This past weekend was not the first time I’ve been here. Standing awkwardly on the periphery of a gathering of people, glancing over at the unattainably hot girl I had a foolish and desperate crush on, wishing I could go up to her and make conversation, but knowing that A) I wasn’t cool enough to do so and B) there were tons of other guys all thinking the same thing I was. Have I gone back to high school, you ask? No, this was no high school. This was the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and the “girls” in question were the likes of Bill Simmons, Mark Cuban and Daryl Morey.
This conference, now in its fourth year, was the brainchild of Morey, a graduate of the MIT Sloan School of Management and general manager of the Houston Rockets. It brings together a motley crew of professional sports team employees/executives (Cuban, Morey, Bill Polian of the Indianapolis Colts, etc.), numbers guys both team-affiliated and not (Dean Oliver of the Denver Nuggets, John Hollinger of ESPN, Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders, etc.), famous sportswriters or writers who have written about sports (Bill Simmons, Michael Lewis), randos from minor organizations trying to get publicity and clients, and wide-eyed, job-seeking college students, for a series of panels about topics ranging from the use of advanced statistics in basketball to the future of social media in sports, usually with an analytical bent.
The good news for statistics aficionados like myself is that analytics are finally being accepted by most of the mainstream sports world as — at the very least — a useful tool in evaluating players and making certain decisions. The flipside, of course, for a 21-year-old who wants a job in the field, is that the acceptance and publicity being given to these analytical methods and those who practice them means that everyone and their cousin Eugene wants a job in sports statistics. This year, more than 1,000 people attended the conference, over twice as many last year. While this resulted in some of the panels being too crowded (you’re in my seat, Eugene!), it also means that the analytics movement in sports is starting to get more attention at the highest levels.
Not all, however, is guns and roses, as nobody says. One thing that frustrates the nerdy math major known as “me” is that the prevailing opinions of the conference seemed to break down as follows.
Dudes that actually have influence: “We are willing to accept analytics and statistical methods, but you math guys have to explain it to us in ways that are easy enough to understand. Too many numbers and we get confused.”
Me: “Why do we have so few numbers? This math isn’t hard enough.”
What can you learn at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference? Well, you learn which cats know they are so raw that they don’t have to care what they wear. While I tried to look sharp in my disheveled tan suit and Charter Club tie, Bill Simmons, Michael Lewis and Mark Cuban all wore jeans. You learn that not all blocked shots are created equal, and roughly how many points you can save by tipping a block to your teammates instead of just launching it into the fifth row. For the record, Tim Duncan’s blocked shots are a lot more effective on average than Dwight Howard’s, and Duncan has actually saved more points via blocked shots than Howard has in most of the last few seasons despite having fewer overall blocks. You learn that referees are less likely to make discretionary calls in the fourth quarter and overtime across a variety of sports. You learn that a sports analytics conference is not the place to meet girls, if you didn’t already know that (Bill Simmons congratulated the organizers on breaking the record for “most dudes in one conference room”). Dishearteningly, you learn that even sports people who are willing to admit the usefulness of statistical methods want to hide it or cover it with disclaimers. I heard the word “geek” more times than I would have ever heard it even had I gone to a normal middle school or high school, instead of one that inexplicably wasn’t filled with player-haters. Everyone’s all, “we only use statistics for these things” and “I know we sound like geeks, but — ”
But you know what? As an unapologetic sports geek, I’ll take what I can get. Things are looking up on the mainstream acceptance front, and the statistical revolution in sports is here to stay. Now the problem is fighting off every Tom, Dick and Eugene who wants the same jobs.
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