Analytics Magazine Analytics Magazine, May/June 2014 | Page 57

Scout scheduling: maximizing the value of a scout on the road. STATS Inc. recently installed SportVU, an overhead surveillance system in all professional basketball arenas to track player movements on the court at all times. The collection systems allow coaches or team “commanders” to better analyze team and opponent behavior and evaluate performance on the court. There are countless other examples of defense crossover areas, but in every case, O.R. is a critical requirement in solving these problems. The business opportunities were there, and in the summer of 2012, Perduco made the corporate decision to hire Jacob as the lead for all things sports. Jacob’s first task was to determine where A NA L Y T I C S the company should focus in this very broad business area called sports analytics. This led to a one-year path of exploration, investigating a number of ways to generate revenue through the application of advanced analytics and O.R. This also led to a second chance encounter which would result in Perduco finding their sports focus in the summer of 2013. Before jumping ahead, there is useful insight into covering two major explorations, which are, in some ways, still being pursued within the company. The first push into the sports sector came in the form of team consultation. Anyone passionate about sports analytics M A Y / J U N E 2 014 | 57