Bosse: ASU students prove baseball means business
From Rian Bosse at BusinessJournalism.org on March 25, 2015:
Five long days in a cramped study room.
That’s what it took for five students from the Arizona State’s W.P. Carey School of Business to claim the top prize in the graduate school division at the Society of American Baseball Research Analytics Conference.
The team won the Diamond Dollars Case Competition, even though they were fighting through a shortened week because of final exams. The ASU group evaluated the potential worth of Major League pitcher Cole Hamels, using a focus on analytical formulas, nicknamed analytics, and strategies similar to those that major league franchises rely on.
One thing was clear walking away from the podium with the grand prize: baseball means business.
“That’s one of the biggest misnomers about sports,” said Reid Smith, a member of the five-member team. “Whether it’s on the field or on the business side of things, it’s business. Just because it’s sports doesn’t make it different. Anything you do in regular business, whether that’s forecast sales or manage inventory, you do in a baseball context and in the sports world. I don’t think people always connect those dots.”
Read the full article here: https://businessjournalism.org/2015/03/sports-and-money-asu-students-prove-baseball-means-business/
Originally published: March 25, 2015. Last Updated: March 25, 2015.