MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference continues to make strides in data acceptance
Jessica Gelman has become an influential leader and innovator in the sports industry
PHILADELPHIA — Jessica Gelman sharpened her basketball skills in pickup games at YMCAs growing up in suburban Chicago, rocking her black sneakers just like Michael Jordan and the rest of the Bulls. Sure, the future co-founder of the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference wanted to play like Jordan — and Gelman developed into the kind of Ivy League standout that saw her burst into a 1,000-point scorer and co-captain at Harvard — but her appreciation of his greatness stretched beyond the court.
Like Jordan, Gelman wanted to separate herself from the field.
“So I did a behind-the back dribble,” she said, laughing, “which was not a thing that girls did in the ’80s and ’90s.”
She tried to break barriers ever since, Gelman’s love of numbers and sports leading her to not only rub shoulders with some of the more notable thinkers, entrepreneurs, innovators and front office deal makers in the industry, but rise to become a prominent executive herself in the analytics movement. She teamed with Philadelphia 76ers President Daryl Morey to not only found Sloan, but guide it into the preeminent forum for number-crunchers — yes, the term “stat nerds” gets tossed around — all while fostering diversity and inclusion at all levels of sports, entertainment and beyond.
In some fashion, Sloan is Gelman’s professional behind-the-back dribble.
“Once I got into the business world, it was analytics,” she said. “It’s not necessarily what people were into. But there was a different way of engaging and being differentiated.”
The Sloan conference runs Friday and Saturday in Boston, having exploded from a one-day, on-campus affair in 2007 that attracted barely 200
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