Ever since reading Moneyball in middle school, I decided a sports analytics career is exactly what I want to do. My first experience in the field was as an unpaid remote intern after my freshman year of college for the then-Charlotte Bobcats working on a mix of manual data tracking from video and simple data visualization (nothing fancy, just Excel). And yet it confirmed that this is a passion of mine.
I have been lucky to have many experiences in the field on the team side since that first remote internship, working in analytics with the Charlotte Hornets, Tampa Bay Rays, and Los Angeles Dodgers. My first job out of college was to join the still nascent baseball analytics group at the Dodgers where I worked on a variety of projects and focused primarily on building defensive positioning models — a collaboration between analytics, coaches, and players, which resulted in positioning runs saved over a number of years at the top of the MLB, according to public estimates (came a long way from manual data tracking).
I've also worked on a mix of basketball, baseball, and football (and even some hockey) projects for player investment, sports betting, and team consulting businesses during my tenure at Big League Advantage, broadening my horizon for sports analytics use cases.
I recently decided to become an independent sports data scientist, bettor, and consultant. I'll be sporadically writing pieces related to decision-making, analytics, and finance in sports. If that sounds interesting to you, hit the subscribe button and give me a follow on X/Twitter @NikOza2.
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