Tag Archives: 2012

Jim Quagliaroli

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Managing Director, Spectrum Equity Investors

Bill Aulet

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Senior Lecturer, MIT Sloan School of Management Managing Director, Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management

Fanalytics – 2012

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Fan + Analytics.  While Google, Facebook and Amazon are tailoring your web experience, the sports world has an entirely different approach to understanding their fan and gaining a competitive advantage.  This panel brings together thought leaders from the most preeminent more »

Basketball Analytics – 2012

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Increasingly, GMs, owners, and coaches are employing advanced metrics and statistical tools for scouting, drafting, and trading personnel. This panel, featuring NBA front-office staff, commentators, and analysts, will discuss key topics such as: How has the shortened season impacted which more »

Franchises in Transition

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Win now or build for the future? Invest in marquee free agents or develop talent internally? Build a new stadium or relocate the team? The leaders of sports franchises face strategic and operational challenges that affect the team’s on-field success. more »

Baseball Analytics, Presented by Sportvision – 2012

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Advanced analytics have been a staple in baseball for years. So, in an ultra-competitive league, where will analytics go in the future? How will teams stay ahead of the competition? What’s still missing in the data/analysis that would allow baseball more »

Coaching Analytics – 2012

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As teams continue to discover new ways of analyzing performance and opponents, they must also figure out how to most effectively use these measurements.  This panel will cover questions such as: How do analytics change as game gets closer, time more »

Media Rights: Pricing, Power and Competition

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Year after year, television networks have been willing to pay more for sports broadcast media rights, highlighting the high value of live sports programming. As digital rights have grown in value, new channels and media rights are upon us.  Leagues more »

Business of Sports: Winning Off the Field

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In 2011, twenty-two professional sports teams were valued at more than $1 billion. Just five years ago, there were only five. Despite a recovering world economy, sports continue to grow in relevance and consumption for fans everywhere. Meet the innovators more »

Lessons from the PGA TOUR’s ShotLink system

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To see presentation slides click here

Ticketmaster LiveAnalytics: Big Data and Sports Ticketing

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In 2011 Ticketmaster launched LiveAnalytics, a dedicated team of statisticians, modelers, and researchers focused on providing fan and live event intelligence to sports teams and venues. The presentation highlights some of their recent research and analysis, touching on trends and more »

Total QBR – What ESPN Analytics Learned

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Total Quarterback Rating (QBR) was developed at ESPN to improve upon the long-standing NFL Passer Rating by accounting for more information and by putting it into a framework of expected points and win probability. Through its development and application over more »

StubHub: Eliminating Fraud Through Analytics

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StubHub relies heavily on data for all parts of the business — operations, marketing, partnerships, technology and customer service — ultimately, to continuously improve the fan experience of buying or selling live event tickets. This presentation offers an inside look more »

Live B.S. Report: Bill James with Bill Simmons

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In his ESPN Podcast “The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons”, Grantland’s Bill Simmons talks about his favorite things in sports. At the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Bill hosts sports analytics pioneer Bill James for this special live B.S. more »

Interview with Scott Boras

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Interview with Jeff Luhnow

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Slam Force G’s: Quantifying the Force of a Monster Dunk

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In December, 2011 Turner Sports partnered with the MIT Media Lab to create the SlamForce Net, a basketball net that incorporates segments of conductive fiber whose resistance changes with degree of stretch. By measuring this resistance over time, hardware associated more »

Analytics of Sports Franchise Valuation

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Interview Paraag Marathe

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Interview with Alexi Lalas

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First Pitch MBA Sports Business Case Competition Presented by the NFL – 2012

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Dartmouth Tuck (To view slides click here) Berkeley Haas (To view slides click here) Chicago Booth (To view slides click here) SYNOPSIS OF THE 2012 EVENT: The 2012 conference featured the second annual First Pitch MBA Sports Business Case Competition. more »

Trade Show Business Competition – 2012

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(To see competition slides click here) We were proud to introduce the first “Trade Show Business Competition” for our trade show exhibitors. Each Trade Show company had “4 Good Minutes” to explain their business and how they are revolutionizing the more »

