Debby Stroman believes she can channel North Carolina’s energy and enthusiasm around basketball and sports to help local entrepreneurs create new businesses in sports analytics, data, marketing and sales.
Her big vision is to open a center of sports business and analytics at UNC by 2017, and make our state a national leader in merging sports and business.
Stroman is already building momentum with her now annual Basketball Analytics Summit, kicking off Friday at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, and a student statistical analytics team called Z-Stat, now performing pitching analysis for the Houston Astros. This fall, she’ll introduce a sports analytics course to the business school. And in October, she’ll bring Sports Tank to UNC.
The pitch event, co-sponsored with Charlotte-based TPG Sports Group and based off the popular ABC television show “Shark Tank”, is for students and community entrepreneurs building businesses around sports.
Stroman explains all her activities as “anything I can do to be a part of creating and promoting sport ventures at UNC, in the Triangle and the state of North Carolina.” She’s especially interested in promoting sport-related careers to students.
“You don’t have to have a star jump shot or throwing arm,” she says. “Analytics allows anybody who appreciates sport to participate. Math, statistics and science are part of this career path.”
Stroman’s personal connections, built through her own basketball and sports marketing careers, are a key way she’ll accomplish her goals. The lineup at the summit is evidence of her network. Also clear is that the dynamics of sports are changing fast due to technology and big data, in many ways leveling the playing field between teams and companies big and small.
Read more about the event at ExitEvent: http://exitevent.com/article/basketball-analytics-summit-preview-150416
Note: ExitEvent is a news partner of WRAL TechWire.
