Lorenzo Dube, graduate student in ORIE at UT Austin, recently won the 10th Annual Hackathon at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
Dube is currently working on his Master's degree in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. He also works with the Business of Sports Institute in McCombs, partnering with an NBA team to quantify player resilience using data analysis and machine learning. In addition, Dube is currently working on a project with UT Athletics teams to analyze athlete biomechanics using data analytics.
The Hackathon, sponsored by Ticketmaster, took place at the 2023 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Dube partnered with another student from Amherst College to make a team. They were given customer purchasing and behavioral data from Ticketmaster for three U.S. cities and were asked to make a recommendation for an expansion franchise from a North American sports league in one of the cities. The pair built a model for expected ticket sales data for each potential franchise option and based on that model, recommended an NHL franchise in Kansas City.
Dube hopes to work for a major sports franchise after graduation, so it was important for him to participate in this networking opportunity and gain sports related experience to his resume. As the winning team, he also received a Ticketmaster gift card.
