Mendoza announces new MSBA concentration in Sports Analytics

The University of Notre Dame has a long-standing history of merging elite athletic performance and academic excellence. Now, the Mendoza College of Business is building on this success by adding a new concentration in Sports Analytics to its Master of Science in Business Analytics program.

Administered by the Department of IT, Analytics, and Operations, the full-year MSBA provides a rigorous education in applying analytical techniques to massive data sets to solve business problems. The MSBA in Sports Analytics will require the same rigor and provide the same degree that is currently offered through our MSBA-Chicago and MSBA residential programs.

“The MSBA-Sports Analytics program is open to any student interested in sports and human performance analytics,” explained Robert Easley, John W. Berry Sr. Department Chair and Professor of ITAO. “The class schedule also enables student athletes to participate while also fitting in their various workout and practice schedules.”

Students interested in the sports analytics concentration can begin taking courses as early as June 2022. The MSBA-Sports Analytics program will require 32 credit hours, 31 focused on data analytics, plus a 1 credit career-focused course.

“While the long-term goal may be for the student to utilize the analytics skills gained for a sports team or business after graduation, the skills are transferable to other industries as well, because the program will maintain the same academic rigor across the MSBA program,” said Brandon Erlacher, academic director of the MSBA-Sports Analytics program and assistant teaching professor of ITAO.

With the MSBA program intended as a “fifth year” for students just completing their undergraduate degrees, students in the new concentration will start in the summer with foundational statistics and data management courses. These courses will help students gain familiarity with the statistical methods as well as the scripting and programming “languages” used throughout the MSBA program. In the fall, students will begin learning specific techniques for data visualization, machine learning and working with unstructured data, and will also begin their focus on sports analytics problems and methods.

In the spring, students will continue to develop depth of understanding of marketing and front-office analytics challenges, as well as human performance analytics by working in greater depth on issues such as injury prevention. This is also when students will complete their full-semester capstone project course, which will focus on a real-world sports analytics challenge.

For more information about the MSBA-Sports Analytics, please contact Brandon Erlacher at berlache@nd.edu.