Using statistics in sports far preceded Moneyball. That was a popular pop culture book (and later movie), so that is when the general public became more aware of it and it made for an interesting story because the A's performed better than most people thought they could (they had a great "underdog" story that the public loves). It has really been sports gambling that has driven statistics in sports, not just strategy for the actual teams. Sports gambling is also a massive multi-billion dollar industry, just as winning actual championships is. There are high-tech sports analytics firms out there that exist mainly through contracts within the gambling industry. Also, due to data collection advances, and hardware and software capabilities reaching a whole new level in the last decade, there has been an even bigger explosion in sports analytics. More data means more information to create and use to make more informed gambling decisions.