{"id":23982,"date":"2020-02-13T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-02-13T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/insidebigdata.com\/?p=23982"},"modified":"2020-02-14T08:15:40","modified_gmt":"2020-02-14T16:15:40","slug":"how-analytics-is-changing-the-game-for-sports-and-academia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/insidebigdata.com\/2020\/02\/13\/how-analytics-is-changing-the-game-for-sports-and-academia\/","title":{"rendered":"How Analytics is Changing the Game for Sports \u2013 and Academia"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Big data has given rise to new opportunities, both in academia and business. Take the Center for Sports Analytics<\/a> at Samford University in Homewood, Alabama, the country\u2019s first-ever sports analytics major. Students use big data to answer pressing business questions about sports teams: who are their audiences, how do they engage them, and how can they turn that engagement into real revenue opportunities? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This new field of study is remarkable in two ways. First, it is a\nbrand new field of study, developed specifically to help sports organizations\ndrive team efficiencies and increase revenue. Second, the students are using\nBig Data and a suite of tools to deliver actionable insights to real sports\norganizations. It\u2019s not academic to them, it\u2019s real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How does the Center help college and professional sports organizations? Students and faculty have two primary use cases. The first is on the team side. Students leverage a host of data sets to glean insights that teams can use to inform recruitment strategy, as well as make in-game decisions, such as formation, plays, and when to sub one player for another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other use case is advising sports organizations on how they\ncan increase their revenue primarily by better engaging their fans. Sports\norganizations have four sources of revenue: selling media rights, sponsorships,\nlicensed merchandising, and ticket sales. All four are dependent on fan\nenthusiasm, and that\u2019s precisely where Samford students come in. Let me give\nyou an example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A university asked the Center to help it drive attendance at its\nfootball games. The students began by compiling a list of more than 200,000\nalumni who had donated to the university, but had never been to a football\ngame. They then looked at another group of alumni who had attended one or more\ngames in order to identify behavior predictors that indicate a propensity to\nattend a game. Once those predictors were identified, the students applied it\nto the 200,000 non-game attending alumni, and identified 7,000 people who, if\nengaged correctly, could be prompted to buy tickets to a game. The results were\nspectacular. The university saw a healthy percentage of that 7,000 attend a\ngame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Curious readers may wonder what I mean by, \u201cif engaged correctly.\u201d\nHow is that even knowable? Over the past decade there have been a number of Big\nData analytics tools to help users parse Big Data, and to home in on meaningful\ntrends. The students at Samford use Affinio, which is an augmented analytics\ntool that groups people by interests. For instance, students can examine all of\nthe users who follow a specific sports team and identify which are the hardcore\nfans by such factors as: inclusion of the team name in their social media bios,\nor if they follow the Twitter account of, say, the head coach. But that\u2019s just\nthe start. Students can identify the news sites the fans read, celebrities they\nfollow, brands they favor and so on. This data becomes a virtual road map for\nthe sports organization\u2019s marketing team to engage fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sponsorship is another key area of focus. Brands, such as\nMercedes-Benz, spend tens of millions of dollars sponsoring sports arenas.\nTraditionally, sponsors measure effectiveness of a relationship based on\ncalculated impressions, i.e. the number of fans that attend a game along with\nestimated TV viewership. But these metrics aren\u2019t particularly correlated with\nthe marketing objectives of the brand, which is to sell products. They\u2019re good\nsecondary indicators of the potential value, but cannot help the marketer\ncalculate the sales lift that results from the sponsorship. Students have found\nthat there is a higher correlation between people who talk about brands in\nsocial media, and then go on to actually make a purchase. In fact, sponsorship\nanalysis is one of the key use cases students and the Center for Sports\nAnalytics use most frequently.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Power of Social Data<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The power of social data has been one of the most surprising – and, frankly, awe inspiring – data sets available. I\u2019ll give you another example. Going into the 2018 football season, all traditional marketing research predicted that the NFL would have another bad year in terms of TV ratings. If you remember, the 2017 NFL season was racked by controversy, and the pundits agreed that 2018 wouldn\u2019t be any better. Such predictions have devastating consequences to the cost of in-game advertising and sponsorships. The stakes were high.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But our students disagreed with the seasoned pundits. Why? Rather than calling people and asking what they thought of the NFL, they tracked what people were saying about teams on social media. Beginning in February, they saw an increase in relevance. By May, the Center was convinced that the NFL would have a very good year in terms of TV rankings, and publicly stated as much. By November, the predictions were validated<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Author<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Darin W. White, Ph.D. is Executive Director, Center for Sports Analytics, Samford University<\/a> and Chair of the Entrepreneurship, Management & Marketing Department. Dr. White also serves as the Founding Director of the Sports Marketing program in the Brock School of Business. He has crafted business relationships with some of the most prestigious sports organizations & corporate sponsors, including NFL, MLB, MLS, NBA, Dallas Cowboys, Bayern Munich, Miami Dolphins, Atlanta Falcons, Atlanta United, Adidas, SEC, ACC, Nike, NASCAR, Atlanta Braves, Harlequins Rugby, Indy Car, Peach Bowl, PGA, Tampa Bay Lightning, MiLB, IFL, Coca Cola, Honda, BCBS, & Manchester United\u2019s sponsor AON. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sign up for the free insideBIGDATA newsletter<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In this contributed article, Darin W. White, Ph.D., Executive Director, Center for Sports Analytics at Samford University, discusses how big data has given rise to the sports analytics major at Samford University. He explains how students are leveraging data sets to help sports organizations drive team efficiencies by informing recruitment strategy and in-game decision making and increase revenue primarily by better engaging their fans. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10513,"featured_media":22738,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[65,115,87,180,56,97,1],"tags":[314,756,96],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow Analytics is Changing the Game for Sports \u2013 and Academia - insideBIGDATA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/insidebigdata.com\/2020\/02\/13\/how-analytics-is-changing-the-game-for-sports-and-academia\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How Analytics is Changing the Game for Sports \u2013 and Academia - insideBIGDATA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In this contributed article, Darin W. 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