By Peter Schwartz
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These days, the world of sports isn’t just about balls and strikes, goals and saves, or even attendance. There’s so much more that goes into evaluating players, winning games and selling tickets, and it all has to do with analyzing statistics.
In other words, if you want to establish a career in sports, you have to have some knowledge of analytics.
“I think it comes down to the fact that we’ve seen this data explosion in all phases of our life, but it also has impacted sports,” said Vince Gennaro, president of the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR). “When you have this much information available to decision makers in sports, it’s just completely changed the game, and it’s made analytics so important.”
There was a time when all a sports franchise needed to look at when evaluating a player was talent. Can he hit and throw? How fast can he run the 40-yard dash? Can he get to the quarterback? But these days, there’s more that goes into the equation.
There are more numbers to look at.
Take baseball for example. It’s not just about batting average anymore. There are also stats such as on-base percentage to take into consideration. Scouts will always have their ways of evaluating players, but now organizations have their team of “geeks” that go deeper into the numbers.
“I don’t really ever see (analytics) replacing (scouting) completely,” said Gennaro. “I see it as being one more piece of information and one more way to evaluate a player. I think it complements it really well.”
What analytics has done is create more opportunities for young men and women who want a career in sports. You may not have the ability to determine if a baseball player has five tools, but you just might be able to examine a plethora of supporting data that can help in player evaluation and building a winning team.
And there’s a way to help someone prepare for that type of career.
Gennaro is the director of the Master of Science in Sports Management program at Columbia University. Now in his 10th year, the program is the highest rated of its kind in the United States and is in the top three in the world.
Students, including current Cleveland Browns wide receiver Andrew Hawkins and former New York Liberty player Iciss Tillis, are learning from some pretty big names in the sports business industry. In addition to Gennaro, the program faculty includes former Red Sox general manager Ben Cherington, former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson and former Bloomberg Sports president Bill Squadron.
“The program is quite innovative, and I don’t know that anyone is out there doing the kinds of things that we’re doing,” said Gennaro, the author of the book “Diamond Dollars: The Economics of Winning in Baseball. “It’s a very hands-on kind of class where we use cases and create problems that we look at through a quantitative lens using data.”
The program features a wide range of courses such as “Fundamentals of Sports Analytics,” “Baseball Analytics” and “Analytics of Soccer.”
Speaking of soccer, it’s kind of ironic that analytics of the “beautiful game” are being taught at Columbia because there’s a team not too far away that is a perfect example of that.
While many people are familiar with the “Moneyball” way of business that the Oakland A’s employ, the New York Red Bulls are following suit. Before last season, Ali Curtis was named the team’s new sporting director, and he immediately implemented a plan to build the team aided by the use of analytics.
A lot of the team’s fans were not happy, but the Red Bulls won the Supporters Shield as Major League Soccer’s regular season champions. Students just might learn how they did it by taking the soccer class.
“We’re focusing on the soccer data,” said Gennaro. “We’re using MLS data, and we’re really getting inside what’s going on during an MLS game, and we’re using that to help evaluate and value players on MLS franchises.”
The program is unique because the students are being taught aspects of sports that continue to grow. But the program is not just about what happens on the field. There is a course that deals with such things as dynamic ticket pricing and sponsorships.
How big has analytics become in sports?
More than 600 baseball executives and statistical lovers will be in Phoenix starting Thursday for a three-day SABR Analytics Conference, which includes an annual case competition and spring training convention.
“We’ll have 25 to 30 MLB teams present as we bring together the thought leaders of what’s going on in the analytics world,” said Gennaro.
Nothing can ever completely replace good old-fashioned scouting in the sports world. Although scouts or traditional executives might sneer at contributions from those associated with analytics, it’s a part of sports that’s not going away any time soon.
It’s only going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.
For more information on the Columbia University program, click here.
Don’t forget to follow Pete on Twitter @pschwartzcbsfan. You can also follow @vincegennaro and the Society of American Baseball Research @sabr.
