Aerodynamics, "Dirty Air", and Rule Changes
• [31:46] — Data in NFL & Football/Soccer
• [36:38] — "Moneyball" in Football (Soccer)
• [43:18] — Goalkeeper “Action Bias”
• [46:47] — Reverse Swing in Cricket & Murray Mints Scandal
• [54:02] — NFL "Tush Push" & Rule-Changing Strategies
• [57:16] — Meta-Competitions, Four-legged Running, and the Future

Conclusion

Fry and Stevens ultimately suggest that the solvability of sports is limited—and perhaps rightly so—by the need for narrative, surprise, and the joy of overcoming arbitrary hurdles. While optimization and science will always seek to make play more efficient, they argue, it's the unpredictability and unnecessary obstacles that keep sports human, meaningful, and fun to watch. Change will always prompt counter-change, and this "game of whack-a-mole" is as much a part of sports as the action on the field. Who knows: by 2048, the Olympic sprint might be won by the fastest four-legged runner.

For listeners interested in the interplay between science, data, human ingenuity and the chaos that keeps sports alive, this episode is a thoughtful, entertaining must-listen.