Zachary Taunton (ZT): Welcome back to Statistically Speaking. Today we have our guest Jay Mike Johnson. How are you doing Jay Mike? Jay Michael Johnson (JMJ): I’m good, Zach, thanks for having me on today. ZT: Absolutely, so tell us a little bit about who you are and why we should care. JMJ: So, I am a senior here at Samford University; I will graduate this upcoming May. I have spent time interning at Adidas out in Portland, Oregon as a sales and marketing intern out there. I've also spent all four years here at Samford working for the Samford Athletic Department and the Development Office; the fundraising side of college athletics. Mr. Newton, Athletics Director here at Samford, said if you learn how to work with donors the rest of the college athletics department comes easy; I tried to take my swing at that. Also, just being apart of the Samford sports marketing and sports analytics programs I have had the opportunity to fly out to Nike and do a presentation at Nike's headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, as well as do presentations for Minor League Baseball at their headquarters in Tampa, and World Soccer Shop here in Birmingham at their headquarters. It's been a pretty fun ride these last four years here at Samford. ZT: Fantastic, you certainly sound very qualified to be talking about sports and sports analytics. So, the first question of the day then, as we're just getting this podcast started, is what actually are sports analytics? JMJ: When you look at sports analytics there is definitely a two-fold or two-sided spectrum to it. First and foremost you have the on-field side, that's what became famous first. That's where you have “moneyball” with Billy Beane and the Oakland A's where they they took traditional analysis of what a good player is and what it means to be a good statistical player and turned that upside down in the way that they analyzed who is going to be the best fit for their team and who's going to be the best player to put on the field for any given day. We also have seen the growth in the business side of things. That's going to be the analysis of ticket sales, ticket retention, merchandise sales, and any type of sales you can think of as well as different marketing plans that are based off the extreme growth of touchpoints that teams and companies now have with their fans through connecting to WiFi and getting that email address or connecting to WiFi and getting that phone number and being able to reach out to them on a personal basis like they never have before. All these touchpoints that have been created through technology is where you see the growth in business sports analytics. It has definitely helped companies get a little bit leaner, but a little bit stronger as well with the digital learning capabilities that some of these sports teams have. ZT: As you are getting started in your sports marketing/sports business career how do you think that sports analytics is going to change the way the sports world looks? Just within our own lifetimes, in the last 10-15 years, the way that sports business is done has changed radically. So, how do you think that's going to impact you? JMJ: Absolutely, for me I’m going to have to adapt a lot. I always tell people that I was born in the wrong generation; I should have been born 20-30 years ago. I'm such a feel guy. I like to do my research, don't get me wrong, but I like to base my decisions off feel, my gut feeling. So, for me it's going to be hard because not too many people will accept the gut feeling decision anymore. They want things done off analytics and done off where you know the right answer is going to be or what the projected right answer is going to be. So, for me it's going to be adapting into this world where you're going to have to know something about technology, you're going to have to know how to work some type of computer program system, and how to get dirty and dive into those numbers. For me it's going to be adapting my style of approach to projects, to marketing plans, to decisions that are made, and base it, even more so in the data, than I have before. Which is definitely a challenge because it's pretty difficult to look through all those numbers and all the touch points that we can get back now. ZT: Absolutely, so just that everybody that is listening knows, given the changing landscape of the sports business world Samford University has actually launched the only Center for Sports Analytics in the nation so we can prepare people to really know what they're getting into when they enter into the sports world and come out prepared and have a leg up on everybody else. Jay Mike and I are both members of that. It’s a pretty cool organization. Thank you for coming on Jay Mike and for telling everybody what sports analytics are in a nutshell. JMJ: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.