Since the days of the ancient Greek Olympics and Roman gladiators, people have been innately drawn to sports. We stand at rapt attention as we admire physical feats of speed, strength or endurance. The Super Bowl is annually the most-watched program on American TV, and it’s been reported that as many as five billion of the world’s eight billion inhabitants tuned in to watch last year’s World Cup. Yep, we love athletes.

However, in today’s highly competitive, hyperconnected world, legions of support are required to train and support sportspersons. Whether it entails poring over analytics that help players enhance their performance, cultivating sponsorships that provide financial support to collegiate athletic departments, or managing the digital assets that support disseminating sports-related content, numerous roles must be filled to support the business of sports. 

Here’s a look at one of several Deltasigs to helps connect fans to our favorite sports.

Daniel Sarna, Colorado-Colorado Springs
Coordinator of Technology Operations, Player Development and High Performance for the Milwaukee Brewers

Daniel realized early that it wasn’t in the cards for him to be an elite athlete, but he realized that, given his love of sports and competitive nature, he wanted to find his way into the business of athletics. While in college, he interned with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox minor league baseball team, where he gamely fulfilled such roles as ticket sales, marketing and managing the game-day experience (which included helping lay the tarp on the field when it rained). He also interned with USA Baseball, the game’s amateur governing body based in North Carolina, where he assisted with various marketing and social media activities. Although he appreciated gaining this experience, he knew he wanted to use his analytics skills to help players’ on-field performance.

He began his sports analytics career with Sports Info Solutions, a third-party company that sold its player analysis to ESPN, MLB and college programs. To land the role, he successfully leveraged his analytical experience and passion for the game of baseball. In his work, he analyzed such common baseball statistics as exit velocity (the speed a ball is hit off a bat), players’ base running skills and a metric the company devised: defensive runs saved, which tracks how a player’s performance in the field affects a game’s outcome. 

His talents with analytics earned Daniel a position with the MLB’s Milwaukee Brewers as coordinator of technology operations, player development and high performance. He works at the team’s year-round facility at Maryville, Ariz., where it also conducts spring training, overseeing the on-field/performance-related technology, advanced radar tracking systems across the minor league system, and other exploratory technologies for the team. Baseball is in a transitional phase, and the data Daniel tracks is likely to reflect the game’s continuing evolution.

His Fraternity experience helped Daniel understand the value of relationships: “I pledged my first semester, and it was exciting to meet people with similar goals and have the opportunity to network for those already in the professional world. I wasn’t interested in social fraternal organizations, but I viewed Delta Sigma Pi as a great growth opportunity.”

Check back for more spotlights in this series!