Samford adds sports analytics center

In 2014, a team at Sports Illustrated predicted the Houston Astros would win the World Series three years later — in 2017 — through data analytics. The Astros did win, defeating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1, and the realm of sports analytics came further into public view.

It’s not something that is readily taught, but this year, Samford University is opening the Center for Sports Analytics. Darin White, the executive director of the center and the founding director of the sports marketing concentration at Samford, talked about the center and Samford’s involvement in sports and sports marketing during Homewood’s Chamber of Commerce luncheon on Aug. 21.

“It’s the first of its kind … it’s been quite remarkable, honestly,” White said. “We definitely hit something that I think is going to help our students in a big-time sort of way.” 

Since the launching of the website for the center, White said the traffic has increased tremendously and he has gotten many emails about it. 

According to Center for Sports Analytics’s website, “The center seeks to be an international thought leader in the emerging field of sports analytics by providing a forum for industry professionals and students to learn about the increasing role of analytics in the global sports industry.”

White said the center — which will have a data analytics lab in the Brock School of Business — will focus on three main areas of analytics: performance, health and injury, and business. As a center, the hope is to help students be prepared for careers in any of those areas. The concept is something the advisory board of the sports marketing program helped create, White said. 

The sports marketing concentration was first opened in 2012, when White helped launch the first program of its kind in the Southeast. He knew that in order for everything to take off, the department would need connections, and helped build an advisory board of well-known officials.

“We knew if our students were going to be able to get employed upon graduation, that they had to have deep connections in the sports industry,” White said. 

Some advisory board members include Atlanta Falcons president and CEO Rich McKay and former chairman of the Louisville Arena Authority, which helped build the KFC Yum! center, Jim Host. White said the concentration has built relationships with more than 30 organizations, ranging from Nascar to the PGA to the NFL.

“We have been very blessed to be very well received by the industry over the last five, six, seven years,” White said. But, he added, it’s really all about helping the students find employment in their field after they graduate.

To prepare them for the world outside of college, students must complete and present a major consulting endeavor. This semester’s main project will be with the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl for a fan engagement project. In the past, they’ve worked with the American Outlaws, the Miami Dolphins, Minor League Baseball and Nike.

Creating an environment that forces the students to work with and present to major corporations, White said, is what helps them succeed in the future. “They’ll do it multiple times before throughout their time here, so by the time they graduate, their resume is packed with relevant, sports industry experience, and that’s a real key to our program,” he said.

The projects will be coupled with a mentorship program, White said. It’s all aimed at helping students in the program obtain jobs in the industry after graduation — the rate of which rests comfortably at 92.6 percent only six months out.

“We’re really proud [of that]. We work really, really hard to make that happen,” White said, adding that the sports industry is one of the most competitive fields to get into after college. “To be able to do that, we’re really proud of that.”

Learn more about the sports marketing concentration by clicking here, and the Center for Data Sports Analytics here.