Falk College Sport Analytics Students Shine in Nationwide Competitions  

Rodney Paul, the director of the sport analytics program in the Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, says two of the key cornerstones of the program are research and competition.

“Our students diligently work on research and internal competitions during their classroom activities, various sport analytics clubs and individual research projects,” says Paul, a professor in the Department of Sport Management in the Falk College. “We pride ourselves on being willing to compete with anyone at any time and to show off our work in competitive settings.”

This semester, sport analytics students and faculty have had a lot to show off.

Falk College benefactor David Falk (center) says the sport analytics program is “the crème de la crème of what Syracuse University can offer.”

From player and team analytics competitions in basketball, football, and baseball to the National Sport Analytics Championship to the presentation of research at prestigious conferences, the sport analytics program showcased students and faculty at competitions throughout the country.

In mid-April, Falk College benefactor and noted sports agent David Falk hosted a reception for many of the sport analytics students who participated in the competitions this year. Falk, who has long been recognized as one of the sport industry’s leading figures and most talented innovators, compared the students’ achievements to a Major League Baseball player’s most coveted feat: Winning the triple crown (leading the league in batting average, home runs and RBI).

“At Syracuse, you guys have won the analytics triple crown: baseball, football and basketball,” Falk said. “To me, that’s beyond incredible. This program, in my opinion—and our Chancellor (Kent Syverud) knows how I feel—is the crème de la crème of what Syracuse University can offer.”

Sport analytics major Danny Baris, who won two undergraduate paper competitions, says the curriculum is designed to prepare students to excel at these events.

“The main advantage that I think the sport analytics program gives us is that our curriculum mainly focuses on usable skills rather than theory,” Baris says. “This makes what we learn in the classroom very applicable in these competitions. The program also places a heavy emphasis on presentation skills, and one thing that has set us apart in many of these competitions is presentation quality.”

Paul agrees that the key to the program’s success—and the key to graduates finding desired jobs in the sports industry—is this emphasis on marketable skills.

“High level mathematics and statistics, intense coding and statistical modeling, a wide overview of key economic and business theories and models, a focus on effective communication, and a foreign language requirement span across a wide range of jobs and careers in many industries in today’s society and into the future,” Paul says. “We just happen to study and apply these topics to the fascinating world of sports.”

Back-to-Back

From left to right, Collin Kneiss, Nicholas Kamimoto, Marissa Schneider, and Tyler Bolebruch won the business analytics category at the AXS National Collegiate Sports Analytics Championship in Dallas, Texas.

In late February, a team of four sport analytics students captured Syracuse University’s second consecutive title in the AXS National Collegiate Sports Analytics Championship in Dallas, Texas.

The four students finished in the top 13 in the individual standings: Nicholas Kamimoto (5th), Collin Kneiss (seventh), Tyler Bolebruch (11th), and Marissa Schneider (13th). Those finishes enabled Syracuse to capture the team title ahead of the University of Iowa, University of Oklahoma and host Baylor University.

“Our team felt good about our chances of winning the team title after the competition,” Kamimoto says. “We knew that we put out great work and we also thought that we were the only school to have every student advance past the first round.”

The students won the 2024 business analytics category. In 2023, Syracuse won the game analytics category that was not part of the competition this year.

“The overall performance of our team was great,” Kamimoto says. “Although we were bummed that none of us ended up winning first individually, having everyone in the top 13 is pretty incredible.”

For more about the Sport Analytics program’s success this spring, please visit the Falk College website.