Tim Zue, a native New Englander and graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is a pioneer in sports-business analytics, particularly for his work managing the financial arm of the Boston Red Sox over the past few seasons.  

Do you recommend specific areas of study for college students interested in a career in sports analytics?

Zue: I believe that any classes that relate to using data and information to help solve business problems would be helpful. This would include but not be limited to: finance and accounting, economics, business administration, business analytics, and sports marketing classes.

With that said, while the classes are helpful, I think a voracious appetite to absorb as much information as possible about the business of sports is more important. There is so much information available online these days about the field that I would encourage students to read and absorb on their own outside of the classroom. When I interview candidates for potential jobs, I often ask them what publications or websites they read and follow to get a sense of what they are passionate about, and someone that lists the Sports Business Daily or Fan Graphs or other sites like that generally elicit a positive response from me.

Based on your own postgraduate experience, what advice do you have to share with students as they search for jobs in sports analytics?

Zue: My own path to my current job was quite a winding road. I studied Mechanical Engineering at MIT, worked at a software company during college, took a job as a consultant with Bain & Company upon graduation, taught 8^th grade math for four years, and then landed an unpaid internship with the Boston Red Sox before being offered a full-time job as a business analyst in 2004.

I encourage students to realize that they likely aren’t going to get their absolute perfect and ideal job right out of college, so they should not put all of their eggs in one basket searching for that perfect job. Often, the jobs that are available in sports for recent graduates involve outbound ticket sales or entry-level roles in fan services or stadium operations. And while those might not seem like they relate to sports analytics, I believe that they can still be the first step on a path towards that type of career. One of my best and most trusted analysts started his sports career in ballpark operations for the Hawaii Winter Baseball league but that first step put him on a path to his current role with us as Director of Business Development.

I learned skills at each stop along the way and had experiences that helped prepare me for my current job, and while I didn’t realize it at the time, they were all important steps in my career for different reasons.

I would encourage students to cast a wide net in their job search and not rule out any teams or companies or roles because they don’t think they relate to their ultimate dream job. In sports, it is not too difficult to transition from one department to another (especially early in one’s career) so I would encourage students to focus on getting their foot in the door first and then work hard to prove their value to an organization while learning as much as possible along the way.

How did you become interested in the intersection between financial management and sports analytics?

Zue: I was a very passionate Boston sports fan growing up and I have also always had a love for math, numbers, data, and information throughout my life. I was on the math team in high school and remember playing rotisserie baseball in college with box scores from the newspaper long before fantasy sports were introduced on the internet.

During the nearly 2 years that I spent working as a consultant for Bain & Company, I became passionate about using data and information to help businesses make smarter and more efficient decisions, and I credit that time as the most formative in my career in terms of developing my passion for business.

When I found myself working as an unpaid summer intern for the Boston Red Sox and realized that I could combine my love of sports, data & analytics, and business into a single career, there was a “light bulb moment” in my brain that helped me realize that a career in sports analytics would be absolutely perfect. And since that realization, I have done everything in my power to pursue that career and I have been very fortunate to achieve that goal.

What is your relationship with the Boston Red Sox fan base like and how to you seek to strengthen or grow this base through your own work?

Zue: I am incredibly fortunate to work for a team and brand that has in my (admittedly biased) opinion the most passionate and loyal fans in all of sports. My job is to create products, events and services that allow the Red Sox to strengthen our connection with our fans and ensure that their passion and loyalty remains as strong as possible.

Over the past several years, we have attempted to achieve that goal by introducing programs like our Red Sox Rewards loyalty program for season ticket holders, Red Sox Nation fan club program, and our free Kid Nation program. All of these programs encourage our fans to engage with us and we reward them for that fan engagement with unique prizes and experiences.

In addition, we have used technology to help strengthen those fan connections as well. We now have virtual reality experiences during games and last year introduced augmented reality activations as well. We are constantly thinking about ways to provide content and experiences to our fans via their mobile devices so we can keep the Red Sox at the top of their mind when it comes to their entertainment priorities.

How do sport analysts like yourself defend your practice against rising skepticism?

Zue: I am sure it exists, but I don’t really feel much rising skepticism for analytics in sports. In fact, I feel quite the opposite which is more and more people in the industry supporting the field and a rapidly growing use of data and analytics across all aspects of sports.

If you go back maybe five to seven years, only a few teams in MLB had a dedicated business analytics department, but these days, nearly every club has a department and this area is one where teams are actively adding more resources. A few years ago, we started hosting an analytics conference for MLB clubs and the first year had fewer than 10 clubs participate. This year, we are expecting all 30 clubs to send at least one representative.

My point is, I feel like the sports industry as a whole has embraced the rise in analytics and there is a general belief that we can improve all aspects of our business, from ticket sales to sponsorship to fan engagement with the use of analytics. I feel this buy-in and belief in our work much more than I feel any skepticism from possible naysayers.

What do you see in the future for sports analytics?

Zue: It is difficult to pinpoint one or two that I think are most notable. A few topics that I am excited about and believe will be part of the industry’s future are:

1. Advances in the pricing of tickets and the intersection of the primary and secondary ticket marketplaces.

• Building a comprehensive profile of our fans that uses data about their tendencies and preferences to serve the right messages to the right customers at the right time.

