Once Again, The Numbers Don't Add Up At The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference
The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC) is “an annual event that provides a forum for industry professionals (executives and leading researchers) and students to discuss the increasing role of analytics in the sports industry.” It was founded in 2006 by Daryl Morey, MIT Sloan graduate and current President of basketball operations for the Philadelphia 76ers, and Jessica Gelman, CEO of Kraft Analytics Group. The conference is organized by current MIT Sloan students, and, according to Wikipedia, it is “the largest student-run conference in the world, attracting students from over 170 different schools and representatives from over 80 professional sports teams in the MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL, MLS, and Premier League.” It is considered to be “the premier venue for sports analytics discussion.”
Given the fact that SSAC was co-founded by a woman and is currently organized by a younger group of bright MIT Sloan students, it may be surprising to learn that in the past 9 years (including 2021), only 16% of the speakers have been/are women. Let that sink in: of the 1166 total speakers since 2012, only 219 of them have been/are women.
It’s no secret that sports is a field traditionally dominated by men. However, times they are a changin’, and they have been for quite some time. Women are good at sports and women can talk about sports, and womenare good at math and statistics and all the other things young girls are told that only boys are good at, so we’re calling a foul on SSAC. It’s high time women have a place on stage, on the field, on the sidelines, in the press booth, and anywhere else they want to be for that matter.
GenderAvenger has done some statistical analysis of our own by looking at the SSAC speaker lists from 2012–2021. Here are a few of the highlights lowlights:
2012: only 9% of speakers were women, and none of them were women of color
2018: there was the highest percentage of women of color speaking at 40%
2020: 39% of the panels with 3 or more speakers were all-male panels
2021: only 32% of speakers are women (the highest percentage ever), and 26% are women of color
Of the 219 total women who have spoken, 12 have spoken more than twice, one has spoken five times, and one has spoken 10 times
This isn’t the first time GenderAvenger is putting SSAC on notice. In 2018, GenderAvenger Stephanie Goodell wrote a blog post about it. Stephanie outlined ways SSAC could improve its gender balance for 2019, and, while the number of women speaking increased by 12% in 2019, it still wasn’t enough; only 23% of the 2019 speakers were women. In addition, the GA community called them out via Action Alerts in 2018, then again in 2019, and once again in 2020. Here we sit in 2021, and we’re at it again. Even a global pandemic that caused all events to be held virtually for over a year, making it technically easier to include more women than ever before, couldn’t encourage MIT Sloan to move the needle toward gender balance. It is nothing but disappointing that the largest student-run conference in the world, one which was co-founded by a woman, continues to elevate the population whose voices already dominate in sports and analytics, men.
It’s time to make it happen, SSAC. The 2020 numbers are so close. With just a bit more effort and awareness, you can make the 2021 speaker list your best and most gender balanced one yet.