The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics case competition, presened by KAGR in partnership with NCAA, is designed to provide all students with a fun, dynamic, and competitive learning experience to gain exposure to sports business issues. Previous editions of the case competition can be viewed on our YouTube page!
This year’s competition will begin in early February when registered teams are provided with the case question. Each team will be asked to submit a written presentation that outlines their proposed solution to the case question. Presentations will be due in mid-February.
This year's theme: Every March, millions of college basketball fans participate in the time-honored tradition of filling out an NCAA Division I Basketball Championship bracket. These prognosticators try their luck at predicting which teams will win and which will lose in the few days between team selection and the first tipoff. The competition will explore questions around which innovative business strategies can be derived from the brackets.
Three teams will then be selected to present their findings during the Conference on March 7-8 (exact time to be announced). The three finalists will deliver their presentations to a judging panel of esteemed sports industry professionals.
Registration for the 2025 case competition is now open!
Interested participants must register in teams of up to three students. Each team must consist of students from the same university.
To participate in the case competition, teams must meet the following criteria:
(1) All team members must be full-time enrolled students at the time of the conference
(2) All team members must be from the same university
(3) All team members must have never won the SSAC Case Competition before
The competition will occur in two rounds. The first round takes place in February ahead of the conference. The final round will be hosted at the 2025 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, taking place on March 7-8 in Boston, MA.
In the first round, registered teams will be asked to submit a written presentation in both PowerPoint and PDF format. The presentation may not exceed 15 slides including introduction, conclusion, and appendices. The SSAC organizing committee will work with the competition sponsors to evaluate all submissions and select three teams to participate in the final round.
In the final round, the three finalists will deliver their presentations live at SSAC to a judging panel of esteemed sports industry professionals. Prizes will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.
In early February, registered teams will be provided with the case question. The case will include an underlying data set that teams must utilize to inform their proposed solution to the case question.
In addition to the provided data set, students are permitted to use any research tools or resources available to them to address the case question. Teams may also leverage external data to support their findings, but citations are required.
All main ideas must be the unique ideas of only the team members involved. Plagiarism will result in disqualification. Team members may not consult with any other individuals (including other students, other teams, or experts in the field).
You can register for the case competition even if you do not have a conference ticket. If your team is selected as one of the three finalists, each team member will be required to purchase a ticket at the student price. If you already paid for a ticket to SSAC25, there will be no additional fees to participate in the case competition.
If you have any questions about the case competition, please reach out to firstpitch@sloansportsconference.com.
1st Place: Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management (Ilesh Jain, Brandon Chubb, Tabassum Qurashi)
1st Place: IESE Business School (Chris Batchelor, Juliana Marroquin, Joaquin Santos)
1st Place: UCLA Anderson School of Management (Kendall Brown, Michael Ingerman, Michael Kirchner)
1st Place: Harvard Business School (Christine Jiang, Kyle Larkin, Sushaan Modi)
1st Place: Duke Fuqua School of Business (Niyanth Anand, Tanya Assar, Rob Belk)
1st Place: Northwestern University - Kellogg School of Management (Varun Agarwal, Michael Wolfenson, Richard Xie)
1st Place: TCU Neely School of Business (Jon Gulbransen, Mitch Howe, Paige Sabo)
1st Place: McGill University - Desautels (Deepti Kaul, Christian Mathews-Gagne, Jorge Tatto)
1st Place: Harvard Business School (Daniel Adler, Ali Habib, Matt Quinn)
1st Place: University of Wisconsin School of Business (Anuj Dhingra, M. Scott Olson, Peter Oppermann)
MBA Winner: Dartmouth - Tuck School of Business (Chuck Culp, Jonathan Ryder, David Sibley)
Undergraduate Winner: Queen’s University (Josh Hoffman, Devon MacMurray, Samuel Petras)
1st Place: University of Chicago Booth School of Business (Shreena Amin, Moon Javaid, Josh Yelsey)
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