WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. – Purdue Athletics faced a challenge. As one of the few Division I athletic departments that does not take in any contributions from the university or taxpayers, administrators wanted to find innovative and meaningful ways to connect with Boilermaker Nation without diverting resources from the student-athlete experience. To pour through a mountain of data, Purdue Sports turned to some of the most brilliant and analytical minds emerging in academia – the Purdue The Data Mine.
In the ever-changing landscape of college athletics, staff members and administrators are constantly challenged to create systems that will provide a winning formula on the field – in-game performance, recruiting, coaching hires – and maximize the athletic department's standing – revenue generation, social media performance, brand enhancement.
How are these decisions made? What information is needed to establish new and best practices?
For some, intuition works. Others use trial-and-error methods. For the wise, diving into an endless stream of data to provide thorough analysis in developing strategy is where true innovation lies.
Fans have long become accustomed to the impact of analytics on sports. From Billy Beane's Moneyball to the success rate of fourth down conversions in offensive territory to load management in the NBA, data has become a staple of the athletic landscape and turned even the biggest purists into hardcore number crunchers.
What most fans are unaware of, though, is the immense influence that analytics provide to athletic departments behind the scenes to athletic departments in the pursuit of flawless efficiency with limited resources.
Queue Purdue Athletics and the Purdue The Data Mine.
"We realized if we wanted to be efficient, we needed to be able to pull information and organize it more quickly, basically automate some of our manual processes," Director of Business Intelligence for Purdue Athletics Brian Fordyce said. "The technical expertise and creative ideas The Data Mine have been able to provide us in the beginning of our partnership are outstanding and the best part is they are right here on Purdue's campus."
Prior to the financial constraints levied by the COVID-19 pandemic, Purdue sought creative ways to strengthen fan connection and maximize the student-athlete experience. Two of the biggest areas for consideration were analyzing ticketing purchasing patterns and social media engagement.
The Strategic Initiatives team approached Dr. Mark Daniel Ward, the Director of The Data Mine, about the prospect of developing a partnership between Purdue Athletics and his revolutionary Data Mine.
Already an established group with a variety of projects ranging through a multitude of industries, the potential to advance the brand of Purdue Athletics, while offering students unprecedented access to the emerging field of sports analytics was very exciting to The Data Mine.
"The projects that Purdue Athletics is offering with The Data Mine are strongly resonating with students," Ward said. "The teams were "full" (i.e., reached their maximum capacity) very quickly. Our students are analyzing data with their mentors within the athletic department. The students are creating some innovative solutions for Purdue Athletics."
Born out of a $1.5 million, five-year grant from the National Science Foundation in 2014-15, the Statistics Living Learning Community (which gave rise to The Data Mine) featured a yearly cohort of 20 sophomores conducting research in applied disciplines chosen by each student. Living together in Hillenbrand Hall allowed for a tighter, more focused bond amongst the cohort.
The Data Mine officially made its debut in 2018, as the program welcomed more than 100 students into its ranks. The following year, that number swelled to 600 working on a vast array of projects, all living in Hillenbrand. The Data Mine centers around 20 different learning communities tasked with student-selected and student-centered research that provides ample hands-on experience and professional development.
"We hope that the students gain real-world, hands-on experiences working with data," Ward added. "We want students to know how data actually influences business decisions."
While it may sound like one of the more exclusive environments on campus, The Data Mine community is wholly inclusive. Any student from any major can apply. There are no prerequisites to apply.
The selection criteria focus on two fundamental topics – a vision and commitment.
Applying a year in advance, a student must identify a research area with a scope that will benefit that industry and the student's own future career path. Complete commitment is necessary. Selected members are assigned to specific projects with a cohort of peers, for a period of nine months. The students meet frequently as a group, with their faculty and industry mentors, to plan, execute and review a specific project during that time.
The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have turned the group interaction from face-to-face to a virtual approach.Students work closely with a partner company or agency to identify tangible goals for the nine-month program. Once objectives are set, members create processes to gather and analyze data, using platforms such as R or Python, among others. They create understandable deliverables with their partners.
