SSAC

Nate Silver – Statistician, Author, and Founder, FiveThirtyEight

Daryl Morey – General Manager, Houston Rockets

Jessica Gelman – CEO, Kraft Analytics Group

Adam Grant (Moderator) – Professor, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

 

The availability of data today is rapidly expanding, and while this promises to unlock valuable insights for all businesses, many organizations find themselves at a crossroads. While some leaders will boldly turn over all decision-making to AI, others will confidently eschew analytics for gut instinct. There remains a wide spectrum between these extremes, and all leaders need to decide where they stand. How these leaders choose to balance the role of data vs. judgment in their teams will fundamentally shape their organizational culture going forward. On this panel, Adam Grant, Nate Silver, and the SSAC Co-Chairs, Jessica Gelman and Daryl Morey will debate their philosophies on data, organizational culture, and the best way to approach decisions.

Saj Cherian – Partner, Kynetic

Amy Brooks – Chief Innovation Officer & President of TMBO, NBA

Jason Robins – Founder & CEO, DraftKings

Steve Pagliuca – Co-Owner, Boston Celtics

Eric Chemi (Moderator) – Sports Business Reporter, CNBC

 

Sports has been a bastion for innovation and change. Today, with vertical integration, new partnerships, gambling, esports and direct-to-consumer opportunities, the pace of innovation has accelerated. For those at the leading edge of the sports industry, no lead is safe. Learn how leading sports executives are developing new products, altering their business models, or creating inventive ways to access and serve customers. This panel will dive deep into how innovative environments can be built and where the future growth will come in sports.

George Postolos – President & CEO, The Postolos Group

Kevin LaForce – Senior Vice President, Media Strategy & Business Development, NFL

Cole Gahagan – Chief Commercial Office, Fanatics

Patrick Keane – CEO, The Action Network

Jennifer Van Dijk – Executive Vice President, Marketing, Wasserman

Saj Cherian (Moderator) – Partner, Kynetic

 

The sports industry has experienced tremendous growth over the last ten years—but the growth hasn’t come from a single source. New companies, industries, and entire sports leagues have entered the fray, and transformed an already burgeoning industry. What does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur in sports? How can ideas attract capital in a more-competitive-than-ever environment? This panel will discuss the existing and emerging field of sports entrepreneurship, new areas of innovation, challenges entrepreneurs face, attractive areas for investments, and techniques for building successful sports businesses.

Ariel Kelman – Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Amazon Web Services

Frank Marcos – Product Manager, Scouting Technology, LBi Dynasty

Chris Young – Vice President, On-Field Operations, Initiative & Strategy, MLB

Joe Posnanski – National Columnist, The Athletic

Ben Lindbergh (Moderator) – Writer, The Ringer

 

Baseball has been a constant through the years with limited innovation while the world of sports shifts around it. Many MLB teams led the analytics movement at the beginning, but the game has been tethered to tradition. Despite recent efforts to make the game faster and more fun, baseball has struggled to keep pace with the NBA and the NFL in terms of TV rating and share of fan attention. So what changes can be made to ensure baseball stays America’s Pastime? How will baseball be played 5, 10, and 20 years down the road? Some of the most analytical and creative baseball minds will debate what the MLB product should look like in the future as it struggles to separate from the past.

Nate Silver – Statistician, Author, and Founder, FiveThirtyEight

Gov. Charlie Baker – Governor, Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Anne Milgram – Professor of Practice & Distinguished Scholar in Resident, NYU School of Law

Corbin Petro (Moderator) – CEO & Co-Founder, Eleanor Health

 

Data use and misuse has emerged as an area of focus as organizations collect and use data in new and innovative ways, ahead of regulatory and ethical frameworks. The emergence of data use in decision-making has exposed unintended consequences and biases that only push us to replicate the past, not move forward. These misuses are widespread: Facebook’s use of data experiments and selling data to third parties revealed how a lack of ethics could lead to unintended consequences. Examples of biases in data have exposed faulty hiring algorithms. What is appropriate or inappropriate use of data? Does this vary by industry? How do we improve biases and continue to progress? This panel will debate the ethical challenges different industries face in using data with leaders in healthcare, gambling, sports, politics, government, and social media.

