Industry Experts Paul and Veley Lead Students in Field of Analytics

At the David B. Falk College of Sport Human Dynamics, students are taking advantage of a new concept in sports- analytics. Spearheaded by Dr. Rodney Paul, the analytics program will become an official offered major by the school in the Fall semester of 2017. The concept became popularized from the “Moneyball” movie, featuring the story of Billy Beane and his analytically-driven Oakland A’s roster that found unexpected success. The decision to add the major came after much discussion between Michael Veley, the Director of the Sports Management program, and industry leaders, including the school’s namesake David Falk. Additionally, Paul also acknowledges that analytics can be applied to other areas as well.

“I didn’t want to do it if the only jobs that came out if it were working for teams,” he said. “I don’t know how many of those jobs there will be. I hope that all of them are able to live that. So in putting it together, I started thinking about the business side. I searched for business analytics and being able to model the curriculum on that. Because a sports team isn’t that much different from many other businesses, those skills translate pretty easily.”