The student-centered approach emulates industry collaboration where individual roles and strengths bond together to get the most out of the team. The hope for these students is to make it more feasible to jump into the ever-growing field of analytics with practical experience far beyond lessons learned in the basic curriculum. The Data Mine's research has already produced positive results for its students, as well as its partners.
Kristen Mori was a member of The Data Mine's predecessor, the Statistics Living Learning Community, during her time at Purdue from 2014-18. A double-major in mathematical statistics and computer science with a minor in Spanish, Mori helped conduct research on statistical soundscope ecology as a sophomore. She was also the founder and president of Sports Analytics at Purdue.
Today, with her degree plus her learning community experience, Mori is a machine learning engineer for the Houston Astros. Her work builds scalable algorithms that allow the Astros to make the best decisions for its baseball operations and external initiatives. Mori credits early version of The Data Mine for putting her on a path to succeed.
"The Data Mine (or at the time I was in it, the Statistics Living-Learning Community) gave me hands-on programming and research experience that I bring to work daily in the Houston Astros Research and Development department," Mori said. "If I were to identify what on my resume set me apart from the other applicants, I would point to my time in The Data Mine. Its union with Purdue Athletics provides a unique opportunity to get all the technical development that I did, along with invaluable experience in the sports industry, which can shape students into impressive candidates and future analysts in the sports analytics field."
While Mori's story is proof of The Data Mine's impact on the future careers of its members, current students working with Purdue Athletics have already made substantive contributions on campus.The sports analytics section of The Data Mine was one of the most competitive and sought-after projects in the application process. This year, around 25 undergraduate and graduate students have come together to complete two sports analytics projects for the Boilermakers.
One group is analyzing ticket sales purchased through Purdue sites and across the secondary market for Ross-Ade Stadium and Mackey Arena. Students poured through data trying to find the most-desired seating locations and how to enhance different areas to drive up demand. Normal-year circumstances would have had students reviewing "live ticket sales, but the attendance limitations forced the group to analyze purchasing trends over recent seasons.
Adithya Iyengar, a member of the ticket sales analytics group, has enjoyed the ability to impact Purdue Athletics and gain essential experience before graduation.
"Data is in everything we do," Iyengar, a mechanical engineering major, said. "I have always had an eye for analytics and a passion for sports. Working with The Data Mine provided an opportunity to bring both of my interests together into an applicable project. I have the ability to make a positive impact for Purdue Athletics. From social media to retail decisions for consumers, data analytics will always be there. I don't know what my exact career path will be, but this experience will play a key role in shaping my future. It may even take me away from engineering someday to pursue a more in-depth career in sports analytics."
The other group working with the department concentrates on gathering social media data from the various Purdue team accounts. Diving into account following, impressions, engagements, clicks and a host of other data points, the social media group will provide information that will greatly benefit the external relations team. Purdue staff will be able to make more-informed decisions on what content fans, recruits and partners engage with the most and when the best times to post different pieces of content on various platforms.
At the end of the year, both groups plan on implementing a system that will provide Purdue Athletics with easy access to the analytical data for future years to come. The goal of these projects is to equip staff and administrators with information that will maximize their workflow and return on investment of time and resources.
In the end, all upgrades will eventually benefit the student-athlete experience. New ideas and innovations will work to enhance the relationship between Purdue and its fanbase, which will, in turn, lead to more passionate support of the Boilermakers on the field, in the classroom and in the community.
The two groups working with Purdue Athletics represent just the beginning. As The Data Mine continues its exponential growth and builds more relationships with companies all over the world, future collaborations between the analytical student teams and athletics will examine more fan engagement opportunities as well as the potential for sport operations assistance.
Purdue Athletics' use of data analytics is not a first in college sports, but the cross-campus partnership with The Data Mine will ensure that the Boilermakers remain an industry leader, while providing unparalleled opportunities for the next generation of analytics experts.