• Using mobile devices to better understand the movement of fans within venues to be able to optimize that movement as it relates to wait time in lines, etc.

Again, these are just a few. There are so many exciting aspects of the industry that are being explored currently and will be explored in the future.

In your discipline, do you see a discrepancy in the performance and perspective between liberal arts and university graduates?

Zue: As I noted above, while I think the classes that someone takes or the major that they chose to study are important, I don’t think they translate to future success. The most successful employees in our business operation come from a wide variety of backgrounds. I studied Mechanical Engineering but some of my peers studied liberal arts or history or other topics that one would not think are that relevant for a career in sports. The most important thing in my mind is to have a positive attitude and a strong work ethic and a desire to constantly learn and grow. Those characteristics when combined together almost always result in success in my experience.

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On Thursday January 24^th, basketball operations analyst for the San Antonio Spurs, David Kaplan, paid a visit to Davidson’s campus to speak to the ‘Cats Stats group about his work and experience in sports analytics.

Kaplan graduated from Wesleyan University in 2013 with a degree in biological chemistry. He began working for the Portland Trail Blazers in 2014 before working as first a quantitative analyst/systems developer and later manager of basketball analytics for the Charlotte Hornets. He began his current position with the San Antonio Spurs in October of 2018.

We reached out to Kaplan with questions regarding his trade and his valuable experience in an industry in which sports and statistics intersect:

From your own experience, is there a conflict between a scout’s intuition and the data provided from your models, or do these methods work cooperatively? In such a case, which methodology has a higher value to the GM and coaches?

There will always be some type of conflict between scouts and analysts; they use two very different set of tools to evaluate the same thing (players, teams, etc.).

The way in which each organization balances scouting and analytics varies from team to team. A lot of GMs and decision-makers are not inherently technical people. Often times they are former players from an era when statistics were not as readily available and applicable. Some executives are extremely open to numbers and some are a little more hesitant. In my experience, if analysts possess solid communication skills and can explain their models/findings in a manner that is accessible to the decision-makers, analytics will be a large factor in the process.

How does your previous position as a statistical programmer for the Portland Trail Blazers differ from your current position as a basketball operations analyst for the San Antonio Spurs?

When I was in Portland (as an intern), I was supposed to choose a title for my business card. “Statistical programmer” sounded nice; I went with that. Titles for analysts around the league vary greatly. Some are listed as ‘basketball strategy’, ‘quantitative analyst’, or ‘systems developer’, but, often, these titles are only relevant for things like business cards and the media guide.

In what ways did your undergraduate experience prepare you for success in your field, and in what aspects, if any, did you feel unprepared as you entered the job market?

Good question, but this is a difficult one for me personally because my professional career path is so different from my undergraduate one.

I’ve always had an interest in sports, especially the coaching and roster management side. Yet, my high school didn’t offer any programming classes and I wasn’t in any social circles where I was exposed to it. This, combined with my lackluster enthusiasm for calculus, turned me away from trying computer science or advanced math classes in college.

As with most college students, I was 19 when I chose my major; I enjoyed the biology and chemistry classes I took, learned a lot, and tackled some interesting problems. However, somewhere early in my senior year, I came to the realization that it wasn’t what I wanted to do for the rest of my life…or at least the next X years. I began dabbling in code and machine learning during school and realized I could combine that with basketball to obtain a job I was excited to wake up for every morning.

Wesleyan provided me with a lot of the tools necessary to approach problems and figure out the best/most logical solution. In a way, it taught me how to think and work as an adult. Maybe I would be a better analyst if I enrolled in a technical institute and studied programming and stats from day one, but I am a firm believer that college is what you make of it. In my experience, I don’t think it would be fair to say, “liberal arts grads are good at X and lack in Y”.

That being said, I’ve worked with analysts who have PhDs from top universities, a few without a college degree, and everything in between. The PhDs probably stand out a little more when you are going through hundreds of resumes, but, in the end, your educational background is just a jumping off point, it does not dictate future success.

Since I was mostly self-taught in programming and statistics/machine learning, I did feel unprepared in a lot of ways. Many people, both in and out of sports, will talk about experiencing the Imposter Syndrome; I definitely did. For me, it was important to know what I didn’t know and try to learn as much as I could from my bosses.

Based on your own post-graduate experience, what advice do you have to share with students as they search for jobs in the field of sports analytics?

As someone who has gone through both sides of the hiring process a few times, it is extremely important to have some kind of work product. There are so many eager and talented candidates with excellent resumes, but it is no secret some can be generous with the skills section of their resumes. If there is something (a blog, paper, project) to demonstrate your abilities, attach it. You will stand out.

Any other suggestions?

Two things:

1.  It is okay not to know! The ‘stats person’ is frequently supposed to have all the statistics/answers/studies ready to recall from memory. That is unreasonable and will inevitably lead to errors. There is nothing wrong with saying “I don’t know, but I will go find out.”

2.  One of the biggest components of the job that is not brought up enough is soft skills. Many of the people you will be working with will not be as technically skilled as you are, it is very important to be able to communicate your findings in a way that those around you can understand and trust. You could produce the best product in the world, but if it can’t be explained to the higher-ups, the effectiveness will be lost.

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