Adam Silver – Commissioner, NBA

Bill Simmons – Founder & CEO , The Ringer

 

Nearing the end of the regular season, Bill Simmons sits one-on-one with commissioner Adam Silver to discuss various basketball – and, in typical Bill fashion, a couple non-basketball – related topics. As Silver enters his sixth year as commissioner, he reflects back on his tenure, discusses the current NBA landscape, and talks about the future of the league. Among other topics they will address tampering in the NBA, tanking, the one-and-done rule, and basketball’s continually increasing world-wide popularity.

Sunny Mehta – Former NHL Executive

Christopher Boucher – VP Sports Development, Analytics & Hockey Operations, Sportlogiq

Bill Zito – Associate General Manager, Columbus Blue Jackets

Meghan Duggan – Forward, US Women’s National Hockey Team

Tyler Dellow (Moderator) – NHL Columnist, The Athletic

 

The Hockey ecosystem is in the midst of widespread change. The analytics revolution is taking hold as an increasing number of teams lean on analytics to support important decision making. But, key questions remain unanswered. Why have some teams not yet “bought in”? With tracking data soon to become available at a league-wide level, what specific steps are teams taking to prepare? How will the abundance of new information help inform player personnel decisions, in-game coaching strategy, video preparation, and scouting? This panel dives into these questions – and more – as we approach the next era of hockey analytics.

Jason Benetti – College Play-by-Play Announcer, ESPN

Mike Petriello – Stats Analyst, MLB Advanced Media

Doug White – Senior Director, Programming & Acquisitions, ESPN

Ariel Kelman – Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Amazon Web Services

Seth Walder (Moderator) – Sports Analytics Writer, ESPN

 

Recent years have seen an uptick in the use of advanced data and analytics to enhance game broadcasts and drive second-screen platforms, creating differentiating viewing experiences for sports fans. The growth of player tracking technology in baseball, basketball and football has fueled opportunities to tell smart, new stories during live game windows. This panel will discuss innovative ways that events have been presented on linear and digital platforms, what is coming soon, and what may be possible in the not-so-distant future.

Josh Harris – Owner, Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment

Jonathan Kraft – President, The Kraft Group

Casey Wasserman – Chairman & CEO, Wasserman

Jackie MacMullan (Moderator) – Senior Writer, ESPN

 

Legacies are built when there is a vision for establishing something novel and long-lasting. Today’s industry game changers are learning from multiple avenues to have impact internationally, technologically, and through using data to gain a long-lasting competitive advantage in the front office and on the field. This panel brings sports industry leaders who have turned their business success in other fields to redefining the future of sports. Jonathan Kraft has created a sports dynasty in New England and is actively extending to esports, additional venues, and technology and analytics. Josh Harris trusted the process and has ownership stakes in basketball, hockey, soccer, esports and much more. Casey Wasserman turned an agency into an Olympic Movement and his impact is just beginning. Learn how they approach decision-making, hiring, investing, and what the future holds.

Scott Blumstein – Poker Player

Sunny Mehta – Former NHL Executive

Bill Chen – Quantitative Researcher, Jagger Analytics

Maria Konnikova – Author, Journalist, and Ambassador, PokerStars Team Pro

Nate Silver – Statistician, Author, and Founder, FiveThirtyEight

 

Given the massive set of possible decision points – 10^14 in Limit Hold ‘em and 10^160 in No-limit Hold ‘em – poker lends itself naturally to the implementation of analytics. Moreover, the rise of analytics’ prominence in poker has somewhat mirrored the rise of analytics in other major professional sports in the 21st century. This panel, led by Nate Silver, brings together a diverse set of backgrounds in analytics and professional gaming that will explore the crossover between these sports and poker – looking into what we can learn from poker that can be applied to sports and sports analytics.