SSAC

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

  • 57 minutes 48 seconds
    The Impact of Moneyball: 20 Years Later

    Bill James - Former Senior Baseball Operations Advisor Boston Red Sox
    Michael Lewis - Author & Journalist
    Shane Battier - Former Vice President, Analytics and Basketball Development, Miami Heat; 2012 & 2013 NBA Champion, Miami Heat
    Daryl Morey - President of Basketball Operations, Philadelphia 76ers
    Jackie MacMullan (moderator) - Retired Senior Writer

     

    When Moneyball was published in 2003, no one could have predicted its monumental impact across business, sports, culture, and beyond. Now, twenty years later, the book, and later the blockbuster movie, sparked a renaissance that has totally changed how organizations think about and use data. Jackie MacMullen will lead a discussion with Michael Lewis, Bill James, and Shane Battier as the group reflects on the impact and legacy of Moneyball - and analytics driven thinking - over the last two decades.

    6 October 2023, 4:04 pm
  • 1 hour 1 minute
    Player Power - Building Businesses by Empowering Athletes presented by Wasserman Foundation

    Michael Rubin - CEO, Fanatics
    DeMaurice Smith - Executive Director - National Football League Players Association (NFLPA)
    Tamika Tremaglio - Executive Director, National Basketball Players Association (NBPA)
    Jessica Gelman (moderator) - CEO, Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR)

     

    Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen a massive shift in how players are directly engaging with fans, investing into business, and using their platform to affect societal change.  As players step into their collective power, the NBAPA, NFLPA, and partners like Fanatics are redefining the role and impact of player influence within and across the sports industry. Featuring DeMaurice Smith (NFLPA Executive Director), Tamika Tremaglio (NBPA, Executive Director), and Michael Rubin (CEO of Fanatics), Jessica Gelman will guide a discussion on how these industry innovators are adjusting their business models, creating new business lines, driving the future of fan interactivity and have altered the player power landscape to innovate sports.

    6 October 2023, 4:01 pm
  • 1 hour 10 seconds
    Changing the Game: How the Sports Industry is Accelerating Progress in DEI

    Stef Strack - Founder & CEO, Voice in Sport, and Voice in Sport Foundation
    Billy Bean - SVP | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion & Special Assistant to the Commissioner, Major League Baseball (MLB)
    Sola Winley - EVP Office of the Commissioner and Chief DEI Officer, Major League Soccer (MLS)
    Jonathan Beane - Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, NFL
    Katie Burke (moderator) - Chief People Officer, HubSpot

     

    Sports organizations are prioritizing and developing programs to broaden DEI. However, despite increased discussion, media attention, and data supporting diversity, women, people of color, non-binary, and LGBTQ leaders continue to be underrepresented in sports from entry-level to most glaringly in the executive branch. Importantly, leagues are investing heavily in equaling the playing field from employees to vendors to partners with a diversity priority. Over the past few years, major sports leagues have created new policies, hired DEI leaders, and shared their representations from business to team to front office. This panel brings together the league leaders who are driving change at the macro and team-level to increase representation. Moderated by Katie Burke, regarded as a leading voice of culture at Hubspot, learn what is working, what the data says, and how much more we need to do to accelerate representation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in sports.

    6 October 2023, 3:59 pm
  • 51 minutes 19 seconds
    Sports & Society: Redefining Sports Culture and Organizations presented by Wasserman Foundation

    Jessica Berman - Commissioner, National Women’s Soccer League
    Johanna Faries - Senior Vice President/General Manager of Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard
    Jackie MacMullan (moderator) - Retired Senior Writer

     

    Sports has long been a microcosm for society at large and given the public visibility athletes, teams, and leagues expected to lead on all aspects of culture. From players to fans to ownership expectations, it is more critical than ever that organizations listen, respond, and set a path towards evolution. Led by Jackie MacMullan, listen in as Jessica Berman (NWSL Commissioner) and Johanna Faries (Senior Vice President/General Manager of Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard) discuss the process of defining a path forward as organizations invest heavily in cultures to set new precedents, ensure employee, fan, and player satisfaction and improve the organization’s outcomes. With many competing stakeholders, this panel will feature perspectives from all angles of cultural change within and around the sports industry.

