By Lauryn Luderman

The Ohio State Sports Analytics Conference, hosted by the Sports and Society Initiative and the Sports Analytics Association, will be held this Friday and Saturday in a hybrid format.

This year, the first day will be online through Zoom and the second day will be in person at the Mason Hall Rotunda. The conference is open to anyone and Ruddy said it will feature many “high-profile” speakers who are professionals across the sports analytics world.

Friday will begin at 2 p.m. with student presentations.

Dr. Ryan Ruddy, SSI assistant director and senior lecturer in the Department of Economics, and John Draper, assistant professor in the Fisher College of Business, joined forces in 2020 to put on the first Sports Analytics Conference.

“We anticipate 20 student research submissions as posters and presentations,” Ruddy said. “Our research submissions are open to students from all universities and the research fair is co-sponsored by SSI, so we will see several SSI-related presentations, as well.”

The next session is focused on women’s basketball and will feature Sara Ziegler with New York Times Sports, Calvin Wetzel and Mark Schindler who are freelance basketball journalists.

College football is what the following round of professionals represents. Attendees will hear from Bill Connelly from ESPN, Parker Fleming from Sumer Sports, Kelley Ford from KFordRatings and Matt Edwards with StatsBomb.

The session rounding off the first day will feature Eric Eager, the vice president of research and development for Sumer Sports and Thomas Dimitroff, the CEO of Sumer Sports and the Atlanta Falcon’s former general manager. Ruddy said Eager is a very prominent figure in the data analytics industry.

Saturday’s agenda will begin at 8 a.m. with registration, but the event will run from 9:15 a.m. to 5:15 p.m.

Those registered can expect to hear first from keynote speaker Sarah Bailey, manager of analytics and data at the Los Angeles Rams.

Additional student presentations will follow Bailey’s discussion, along with the poster presentations and lunch.

The next session is called “Sports Business” where Cavs’ Business Analysts Canaan Campo and Zach Konno will speak, along with Kate Nushart, an assistant athletic director in ticketing at Ohio State.

Afterward, two more guest speakers will be Neil Johnson, who is a developer, research and project manager with the Houston Rockets and Greg Strizek who works in strategic analytics.

The final discussion’s topic is football. Bailey is going to be joined by Browns’ Director of Scouting Research Mike Cetta, Eager and Fleming.

Ruddy said the previous conference had a turnout of roughly 300 and from 10 to 15 different countries. Saturday will be the most in-person the event has been since it began.

Ruddy said the conference is free and includes lunch, coffee and snacks.

SSI, the Department of Economics, Sumer Sports and the Fisher College of Business all contributed to funding travel expenses of the speakers and lunch, Ruddy said.