[Brad] It's time now for our Bulldog Conversation Brad Radice back with you
and I'm joined by Dr. Darin White, a business professor here at Samford
University, but also the new executive director for our Center for Sports
Analytics. Darin congratulations on launching this really unique center in
the country. [Darin] Yeah it is we're very excited about having the center here at
Samford we are the first university in the nation to have a center that focuses
on sports analytics specifically and and which is really great we have you know
we have a lot of great sports oriented programs on campus as far as on the
academic side of the institution, there are actually four programs sports
medicine, sports marketing, sports media, and sports administration all of those
you know help students ultimately end up in a career in sports, but the
center for sports analytics is really a sort of an add-on that's gonna help all
of those programs you know really grow and have success. [Brad] And to the fan who's in
the stands are watching on TV they can't see data making a lot of decisions but
this is an area that is growing every year isn't it? [Darin] Yeah data is really
changing I mean it's changing everything not just
the world of sports, but it really is changing for example if you buy anything
on Amazon there's massive amounts of data being collected and it's
just it's phenomenal how much big data really is influencing you know
the world that we live in. And so in the world of sports we've seen that really
in three ways. You have the kind of money ball you know that's when it really got
kind of big in sports back in the late 90s with Billy Bean and you know
sabermetrics and things like that, and so you know there are there for example
Major League Baseball now that's almost every single play they that the team on
defense is gonna you know employ a different kind of shift depending on the
analytics the analytics of where that hitter has hit the ball previously, and
you know in football we see that we see it with whether or not we should go on
four down or not. You know now there's data that's actually driving that
decision and so so that's one way it's impacting sports. Then you've got of
course the whole sports performance side where you know that's sort of the health
of the athlete. If we want our athletes to truly be performing at peak levels
come playoffs, well then we now have data to help that we're collecting
all kinds of biometric data on our athletes and that's allowing us to avoid
injuries it's allowing us to you know again really get the most out of athletes.
So that's a that's a really really neat thing and then you've got the third
the third way analytics is impacting sports is through what I would call the
business side of sports, and it's helping helping teams be able to do a better job
of engaging fans when it comes to ticket pricing what we call dynamic ticket
pricing. There's a lot of ways that data is really driving a lot of the
business decisions and sports as well and so so yeah so we're and we're really
the center is sort of focused on all three of those we plan to have you know
opportunities and things going on in all of those areas. [Brad] Gathering the data is not
the hard part but it's seeing what to do with it is where you guys come in is
that fair to say? [Darin] Yeah that's exactly right you know we would we would
love to be able to partner with sports organizations and sports entities that
have data and be able to help them. I mean it's one thing to have data it's
another thing to be able to allow that data to help you make good decisions, be
it on the field or be it you know on the business side
of sports you know, and so and that's really what the the role we hope to play
is to be able to help sports organizations make good decisions based
on data. [Brad] For students that will be involved in the center how do you see
this benefiting them helping them really carving out their future? [Darin] Yeah that's a
major component of what we're really all about part of our mission is as a center,
so there are lots and lots of jobs in sports analytics nowadays in the sports
industry. All of your professional teams now have departments sports analytics
departments you know brands like Nike and Adidas and Underarmor they have they
have whole armies of data scientists and the people that are who again are
helping with all the data that they have. So there are a lot of jobs to be
had in this industry and really it's we don't have enough people out there yet
they're trained to do this, and so one of the things that we hope to be able to do
with to the center is provide students the opportunity to gain experience while
they're here at Samford majoring in whatever, you know whatever area they
decided to major in, but then helping them get actual real-world experience by
really through the center allowing them to partner with sports
organizations and do you know gain real-world experience in in sports
analytics. [Brad] And I imagine a great foundation has already been laid through
your sports marketing program we're partnering with the cream of the crop in
terms of associations, teams, I imagine we'll see a good bit of that with this?
[Darin] Yeah we are so blessed you know here at Samford to have so many
great relationships with a lot of really neat organizations that are out
there and so for example this semester we're working on a project with Nike and
we got a group of students that are gonna be flying out in late October to present,
a data oriented project, to Nike. We're doing the same thing with a vice
president of marketing for minor league baseball. We're doing a big sponsorship
project with Coca-Cola for example, and so and it just goes on and on and so
these are just great opportunities for our students to gain real-world
experience, using data you know to help make business decisions you know on the
business side of sports. [Brad] Well it's super interesting and if you want more
information about it head to Samford dot edu slash sports - analytics. Darin
White joining us here for the Bulldog Conversation, more right after this.