Since its inception in 1972, the Sports Administration program at Laurentian University has always strived to remain on the cutting edge of the sport management industry. Participating in a case study competition within a high profile sport conference recently, three current students further bolstered that reputation.

Kat Schwabe, Matt Jackowetz and Darby Reive went toe to toe with the elite of sport academia, earning a second place finish in “Sports Analytics” and enjoying the opportunity to present their case at a gathering of the who’s who in sports management last month.

Now in its seventh year, the conference that is hosted by the Sloan School of Management at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in Boston, has grown in leaps and bounds. The L.U. trio had been introduced to the field of sports analytics last summer, working together with the Institute for Sports Marketing (ISM) at Laurentian.

“Sports analytics is really the process of using more objective means of making important decisions,” said Schwabe, a graduate of Lo-Ellen Park Secondary School. “It’s using numbers to gain an edge.”

Revolutioned largely through the success of “Money Ball”, the concept applies both to the study of data involving on-field production, but also to pure sports marketing functions as well, studying demographics to better enhance the fan experience, as an example.

The case before the three was straight forward enough: provide the “next step” in the evolution of “MLB.com at the Ballpark”, a smart phone app that provides baseball customers a host of useful information and bevy of interactive functions to better enjoy their visit to a Major League game.

“I think we tried to simulate our experience at the ballpark in going to a game,” said Jacokwetz. “From there, we started to put together ideas that made sense for all of us, and made sense for some of the demographics that we had to hit, and made sense in a business context and an experiential context.”

Their proposal was straight forward enough, adding two new features to the current mobile companion of the paying clientele. The first would allow fans, in the stadium, to select among three songs provided by each hitter, determining the music that would accompany every batsman making his way to the plate.

The second add-on involved the creation of a “fantasy game”, whereby fans could select certain players in order to accumulate points in different statistical categories. Leaders would be displayed at regular intervals during the game on the scoreboard, with the L.U. troika even proposing the option of having sections compete against each other, allowing fans to provide assistance to others sitting nearby, exposing the technology to those who are less in tune with all that mobile devices now have to offer.

“Having really good content (for your app) does no good if usage rate doesn’t go up,” noted Jackowetz. Balancing between the common sense approach of the average fan, while merging in the background that their studies provide, created something of a framework to success for these three.

“It always starts with a fan perspective,” said Jackowetz. “From there, when you get ideas and you think that they’re solid and you think they’re going to work, then you work through the whole academic side of analytics.”

Submitting their case result against a slew of undergraduate students from across North America (more than 1000 students attended the conference), the local crew were selected as one of three finalists that would present in Boston, joining teams from Ohio State University and Queen’s University in Kingston.

“The opportunity to present at a professional conference with so many of our idols on hand – team GMs, people we read about in the media – that was a highlight,” acknowledged Reive. “As soon as we walked in the room and saw the stage, saw just how daunting it was, we knew we had made the big time,” he added with a laugh.

The end result has left the leaders of the Sports Admin program beaming back home. “One of the things that we’ve prided ourselves on is that in being a smaller program, we’re a little more dynamic,” noted SPAD chair Anthony Church.

“When we notice something happening in the industry, we can quickly bring it into the curriculum.” The addition of trained economists to the program staff and the continuing evolution of the ISM component bodes well for the future of those enrolling in Sports Administration.

“Our student success is confirmation that our program is doing the right thing and doing it well,” he said. When it comes to the world of sports analytics, it’s a sentiment shared by those who were right in the thick of things in Boston.

“It’s fun to watch the new and innovative things they are using in sports analytics,” said Reive. “I think things are starting to change – you can see it in the growth of the conference.”

“There’s no doubt that we are developing students for the industry,” said Church. “And that we can compete with anybody.”