ESPN’s College Basketball Power Index

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There are many computer rankings of college basketball teams, from Sagarin to Kenpom to LRMC to RPI.  ESPN developed its College Basketball Power Index (BPI) to provide both a resume and a forecast for college basketball teams, but also accounting more »

The America’s Cup: Augmenting the Visual Experience of Sport

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Sports can be difficult to follow. Did he throw a strike? Was that a first down? Luckily Stan Honey – the inventor of the “K-zone” and the yellow first-down marker in football – has been there to develop technology to more »

Experience and Winning in the National Basketball Association

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When commenting on the ability of NBA teams it is commonplace to cite a young team’s inexperience as a negative and the experience of a veteran laden team as a positive. However, there is a lack of empirical investigation into more »

NBA Chemistry: Positive and Negative Synergies in Basketball

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We introduce a novel Skills Plus Minus (“SPM”) framework to measure on-court chemistry in basketball. First, we evaluate each player’s offense and defense in the SPM framework based on three basic categories of skills: scoring, rebounding, and ball-handling. We then more »

Using Cumulative Win Probabilities to Predict NCAA Basketball Performance

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Traditional ranking methods such as Average Scoring Margin (ASM) or the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) are limited in their accuracy and usefulness because they focus on just the final score of the game, not how the game arrived at the more »

CourtVision: New Visual and Spatial Analytics for the NBA (2012 RP Runner-Up)

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This paper investigates spatial and visual analytics as means to enhance basketball expertise. We introduce CourtVision, a new ensemble of analytical techniques designed to quantify, visualize, and communicate spatial aspects of NBA performance with unprecedented precision and clarity. We propose more »

An Expected Goals Model for Evaluating NHL Teams and Players

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One difficulty with analyzing performance in hockey is the relatively low scoring rates compared to sports like basketball. Fenwick rating (shots plus missed shots) and Corsi rating (shots, missed shots, blocked shots) have been used to analyze players and teams more »

Predicting the Next Pitch

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If a batter can correctly anticipate the next pitch type, he is in a better position to attack it. That is why batteries worry about having signs stolen or becoming too predictable in their pitch selection. In this paper, we more »

Big 2’s and Big 3’s: Analyzing How a Team’s Best Players Complement Each Other

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One of the most important aspects of team construction is identifying and acquiring the most talented and productive players on your team, the players on whom a team’s fortunes most rely. Teams must decide which player-types, when combined, yield the more »

The Effect of Fan Passion and Official League Sponsorship on Brand Metrics: A Longitudinal Study of Official NFL Sponsors and ROO

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We examine the role of official NFL sponsorships in five primary categories to determine the relative effects of an official sponsorship on each element of the BAV brand equity model, Differentiation, Relevance, Esteem, and Knowledge among NFL fans versus non-fans more »

Deconstructing the Rebound with Optical Tracking Data (2012 RP Grand Prize/Alpha Winner)

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This paper leverages STATS’ SportsVu Optical Tracking data to deconstruct several previously hidden aspects of rebounding. We are able to move beyond the outcome of who got the rebound to discover the non-linear relationship between shot location and its impact more »

The “Athletic Brain” — What Is It and Can It Be Trained?

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Great athletes have a special kind of intelligence; they see, react and understand the game in a way that sets them apart – call it “game sense,” or “having a high sports IQ”. Until recently, these key cognitive skills were more »

AtomStats: Analyzing Baseball Statistics in a New Way

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AtomStats is the brainchild of two MIT sophmores, Mike Attanasio and Webb Horn. It offers an alternative way to analyze a baseball player’s value and predict the outcome of specific situations by accessing disparate data points and organizing them into more »

How New Concussion Technology Will Force Radical Change in Sports

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The Future of NASCAR Driver Development

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Harraka will discuss how 2008 has permanently changed the ways NASCAR driver climb the ladder to the Sprint Cup, and how he and his team are working to take advantage of the inefficiency in the new system to both remake more »