    6 October 2023, 3:57 pm
  • 57 minutes 9 seconds
    Entrepreneurship for Impact: Athletes Making a Mark

    Sue Bird - WNBA Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist, Co-Founder of A Touch More and Togethxr
    Brian Westbrook - Managing Director of Athlete Entrepreneur Network, underdog venture team
    Lindsay Kagawa Colas - Executive Vice President, Talent + The Collective, Wasserman
    Michele Steele (moderator) - Reporter, ESPN

     

    Star athletes develop strong name recognition for their feats on the field, but their professional athletic careers represent just a fraction of their lives. After retirement (or sometimes even before), athletes embark on numerous different pathways, often using their platform and lessons learned in their playing careers to make an impact on the broader world. This panel convenes star athletes and one of the most prominent agents in sports for a discussion centered on entrepreneurship and investment as a means to drive positive change.

    6 October 2023, 3:54 pm
  • 58 minutes
    Performance Under Pressure

    Sue Bird - WNBA Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist, Co-Founder of A Touch More and Togethxr
    Brad Stevens - President of Basketball Operations, Boston Celtics
    Steve Magness - Performance Coach, Author
    Michael Lewis (moderator) - Author & Journalist

     

    Pressure in sports comes in many forms and some people "have it." Listen in as legendary clutch performer Sue Bird shares how she handles the highest-pressure moments on the court and in boardrooms, how former coach and now team architect Brad Stevens defines the value of performance under pressure for his players, and how performance coach Steve Magness studies the science of these skills to drive performance improvement. Can the "clutch ability" be measured? How do we define clutch? End of shot clock, end of game, importance of the game? How do athletes prepare to perform under pressure mentally and physically? Join this myth-busting discussion led by Michael Lewis as leaders in this area attempt to answer what truly makes the best athletes perform under pressure.

    23 September 2023, 5:44 pm
  • 59 minutes 6 seconds
    Lessons From The Edge: Understanding Humans In The Pursuit of Peak Performance

    Olav Aleksander Bu - Co-Founder, Head of Performance for Norway Triathlon, Santara Technology
    Chris Cassidy - Retired NASA Astronaut & NAVY Seal, President and CEO, National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation
    Roberta Groner - Professional Runner, USATF and RRCA Coach
    Steve Magness (moderator) - Performance Coach, Author

     

    What do space flight and endurance sports have in common? Both demand the highest level of physical and mental performance, requiring astronauts and athletes alike to push their limits and strive for peak performance. Achieving this goal requires a comprehensive approach that integrates training, recovery, nutrition, and perhaps most important of all mental toughness. This panel will explore what peak human performance means and whether or not it is attainable, drawing on the insights and expertise of Olav Aleksander Bu (coach of Ironman World Champions Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden), Chris Cassidy (former Navy Seal and NASA Astronaut), and Roberta Gronder (American Distance Runner). Join Author and Performance Coach, Steve Magness as he leans on his experience to sift through the complexities and understand what matters most in the pursuit for peak human performance.

    23 September 2023, 5:42 pm
  • 49 minutes 43 seconds
    Sports and Technology: Bringing Performance to the Next Level

    Tracey Kitt - Chief Technology Officer, Sony's Sports Businesses
    Megan Schroeder - Senior Director, Performance Science, Los Angeles Dodgers
    Michael D'Auria - Chief Commercial Officer, Second Spectrum
    Christina Chase (moderator) - Co-Founder, Managing Director MIT Sports Lab

     

    The rapid rise of the use of analytics in sports has created demand for new and unique datasets that can help provide an edge over the competition. With the commercialization of motion capture technology, player and object movements can be analyzed and recreated down to the finest detail. For sports teams and leagues, this revolutionary new age of data capture has unlocked so many possibilities in terms of player evaluation, game strategy, and coaching. Furthermore, this advanced data capture has changed the way that games are officiated and administered, providing a path to fairer outcomes. Led by MIT's Christina Chase, hear from Tracey Kitt (Sony's Sports Businesses), Megan Schroeder (LA Dodgers) and Mike D'Auria (Second Spectrum) to learn more about how these exciting technologies are being applied in the sports industry.

