  The objective of this study was to incorporate contextual information into
the modelling of player movements. This was achieved by combining the
distributions of forthcoming passing contests that players committed to and
those they did not. The resultant array measures the probability a player would
commit to forthcoming contests in their vicinity. Commitment-based motion
models were fit on 46220 samples of player behavior in the Australian Football
League. It was found that the shape of commitment-based models differed greatly
to displacement-based models for Australian footballers. Player commitment
arrays were used to measure the spatial occupancy and dominance of the
attacking team. The spatial characteristics of pass receivers were extracted
for 2934 passes. Positional trends in passing were identified. Furthermore,
passes were clustered into three components using Gaussian mixture models.
Passes in the AFL are most commonly to one-on-one contests or unmarked players.
Furthermore, passes were rarely greater than 25 m.
