Kansas State University

Inaugural K-State Sports Marketing Analytics Contest awards $3,000 to student competitors

Submitted by Brent Fritzemeier

A new K-State Sports Marketing Analytics Contest recently awarded $3,000 to student competitors in the College of Business Administration.

The contest, which was open to teams of one to four students, saw entries from 49 teams consisting of 66 students. Those students were challenged with a classic sports marketing problem: predicting season ticket renewal rates. Competitors were asked to analyze a set of season ticket holder data for a particular organization to attempt to predict which fans would not renew their tickets for the next season. Being able to accurately forecast which fans the organization is in danger of losing would allow marketers the ability to allocate resources toward enticing those fans to renew.

"Binary classification problems like this one are so prevalent not only in marketing, but in business and society in general, so we thought it was a great place to start for our inaugural contest," said Doug Walker, associate professor of marketing. "All of the students who entered the contest got a taste of what data analytics is all about, and realized that they were capable of using data to gain insights and make better decisions."

After completing their analysis, each team was given a score and ranked to determine an overall winner in addition to three category winners — undergraduate marketing majors, undergraduate open major and graduate students. First place in each category received $400, with $200 for second place, $100 for third and $50 for fourth. 

Chase Stalder, junior in marketing, Abilene, won both the undergraduate marketing and overall categories with his linear probability model, taking home $800 in cash prizes.

"The contest was really interesting and a lot of fun," Stalder said. "I'm somewhat new to analytics, so I wanted to see how it worked from the ground up, and Dr. Walker gave us a great opportunity with this competition."

The graduate student category, second place overall and $600 was won by MBA student Ben Sanders, Overland Park.

"Smart organizations use data to predict how their customers will behave in the future, so it was great to be able to apply what we are learning in the classroom to this real-world scenario," Sanders said.

Taking first in the undergraduate open category was Ben Gust, senior in accounting and management information systems, Olathe. He also placed third in the overall competition for a total of $500 in prizes.

The complete results for all four categories of the contest:

Undergraduate Marketing Category

• First place: Chase Stalder, junior in marketing, Abilene.
• Second place: Ashlyn Helus, junior in marketing, Wamego.
• Third place: Palma Juhasz, senior in marketing, Debrecen, Hungary.
• Fourth place: Jared Zerr, senior in marketing, Wichita.

Undergraduate Open Category

• First place: Ben Gust, senior in accounting and management information systems, Olathe.
• Second place: Cooper English, sophomore in marketing, Topeka; Tori Everett, junior in marketing, Topeka; Aidan Garrett, junior in marketing, Overland Park; and Kazdyn Pierce-Blanchard, junior in organization management, Saint Joseph, Missouri.
• Tied for third place: Jared Bennett, senior in management information systems, Junction City.
• Tied for third place: Ben Tjiang, senior in management information systems, Olathe.

Graduate Student Category

• First place: Ben Sanders, graduate student in business administration, Overland Park.
• Second place: Joshua Barlow, graduate student in business administration, Rapid City, South Dakota; Jessica Davis, graduate student in business administration, Baltimore, Maryland; and Ting Lin, graduate student in business administration, China.
• Third place: Stanton Weber, graduate student in business administration, Overland Park.

Overall Category

• First place: Chase Stalder, junior in marketing, Abilene.
• Second place: Ben Sanders, graduate student in business administration, Overland Park.
• Third place: Ben Gust, senior in accounting and management information systems, Olathe.
• Fourth place: Ashlyn Helus, junior in marketing, Wamego.