OR in Sports

"Fairness in Sports" workshop
2024-06-11 | Ghent University, Tweekerkenstraat 2, Ghent, Belgium
Fairness in sport is not just about assigning the top prizes to the worthiest competitors. It is also about the way the competition itself is organized. How to design rules that do not favor certain competitors? How to design a schedule of play that a priori offers similar chances to each participant? How to reconcile various (often conflicting) requests expressed by the stakeholders? It seems that as financial interests in sports increase, fairness is increasingly under pressure, and research on fairness issues in sports is becoming more and more relevant. The workshop focusses on scientific methods to achieve greater fairness in sports, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view.
The program includes the following speakers:
** Juan-Moreno Ternero: “Fair resource allocation in sports competitions”
** Laszlo Csato: “Random matching in balanced bipartite graphs: The (un)fairness of draw mechanisms used in sports”
** Frits Spieksma: “Fair Schedules for Single Round Robin Tournaments with Ranked Participants”
** Alessandro Di Mattia: “The Effect of a Structural Change in Round-Robin Tournaments with Four Teams: Evidence from Beach Volleyball”
** Joonas Pääkkönen: “Hard-to-solve Rogaining Competitions”
** Dóra Gréta Petróczy: “Alternative UEFA country rankings based on pairwise comparisons”
** Julien Guyon: TBA
** Morteza Davari: “Redefining NBA Divisions: A Blueprint for NBA Expansion”
** Felix Otto: “Measures to increase fairness in subjective performance evaluations”
** Mehmet Ismail: “Fairer Tournaments: Matching and Scoring Players in Games (Like Chess) and Sports (Like Soccer)”

The workshop is a free 1-day event, which will take place on June 11th, 2024, in the historic city of Ghent, Belgium.
Registration is required, but free (extended deadline: May 26th).
It continues a tradition that began in Ghent in 2018 and was followed by an engaging session in London the same year.
For more information, please visit our website at https://www.sportscheduling.ugent.be/FairnessInSports

OR in Sports at EURO XXXIII in Copenhagen (Denmark)
2024-06-30 - 2024-07-03 | Copenhagen, Denmark, Copenhagen, Denmark
The EURO working group “OR in Sports” is organizing a stream on OR in Sports, as part of the EURO Conference, 30th June – 3rd July, 2024 in Copenhagen, Denmark. We are aiming for a sports track covering various applications and methodologies (e.g. optimization, statistics, analytics, economics, …), much like the sessions we had at the previous EURO conferences in Poznan, Valencia, Dublin, Athens (online), and Espoo in previous years.
We invite you to submit an abstract in our stream. Using the invitation code fa117495, you can submit your abstract by going to the abstract submission page
https://www.euro-online.org/conf/euro33/. Abstracts must be written in English and contain no more than 1500 characters (no formulas or mathematical notation are allowed). Each attendee is allowed to present one paper at the conference.
More information about the conference can be found at https://euro2024cph.dk/.
If you have questions, or you wish to organize a session, please contact dries.goossens@ugent.be or f.c.r.spieksma@tue.nl.
Submission deadline: March 3, 2024.
Feel free to forward this call to anyone you think might be interested. We are looking forward to seeing you in Denmark!

Cascadia Symposium on Statistics in Sports
2024-09-21 | Vancouver (Canada), Vancouver, Canada
The 2024 Cascadia Symposium on Statistics in Sports is a meeting of statisticians and quantitative analysts connected with sports teams, sports media, and universities to discuss common problems of interest in statistical modeling and analysis of sports data. The symposium format is a mixture of invited talks, a poster session, and a panel discussion.
To be considered for an oral presentation, please email an abstract in pdf format (max 2 pages) to cascadia-sports@sfu.ca by May 15, 2024. Be sure to include your name, affiliation, and contact information in the email.
Abstracts will be reviewed by May 31. Note that there will be a poster session for those not accepted as oral presentations. For more details, visit http://www.cascadiasports.com

MathSport Asia
2024-12-09 - 2024-12-11 | Udaipur, India, Udaipur, India
MathSport Asia 2024 will be held from December 9, 2024 to December 11, 2024 and will be hosted by the Indian Institute of Management Udaipur at Udaipur, Rajasthan, India. It is a follow-up conference for the inaugural 2018 MathSport Asia conference, which was held in Jamshedpur (India). A unique feature of the conference is that apart from the academic/ technical sessions there will be talks every evening by leading sports analytics practitioners from India.
MathSport Asia seeks to promote the application of mathematics and statistics to all aspects of sports by bringing together various stakeholders: academicians, sports people, sports bodies, industry, sports academies, sports leagues and the government.
We invite you to participate in the Mathsport Asia 2024 International Conference. We invite you to submit abstracts, competitive papers and working papers. Some of the important topics include:

Mathematical Models in Sports
Optimization in Sports
Statistics and Probability Models
Match Outcome Models
Game Theoretical Models
E-sports (gaming)
Econometric Modeling of Sports
Betting and Sports
Sports Management
Para Sports
Role of AI in Sports

