SSAC

Michael Rubin - CEO, Fanatics DeMaurice Smith - Executive Director - National Football League Players Association (NFLPA) Tamika Tremaglio - Executive Director, National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Jessica Gelman (moderator) - CEO, Kraft Analytics Group (KAGR)   Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen a massive shift in how players are directly engaging with fans, investing into business, and using their platform to affect societal change.  As players step into their collective power, the NBAPA, NFLPA, and partners like Fanatics are redefining the role and impact of player influence within and across the sports industry. Featuring DeMaurice Smith (NFLPA Executive Director), Tamika Tremaglio (NBPA, Executive Director), and Michael Rubin (CEO of Fanatics), Jessica Gelman will guide a discussion on how these industry innovators are adjusting their business models, creating new business lines, driving the future of fan interactivity and have altered the player power landscape to innovate sports.

Stef Strack - Founder & CEO, Voice in Sport, and Voice in Sport Foundation Billy Bean - SVP | Diversity, Equity & Inclusion & Special Assistant to the Commissioner, Major League Baseball (MLB) Sola Winley - EVP Office of the Commissioner and Chief DEI Officer, Major League Soccer (MLS) Jonathan Beane - Senior Vice President, Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer, NFL Katie Burke (moderator) - Chief People Officer, HubSpot   Sports organizations are prioritizing and developing programs to broaden DEI. However, despite increased discussion, media attention, and data supporting diversity, women, people of color, non-binary, and LGBTQ leaders continue to be underrepresented in sports from entry-level to most glaringly in the executive branch. Importantly, leagues are investing heavily in equaling the playing field from employees to vendors to partners with a diversity priority. Over the past few years, major sports leagues have created new policies, hired DEI leaders, and shared their representations from business to team to front office. This panel brings together the league leaders who are driving change at the macro and team-level to increase representation. Moderated by Katie Burke, regarded as a leading voice of culture at Hubspot, learn what is working, what the data says, and how much more we need to do to accelerate representation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in sports.

Jessica Berman - Commissioner, National Women’s Soccer League Johanna Faries - Senior Vice President/General Manager of Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard Jackie MacMullan (moderator) - Retired Senior Writer   Sports has long been a microcosm for society at large and given the public visibility athletes, teams, and leagues expected to lead on all aspects of culture. From players to fans to ownership expectations, it is more critical than ever that organizations listen, respond, and set a path towards evolution. Led by Jackie MacMullan, listen in as Jessica Berman (NWSL Commissioner) and Johanna Faries (Senior Vice President/General Manager of Call of Duty, Activision Blizzard) discuss the process of defining a path forward as organizations invest heavily in cultures to set new precedents, ensure employee, fan, and player satisfaction and improve the organization’s outcomes. With many competing stakeholders, this panel will feature perspectives from all angles of cultural change within and around the sports industry.

Sue Bird - WNBA Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist, Co-Founder of A Touch More and Togethxr Brian Westbrook - Managing Director of Athlete Entrepreneur Network, underdog venture team Lindsay Kagawa Colas - Executive Vice President, Talent + The Collective, Wasserman Michele Steele (moderator) - Reporter, ESPN   Star athletes develop strong name recognition for their feats on the field, but their professional athletic careers represent just a fraction of their lives. After retirement (or sometimes even before), athletes embark on numerous different pathways, often using their platform and lessons learned in their playing careers to make an impact on the broader world. This panel convenes star athletes and one of the most prominent agents in sports for a discussion centered on entrepreneurship and investment as a means to drive positive change.

Sue Bird - WNBA Champion and Olympic Gold Medalist, Co-Founder of A Touch More and Togethxr Brad Stevens - President of Basketball Operations, Boston Celtics Steve Magness - Performance Coach, Author Michael Lewis (moderator) - Author & Journalist   Pressure in sports comes in many forms and some people "have it." Listen in as legendary clutch performer Sue Bird shares how she handles the highest-pressure moments on the court and in boardrooms, how former coach and now team architect Brad Stevens defines the value of performance under pressure for his players, and how performance coach Steve Magness studies the science of these skills to drive performance improvement. Can the "clutch ability" be measured? How do we define clutch? End of shot clock, end of game, importance of the game? How do athletes prepare to perform under pressure mentally and physically? Join this myth-busting discussion led by Michael Lewis as leaders in this area attempt to answer what truly makes the best athletes perform under pressure.

