The current state of professional sports is firmly cemented in data science. From projecting ticket sales and sponsorship revenue to on-field probabilities such as a major league hitter’s likelihood to reach first base in a 2-1 count, data science is critical to any team’s operation both on and off the field.
Belmont junior Kathryn Quinn aspires to represent the fifth generation in her family to work in sports. At just 15 days old, she attended her first Major League Baseball game. Now, through the application of her sports administration major and data science minor, Quinn has her eyes set on her ultimate goal — to become a general manager of an MLB organization. 
“I’ve always known I wanted to work in professional sports, and then I fell in love with math in high school,” Quinn said. “That’s when I took my first stats class and I loved being able to use numbers. As I transitioned into college, data science became my focus. My original minor was statistics, but I loved how data science is about visualizing things and applying knowledge that you get from numbers, and that has really taken off in the sports world.”
She likens the difference between stats and data science to the baseball film “Moneyball.” The film tells the story of how the Oakland Athletics’ general manager Billy Beane shifted the way every MLB organization assessed players, opting to prioritize nuanced data that painted a larger picture of a player’s abilities rather than the stats on the back of a player’s baseball card.
“That’s when advanced stats really became a big deal on the field,” she said. “They realized it’s not just about how the players look to the eye or their surface level accomplishments, but it’s about how they play and what they’re actually doing. Today, that’s transitioning heavily into projections and how you can incorporate visualizations to not only communicate what is happening on the field now, but what’s going to happen 10 games later, 20 games later, two years later and so on.”
While her first job in sports was as a “World Famous Racing Sausage,” a group of five different types of sausages from across the world that race one another during Milwaukee Brewers games, Quinn has since interned with three professional teams across three different sports with a fourth internship in a fourth sport lined up. Her goal is to intern with all five major sports leagues before she graduates.
Someday, I hope to say that my career started in front of 41,000 screaming fans dressed in a seven-foot sausage costume.
Her first internship was in her hometown of Milwaukee where she worked with the Brewers’ business strategy and analytics team in the summer of 2023. Quinn credits this experience as the moment her career aspirations were validated and she realized she was capable of a data science role in sports.
“I knew I liked math and numbers, but my time with the Brewers was the first time I really got to put myself to the test in a professional environment. Thankfully, I was good at it,” she laughed. “That experience really confirmed that this is what I’m supposed to be doing.”
While interning with the Brewers, Quinn also took part in a long-term core promotional strategy project where she collected data from programs such as Tableau and Salesforce. She then had the opportunity to present her findings to the senior leadership team and later to the President of Business Operations.
“That presentation gave me a ton of confidence in being able to present my data,” she said. “A lot of people talk about data scientists being very reserved. It’s one thing to know your data and to do good work, but it may be even more important to be able to explain it to other people, especially to people who don’t know what you’re talking about. I think that confidence has set me up for a lot of success, knowing that I can go into meetings at an agency or with the president and carry it out.”
Shortly thereafter, Quinn secured another business strategy and analytics internship with the Nashville Predators and currently works at Nashville SC as a data engineer intern. With Nashville SC, she is working on a project involving 2024 premium seating projections where she collects data over the past several seasons to predict potential renewals. 
Quinn has also accepted an internship with the NBA’s Milwaukee Bucks next summer where she will work alongside the Bucks’ business strategy and analytics team.
In addition to the skills she has been able to develop during her multitude of internships, Quinn also credits her Belmont professors for the individual attention they pay to students and the applicable, purposeful material they teach.
“I remember sitting in high school and thinking ‘When am I going to even use any of this?’ But I have never felt that way about any of my data science classes,” she said. “I get to show up at my internships and discover that I have already learned how to do a lot of things from my classes.”
She also highlighted how her professors tailor lessons and discussions to the interests of all students.
“I’ve gotten to know many of my professors very closely, and they know that I’m not just a data science student, but I’m a data science student who wants to work in sports,” Quinn continued. “A very popular career route that lots of data science students here want to take is healthcare. There was a point where, after several healthcare projects, things just weren’t clicking for me, but then the next project my professor proposed was focused on sports. They actually listen to students and do things that everyone is interested in. The professors are passionate about what they do and have that spark that I feel like professors at other schools sometimes lose.”
Just as Quinn is doing, Belmont’s College of Science and Mathematics encourages students to pair their love for science or math with other programs of interest in an effort to evolve the landscapes of different industries. By exploring the intersection of science and sport, Quinn hopes to change the perception of women holding high-ranking positions within professional sports organizations.
I would love to be a leader and inspire change in sports, especially as a woman in sports. There are a lot of female role models I’ve had throughout my life who have inspired me to keep going and feel confident in my abilities. But I know there are lots of people out there, specifically young girls, who don’t think this is a possibility for them. I know being a GM or CEO may seem like a reach, but I would love to help change that mentality.