The Daniels Sports Analytics Lab trains students with real-world data and connects them to industry professionals
Growing up in Boston as a fan of the area’s sports teams—particularly the Boston Bruins hockey team—Olivia Rubin got interested in sports analytics early on, right around the time she first strapped on a pair of skates and grabbed a hockey stick.
“I wanted to play hockey growing up, but I wasn’t good at it,” said Rubin, a junior business information and analytics major at the Daniels College of Business. “So I started wondering, ‘Why am I so bad? Why is (famed Bruins center) Patrice Bergeron? What sets him apart?’ It may not just be because he’s Patrice Bergeron. There are reasons behind what we see.”
That interest led Rubin, who had a natural affinity for statistics, first to an analytics position with her high school’s baseball team, then to a summer program at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business named for “Moneyball,” the 2003 book (and later movie) that introduced the concept of sports analytics to a wider audience.
When she arrived at the University of Denver, Rubin expanded her sports analytics resume by a factor of two. She volunteered to be the student analyst for the Pioneers hockey team—a position she has held for the past three years—and she joined the sports analytics lab at the Daniels College of Business.
Founded by Ryan Elmore, and Ben Williams, faculty members in the Department of Business Information and Analytics, the lab trains students using real-world sports data. Elmore hopes it will eventually do work for teams and coaches at DU and beyond.
“I’ve been working in Ryan’s sports analytics lab since the beginning of this academic year,” said junior business analytics major Nathan Stanley. “One of the big reasons I chose DU was because I knew they had a good analytics program, but also that they had a concentration on the sports side of things and more opportunities with that. Working with Ryan has been a big part of my analytics career so far.”
Rubin and Stanley were among the five members of the Daniels lab who got an inside look at the world of sports analytics in March, when Elmore arranged for them to go to the Hockey Analytics League Operations (HALO) meetings and conference at Ball Arena. Hosted by the Colorado Avalanche, the two-day event included tickets to an Avalanche game, followed by a day of hockey analytics presentations and conversation featuring representatives from the data analytics departments of more than 25 NHL teams.
Luc-Alexandre Grenier, a Daniels graduate student who attended the HALO conference, said the event gave him a better grasp of what it would be like to work in the world of sports statistics.
“It was really eye-opening to see the need for data in teams—what they’re looking for, how each team has a different spin on things,” he said. “The field is growing, not only from a league perspective, but everybody’s finding new ways to use it. Some people are performance-based, some are working directly with the athletes to see if there are better health decisions or performance decisions they can make, and then there’s overall game strategy.”
Rubin, who connected at the conference with a DU alumnus who works in analytics with the Los Angeles Kings, said being around so many professionals in the field made it more possible to see herself working in the world of sports analytics.
“It made me feel better about my path and my history with sports,” she said. “I tried hockey but wasn’t good at it, but I was always passionate about it. I still know the game like the back of my hand. Then you meet other people who are in the same boat, and it makes you feel a little better.”