    23 September 2023, 5:40 pm
  • 58 minutes 29 seconds
    The Ultimate Team Sport: Building Better Football Rosters with Analytics

    Steve Palazzolo - Head of Product for the Football Division, Pro Football Focus (PFF)
    Thomas Dimitroff - CEO, SumerSports
    Kevin Demoff - Chief Operating Officer, Los Angeles Rams
    Jacqueline Davidson - Senior Director of Football Research, Tampa Bay Buccaneers
    Seth Walder (moderator) - Analytics Writer, ESPN

     

    Football teams across the NFL are using analytics to build an edge over their competition, with improved roster construction being a chief use case. This has also created numerous opportunities for companies to build solutions that provide teams with the data and analytics they need to truly create an edge. Super Bowl winning executives and leaders from SumerSports and PFF convene on this panel to discuss how teams are currently using analytics to build that edge. Potential areas of discussion include how teams are building through the draft, how to prioritize cap allocation to the correct players and positions, approaches to free agency, and the handling of all the variables that come with trading. Panelists will touch on how teams are deploying analytics today, what has and hasn’t worked well in the league thus far, and where teams will be putting more of their analytics focus in the coming years.

    23 September 2023, 5:38 pm
  • 56 minutes 25 seconds
    Soccer’s Analytics Frontier

    Omar Chaudhuri - Chief Intelligence Officer, Twenty First Group
    Sarah Rudd - Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, src | ftbl
    Mladen Sormaz - Director of Football Analytics, 777 Partners Football Group
    John Muller (moderator) - Senior Writer, The Athletic

     

    Soccer is both perhaps the most "unsolvable" major sport and earlier in the analytics adoption curve at the club level, making it an extremely exciting time for the global leaders pushing the boundaries of soccer analytics. The beautiful game's analytics research grows more fascinating by the year, with concepts like expected possession value models, pitch control, talent development, set piece optimization, and more gaining more traction. Meanwhile, clubs have become massive businesses, spending hundreds of millions of pounds on individual players while still unsure of how to integrate even basic analytical insights into their decision-making processes. This panel gathers the sport's brightest minds from the world's leading clubs, analytics consultancies, data providers, and researchers to truly dig into soccer's analytics frontier.

    23 September 2023, 5:36 pm
  • 59 minutes 48 seconds
    Leveling Up: How Basketball Teams Deploy Analytics to Develop Players

    Mike Zarren - VP of Basketball Operations and Team Counsel, Boston Celtics
    Shane Battier - Former Vice President, Analytics and Basketball Development, Miami Heat; 2012 & 2013 NBA Champion, Miami Heat
    Katherine Evans - VP of Research and Information Systems, Monumental Sports & Entertainment
    Ben Cohen (moderator) - Author, Wall Street Journal

     

    Analytics has transformed how players, coaches and front offices approach player development. The use of data analysis and advanced metrics has provided teams with valuable insights into player performance, allowing teams to tailor their training and development programs to better meet the needs of individual players. In addition, analytics has also led to a shift in how players approach their own development, as they now have access to detailed data about their own performance and can use this information to identify areas for improvement. Furthermore, the use of analytics has also impacted roster construction, as front offices and coaches now use data to make more informed decisions about everything from blockbuster trades to lineups. Join us as NBA Champion Shane Battier and front office executives Mike Zarren (Boston Celtics) and Katherine Evans (Washington Wizards) discuss the ways in which analytics has revolutionized the way that players, coaches and front offices approach player development.

    23 September 2023, 5:33 pm
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