Next Generation Sports Coaching Using Mobile Devices

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The proliferation of smart mobile devices and sensors will enable people to learn sports anytime, anywhere, like never before possible. Imagine a world where a golfer’s smart phone detects flaws in his swing and recommends corrections to his swing mechanics; more »

The Revolution in Advanced Sports Analytic Systems

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You may not know it, but Google, Yahoo, and Facebook have turned the world of analytics systems upside down.  In fact, more has changed in the last 24 months than perhaps the last 24 years. These changes are BIG…literally. In more »

How to Cure Tanking

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Encouraged by fans’ desire to cheer passionately for their favorite teams every game of the season, I respectfully propose that draft order should be determined by performance after mathematical elimination.  Analysis of historical data suggests optimistic statistical methods based on more »

Fighting with Data: Creating Statistics from Scratch in Mixed Martial Arts

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The challenge for most sports statisticians is in establishing better metrics and correcting existing statistical assumptions. But what’s to be done with a brand new sport with no existing data whatsoever? The rise of Mixed Martial Arts presented an opportunity to more »

The Sixth Tool: Training Baseball Pitch Recognition

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The skill of pitch recognition, measured with metrics such as 0-Swing%, Line Drive %, and BB/K ratio, is so important that it’s become a virtual sixth tool in baseball. But it’s generally considered to be more a talent than a more »

Mind Games: Psychological Assessments in Player Evaluation

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Despite the use of psychological assessment tools in professional sports (e.g., Wonderlic Personnel Test at the NFL Combine), there is no evidence to support their use in predicting any meaningful aspects of individual or team performance. The failure of psychological more »

Achieving Optimal Athletic Performance Through Blood Biochemistry

InsideTracker, brings a one-of-a-kind, science-based platform that helps athletes achieve optimal health and performance by measuring and improving their unique levels of select biomarkers. Through this personalized approach that uses a multi-factorial algorithm to create personalized ranges for healthy markers, more »

The Power of Belief in Sports Performance Research

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The power of the placebo has been recognized in clinical situations for a long time. This has necessitated an increasing sophistication of the construction of clinical trials. Double blinded, three arm trials with an active treatment, placebo treatment and a more »

Automating Bill Simmons

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With all the discussion about how statistical analysis has disrupted various facets of sports, virtually nothing has been said about sports journalism.  That’s about to change.  Automated Insights, Inc. (via StatSheet.com) has automated the job of writing everything from game more »

Moving Without the Ball

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The same principles being applied in sports’ most innovative front offices and on the playing field are also being implemented by those in charge of the fan experience. That’s especially true in the parking lots and stadium concourses, where getting more »

From 5 to 13: Redefining the Positions in Basketball (2012 EOS/Alpha Award Winner)

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Ever wondered why there are only 5 positions in basketball or how a player’s position is determined? So did we. But now, using Ayasdi’s proprietary data analysis engine and decades of computational topology research at Stanford, we have mathematically categorized more »

Football Analytics – 2012

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Football is often considered the laggard when it comes to sports analytics due to limited sample size and the difficulty of isolating win impact at the player level. In recent years, however, there has been a steady shift to using more »

Draft Dodgers No More

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Winning Strategies for Ticket Pricing: What Secondary Market Data Does – and Doesn’t – Tell You

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To see presentation slides click here

Sportvision’s Baseball Data Platform – The View from an Objective Lens

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A look into how Sportvision is creating compelling objectives datasets like PITCH/fx and FIELDf/x and how this data is used now and may be used in the years to come to enhance traditional scouting, recruiting, player development, and coaching. To more »

Posters

RESEARCH PAPER POSTER – NO PRESENTATION GIVEN Baseball Enigma: The Optimal Batting Order – Clayton J. Graham Optimal Design of the PGA Tour; Relegation and Promotion in Golf – Martin L. Puterman, Qingchen Wang Sporting Event Revenue Management with Consumer more »