Olav Aleksander Bu - Co-Founder, Head of Performance for Norway Triathlon, Santara Technology Chris Cassidy - Retired NASA Astronaut & NAVY Seal, President and CEO, National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation Roberta Groner - Professional Runner, USATF and RRCA Coach Steve Magness (moderator) - Performance Coach, Author   What do space flight and endurance sports have in common? Both demand the highest level of physical and mental performance, requiring astronauts and athletes alike to push their limits and strive for peak performance. Achieving this goal requires a comprehensive approach that integrates training, recovery, nutrition, and perhaps most important of all mental toughness. This panel will explore what peak human performance means and whether or not it is attainable, drawing on the insights and expertise of Olav Aleksander Bu (coach of Ironman World Champions Kristian Blummenfelt and Gustav Iden), Chris Cassidy (former Navy Seal and NASA Astronaut), and Roberta Gronder (American Distance Runner). Join Author and Performance Coach, Steve Magness as he leans on his experience to sift through the complexities and understand what matters most in the pursuit for peak human performance.

Experts from Sony Sports, LA Dodgers, and Second Spectrum discuss the impact of advanced data capture in sports, enhancing player evaluation, game strategy, and officiating. They explore the use of technology for data collection, challenges and innovations in sports technology, and the evolution of analytics in sports. The podcast highlights the collaborative approach in data analysis for improved performance and the challenges of implementing biomechanics technologies in sports.

Steve Palazzolo - Head of Product for the Football Division, Pro Football Focus (PFF) Thomas Dimitroff - CEO, SumerSports Kevin Demoff - Chief Operating Officer, Los Angeles Rams Jacqueline Davidson - Senior Director of Football Research, Tampa Bay Buccaneers Seth Walder (moderator) - Analytics Writer, ESPN   Football teams across the NFL are using analytics to build an edge over their competition, with improved roster construction being a chief use case. This has also created numerous opportunities for companies to build solutions that provide teams with the data and analytics they need to truly create an edge. Super Bowl winning executives and leaders from SumerSports and PFF convene on this panel to discuss how teams are currently using analytics to build that edge. Potential areas of discussion include how teams are building through the draft, how to prioritize cap allocation to the correct players and positions, approaches to free agency, and the handling of all the variables that come with trading. Panelists will touch on how teams are deploying analytics today, what has and hasn’t worked well in the league thus far, and where teams will be putting more of their analytics focus in the coming years.

Omar Chaudhuri - Chief Intelligence Officer, Twenty First Group Sarah Rudd - Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, src | ftbl Mladen Sormaz - Director of Football Analytics, 777 Partners Football Group John Muller (moderator) - Senior Writer, The Athletic   Soccer is both perhaps the most "unsolvable" major sport and earlier in the analytics adoption curve at the club level, making it an extremely exciting time for the global leaders pushing the boundaries of soccer analytics. The beautiful game's analytics research grows more fascinating by the year, with concepts like expected possession value models, pitch control, talent development, set piece optimization, and more gaining more traction. Meanwhile, clubs have become massive businesses, spending hundreds of millions of pounds on individual players while still unsure of how to integrate even basic analytical insights into their decision-making processes. This panel gathers the sport's brightest minds from the world's leading clubs, analytics consultancies, data providers, and researchers to truly dig into soccer's analytics frontier.

Join basketball analytics leaders Mike Zarren, Shane Battier, and Katherine Evans as they delve into the fascinating world of player development through data. They highlight how analytics has transformed training approaches and roster construction, making teams more competitive. Discover the evolution of player engagement with data, the rise of technology in performance analysis, and how personal analytics can enhance individual player growth. The dynamic interplay between soft skills and data insights is reshaping the future of basketball!