Did you know that some of the biggest names in sports have met annually since 2007 for an event at the MIT Sloan School of Management that ESPN columnist Bill Simmons once described as “dorkapalooza”? At the student-run Sports Analytics Conference, participants discuss the increasing role of analytics in the sports industry, and students have ample opportunity to network with the elite of the sports world.
The tenth annual conference was held over two days in March 2016, where more than 120 industry experts, leaders, and professionals participated in more than 30 panel discussions, among them representatives from ESPN, NBC Sports, the Boston Celtics, the Los Angeles Rams, StubHub, and the Chicago Cubs. The panels covered such topics as “Modern Sports Finance,” “Out of the Ice Age: Analytics in the NHL,” “The Next Wave of Sports Entrepreneurship,” “Evolution of Sports Journalism,” and “Business of Sports.” Other conference events included drop-in resume reviews, career conversations, and a cocktail reception. A second-year EMS Club member told mbaMission, “The event is one of the largest student-organized conferences in the country and was named the third most innovative company in all of sports (behind only the NFL and MLB Advanced Media) by Fast Company [magazine].”
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