BOSTON — Those at the 2017 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference this past weekend who didn’t know who Rajiv Maheswaran and Second Spectrum were surely do now.
The CEO of data company Second Spectrum, which was recently named the NBA’s new optical tracking partner starting next season, began his panel discussion titled Panel Tracking Data and the Fan by calling out ESPN NBA analyst Stephen A. Smith and the show First Take.
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To start the conversation, Maheswaran featured a clip that showed Smith — who has been an outspoken critic of “number crunchers” and the use of analytics in the NBA — and how the ESPN personality doesn’t approve of those who haven’t played basketball injecting their use of data, even speaking of MIT by name. The television plug received quite a few laughs in the room.
With that, Maheswaran and his colleagues at Second Spectrum boldly challenged Smith and his team at First Take to a 48 minute game of 5-on-5 basketball for $10,000. The loser would have to pay to the winner’s charity of choice.
We’ll let you know if Smith responds to the challenge set forth by Maheswaran as he looks to defend number crunchers and “stats nerds” everywhere.