The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference began Friday in Boston. This will be the ninth consecutive year of the event, co-founded by Houston Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey and New England Patriots executive Jessica Gelman. Known as SSAC, the conference features the leading innovators in the post-Moneyball sports statistics revolution. From just a few dozen original attendees in 2007, thousands of people now flock there.
Every major sports team sends a representative, along with tech companies large and small, academic researchers and Wall Street titans. Not surprisingly, the event is showered with media attention, and as a result, stocks move.
Historically speaking, we've seen a real spike in sports-related company stocks on the first trading day after the conference, significantly outpacing the overall market.
According to data from Kensho, companies like VF Corp, Dicks Sporting Goods, Under Armour, and International Speedway Corp. have seen single-day positive returns in six out of eight years following the conference, or 75 percent of the time. Compare that to the S&P 500, which was up only 25 percent of the time in just two out of eight years.
Below is a larger list of selected companies, showing a variety of return attributes: Frequency of positive returns, average returns, best and worst returns, and correlation with the overall market. These names might be worth watching over the weekend and especially on Monday if you're looking for a quick pop.
Disclosure: NBCUniversal, parent of CNBC, is a minority investor in Kensho.