The MIT Sloan Conference is one of the top sports analytics conferences and attended by some of the most innovative organizations and people in the industry. We thought it’d be interesting to take a deeper look at the social conversation around the event, as well as any insights into who’s into the evet’s audience.
Summary
To track activity surrounding the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, we monitored tweets which to or from the events handle, @SloanSportsConf, as well as uses of the event’s hashtags #SSAC19 and #ANumbersGame.
Top Emojis Used
When analyzing the top emojis used in the conversation around the event, we found a clear winner was the ⚽ emoji, speaks to the soccer-related talks from Optapro and FIFA.
Closely following were 🍀, which is likely due to the event’s location in Boston, home to the Celtic, and finally, 🏀 which is likely due to highly anticipated talks from ESPN.
Top Influencers
Analysts/ Journalists
- Kirk Goldsberry – NBA Analyst
- Liza Donnelly – Visual Journalist
- Darren Rovell – Sports Business Reporter
Executives
- Jeanie Buss – CEO, co-owner of LA Lakers
- Sebastian Park – VP of Esports for Houston Rockets & Clutch Gaming
- Jessica Gelman – Kraft Analytics Group
Audience
Top Sports Interests
Due to the subject of the conference, there was no surprise that the audience had a significant affinity for sports in general. Using our Audience Analytics, we broke down which sports attendees were most interested in, and how it compared to the US Baseline. We found the greatest affinity lay with NBA, which attendees where 10x more likely to be interested in compared to the US baseline. This was closely followed by the NFL and MLB.
Top Followed Accounts
In the sports world, the top 3 followed accounts among attendees, include Adrian Wojnarowski, Bill Simmons, and Nate Silver, who are all thought leaders, and influential tweeters in the sports analytics industry.
Interests
When comparing users interests to those of a typical sports fan. We found a significantly higher affinity towards Fantasy Sports, which aligns directly with the massive increase in conversation around sports betting, as many leagues move to make changes to how they approach the subject area.
As the conference continues, we’ll be updating this blog with any additional insights and information.
