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STATS Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence to Speak at MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference

February 23, 2018

CHICAGO– February 23, 2018 –STATS, the worldwide leader in sports data and intelligence, has expanded its presence at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, announcing that Patrick Lucey, Director of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence at STATS, will present on the panel, “Is AI the Answer.”

Founded in 2006, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference has grown to become one of the premier showcases in the industry, with over 3,500 in attendance at this year’s event and a keynote address from former U.S. President Barack Obama. The sold-out conference takes place from February 23-24, 2018 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston, Mass.

Lucey joins a panel with Martin Reeves, Director at BCG Henderson Institute and Senior Partner and Managing Director at BCG; Benjamin Alamar, Director of Analytics at ESPN; Sam Hinkie, Former President & General Manager of the Philadelphia 76ers; and moderated by Paul Michelman, Editor and Chief of the MIT Sloan Management Review. The panel will discuss the developments and capabilities of AI and data predictions to inform strategic decisions on the field and in the boardroom, and the opportunities and challenges in gaining buy-in across an organization.

The panel is scheduled to take place in the Pat Summit Room of the Boston Convention Center on Saturday, February 24 from 1:00 – 2:00 p.m. EST.

Later in the evening, Lucey and his data science team will be up for recognition for their work. Of the 12 research paper posters recognized at the conference, three were created by STATS, including: The Problem with Win Probability, Mythbusting Set- Pieces in Soccer and Quantifying the Value of Transition in Soccer via Spatiotemporal Trajectory Clustering. In addition, one of Patrick Lucey’s papers, “Bhostgusters: Realtime Interactive Play Sketching with Synthesized NBA Defenses” is one of eight finalists for the 2018 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Best Research Paper. This paper was a collaboration with Thomas Seidl, PhD student at the Technical University of Munich; Aditya Cherukumudi, Research Associate at Disney Research Pittsburgh; Andrew Hartnett, Research Associate at Disney Research Pittsburgh; and Peter Carr, Senior Staff Engineer at Argo AI.

Lucey is seeking either a first-place or runner-up finish for the third time in as many years in the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference Best Research Paper recognition. Lucey won best research paper in 2016 for, “’The Thin Edge of the Wedge’: Accurately Predicting Shot Outcomes in Tennis using Style and Context Priors”. Last year, Lucey’s paper, “Data-Driven Ghosting using Deep Imitation Learning” was the second-place finisher.

For more information on Patrick Lucey and the Data Science and Artificial Intelligence team, visit: stats.com/data-science/