Fantasy Sports Analytics

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With a few clicks of the mouse anyone can instantly become the owner, GM, and coach of their very own sports team. Fantasy sports are played by millions each year and its pervasive popularity in American society is a far more »

Competitive Advantage: Sports Business Analytics – 2012

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Competitive Advantage: Sports Business Analytics is a series of presentations given by sports business leaders showcasing areas in which they have used analytics to enhance business operations. Participants from four leading sports organizations will each give a 15 min presentation. more »

Effort vs. Concentration: The Asymmetric Impact of Pressure on NBA Performance (2012 ESPN Fan’s Choice Winner)

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How and why does performance change under pressure? Psychologists have argued that pressure can both distract, motivate and generate too much self-focus (thinking about the details of how one should accomplish a goal, as opposed to “just doing it”). Studies more »

Brand Equity: Valuing Sports Sponsorship

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Branding is more than just a slogan or an image; it is a powerful tool for companies to drive value through association. It defines one’s message and is of paramount importance for companies to resonate with targeted customers. In sports, more »

Box Score Rebooted

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Bill James changed the game of baseball with his ground-breaking introduction of advanced statistical analysis. But can more still be done? And why hasn’t the box score evolved to incorporate these widely accepted stats? These panelists will discuss the inherent more »

eSports: The Future of Competition

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How the next global superstar will come from 10,000+ hours in front of a computer… this year’s eSports panel will examine the growing world of professional gaming.  Our panelists are pioneers and innovators in the industry who each have had more »

Building the Modern Athlete: Performance Analytics

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As players are asked to “fight through injury”, many wonder about the long-term impact on their performance and health.  Leagues are changing rules to decrease injuries and limit performance. In seeking to get a competitive advantage, teams are integrating new more »

Art & Analytics of Negotiation

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Negotiation shapes all facets of the global sports industry.  It comes in many forms and is a critical aspect of conducting business for all industry stakeholders – teams, leagues, unions, agents, players, sponsors, venues, media properties, and more.  This panel more »

Ticketing Analytics, Presented by StubHub – 2012

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Ticketing is the foundation of sports business and is the key driver of a team/leagues success.  The live experience is fundamentally better with a sold-out stadium/arena.  A sold-out game allows for TV broadcasts.  The health of a team or league more »

In the Best Interest of the Game: The Evolution of Sports Leagues

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In 1921, Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was appointed the first ever commissioner in baseball—his role was stated as to “investigate, either upon complaint or his own initiative, an act, transaction or practice, charged, alleged or suspected to be detrimental to more »

Tennis Analytics

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Each year players bring more pace, angle and impressive shot-making to the game of tennis. Power and fitness have certainly revolutionized the sport, but what else is changing the game? In our inaugural tennis analytics panel, we will explore the more »

Insider Trading: Sports Bookmaking and Gambling

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This year’s sports gambling panel will examine the difference between old Vegas and new Vegas odds making: the contrasting styles of using quantitative models and algorithms compared with setting lines based on feel and public perception. Our panelists represent experts more »

Soccer Analytics – 2012

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What role can analytics play in the world’s favorite sport? This panel will explore the potential of analytics in soccer and how it can influence the game. How can analytics be used to field the best team formation? How can more »

Motorsports Analytics, Presented by Sportvision

Motorsports have been at the forefront of analytics for the past decade. Whether evaluating driver performance, developing in-race strategy,determining car setup, or improving the customer’s viewing experience, NASCAR and the world of motorsports have quietly revolutionized analytics. This panel will more »

Hockey Analytics – 2012

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The hockey analytics panel, returning for its second year, will discuss the role of analytics in the modern era of the game, including assessing value under salary cap constraints, integrating objective and subjective scouting data, the relative value of defense, more »

Live B.S. Report: Cuban One-on-One with Simmons

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In his ESPN Podcast “The B.S. Report with Bill Simmons”, Grantland’s Bill Simmons talks about his favorite things in sports. To wrap up the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Bill goes toe-to-toe with Mark Cuban on all things sports, more »