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Daryl Morey MBA '00

Playing the Basketball Game with Numbers

(First published in Technology Review, Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006)

Daryl Morey MBA '00

Though he stands 6'4", it wasn't Daryl Morey's height that got him his job with the Boston Celtics. And it certainly wasn't his small-town Ohio roots. Morey is the only person in the basketball franchise's front office who didn't grow up in New England. What compelled the new owners to hire Morey in 2003 as senior vice president of operations and information was his consulting skills. His passion for statistical sports analysis didn't hurt, either.

Morey focuses on arena operations, risk management, basketball analytics, and ticket sales strategy, pricing, and technology. His grasp of statistical analysis makes him uniquely suited to a relatively new sports management strategy that looks deep into the numbers behind the game to predict future performance.

"The reason that opportunity exists is because the ownership groups buying teams are very different than in the past," says Morey. "The franchise is their primary asset and they come from backgrounds with an analytical focus such as venture capital, private equity, and management consulting. In the past, sports franchises were secondary assets in the portfolio of individuals who made their money in industrial-based businesses."

In a way, Morey had been preparing for his role with the Celtics since he was a kid shooting hoops and devouring baseball stats. He read every Baseball Abstract published by sports statistician Bill James, then was awed to find himself working alongside the man himself at STATS, Inc., a Chicago sports information company. At the time, Morey was an undergraduate computer science major at Northwestern University.

While at MIT, Morey helped found the Sloan Leadership Club, which brought 18 speakers to campus. He and Carl Stjernfeldt MBA '00, now at Battery Ventures, also arranged business networking meetings between MBA students and MIT research centers, an endeavor they dubbed, "The Plant Tour Network."

Morey, who lives with his wife, Ellen and children Karen, 5 and Scott, 3 in Natick, Mass., teaches a course he developed at Sloan titled, Analytical Sports Management. "I think there's a big opportunity for Sloan to be at the leading edge of providing the new management of sports teams," he says.

Update: In 2006, Daryl Morey was named assistant general manager of the Houston Rockets and took over as general manager of the team after the 2006-07 season.