However, call for abstracts/papers are not limited to the sub-topics mentioned above. Papers that address any aspect of sports using computational/ mathematical/ statistical analytical approaches are welcome.
Call for papers:
MathSportAsia2024_Call_for_Papers

Keynote speakers:
* Young Hoon Lee – Professor of Economics, Sogang University, South Korea
* Phil Scarf – Professor of Management Mathematics, Cardiff Business School, United Kingdom
* Dries Goossens – Professor of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium
* Ramakrishnan ‘Ramky’ Subramanian – CEO, SportsMechanics India

Abstract submission:
Authors are invited to submit abstracts of at most 2000 characters (space included). Abstracts should mention 3-5 keywords and should be written in English.
Abstracts must be submitted through the Microsoft CMT https://cmt3.research.microsoft.com/MathSportAsia2024/Submission/Index.
For more information regarding conference proceedings of full papers, check the conference website: https://msa.iimu.ac.in/

Important dates:
Abstract Submission opens: May 15 2024.
Abstract Submission deadline: July 15 2024
Intimation of Acceptance/ Rejection: July 29 2024.
Early registration begins: August 1 2024
Early registration deadline: October 31 2024
Conference: December 9-11 2024

Football Finance & Analytics
2025-02-14 - 2025-02-15 | Oldham (UK), Hilbre Ave, Oldham, United Kingdom
Join us for a two-day event that delves into the world of finance and analytics in football, with fascinating insight from academia and sport all based at Boundary Park.
With the Price of Football podcast host and University of Liverpool lecturer, Kieran Maguire headlining the event alongside co-author of Soccernomics, Professor Stefan Szymanski.
Tickets are now available to purchase from the link below or by visiting OldhamAthletic.co.uk/Events.
Priced at £50 for a conference ticket, which includes an evening with former Premier League manager and current Zambia head coach, Avram Grant. There are also discounts available for Latics season ticket holders and students in full-time education, priced at £40 and £30 respectively.
All tickets purchased for this event come with a complimentary match ticket for Oldham Athletic’s home game against Sutton United (Saturday 15 February, 3pm kick-off).
For more information about this event, including the list of contributors and keynote speakers alongside the event itinerary, please see below.
Main contributors:
Kieran Maguire (Price of Football, University of Liverpool)
Prof. Stefan Szymanski (Soccernomics, University of Michigan)
Prof. Tony Collins (De Montfort University)
Jack Coles (Lincoln City FC)

AUEB Sports Analytics Workshop & Conference 2025 (SAW 2025)
2025-05-05 - 2025-05-06 | Athens, Athens, Greece
The Sports Analytics Group of the Department of Statistics of Athens University of Economics & Business (AUEB) announces the
9th AUEB Sports Analytics Workshop (AUEB SAW2025)
which will be hosted live at AUEB, Athens (Greece) on the evenings of Monday 5th and Tuesday 6th of May 2025 (Exact times will be announced soon).
The workshop will be also accompanied by a live short course on FOOTBALL ANALYTICS (7-9 May 2025) and a virtual short course on BASKETBALL DATA SCIENCE (7-9 May 2025).
Topics of the workshop include:

Mathematical and physical models in sports
Performance measures and models
Optimization of sports performance
Statistics and probability models
Match outcome models
Competitive strategy
Game theoretical models
Optimal tournament design and scheduling
Decision support systems
Econometrics in sport
Analysis of sporting technologies
Computationally intensive methods
Financial valuation in sport

A limited number of contributed talks will be accepted.
In case you wish to contribute a talk, please submit your contributed talk here https://tinyurl.com/auebsaw2025-abstract by 10/3/2025. Notification of acceptance or rejection will be sent as soon as possible and no later than 15/3/2025.
Webpage of SAW2025 is available here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2025.
Apply now here https://aueb-analytics.wixsite.com/saw2025/registration.
Early registration will be available until the 31st of March 2025.

MathSport International 2025
2025-06-04 - 2025-06-06 | Luxembourg, Luxembourg, Luxembourg
We are thrilled to announce that the biennial MathSport International Conference will be held from June 4th to June 6th, 2025 in Luxembourg.
The conference is organized by various entities: team MIDAS from the University of Luxembourg, COSL, LUNEX, LIH, LIROMS and LIHPS.
The main topics of this exciting event are sports analytics, sports medicine, sports economics and sports scheduling. Learn about the schedule and more details on the conference website.
We will have 5 high-profile keynote speakers, 3 parallel sessions, hands-on workshops, and a Meet&Greet with world famous athletes.
The event is open to all! Whether you are from academia, industry, or clinical or sport professionals, we will be excited to welcome you for this event where sports and science meet.
The conference will be hosted in a hybrid mode, so you can join remotely if you cannot travel to Luxembourg.

Topics include (but are not restricted to):

Mathematical and physical models in sports
Performance measures and models
Optimisation of sports performance
Statistics and probability models
Match outcome models
Competitive strategy
Sports Quantitative marketing
Game theoretical models
Tournament design and scheduling
Decision support systems
Analysis of rules and adjudication
Econometrics in sport
Analysis of sporting technologies
Mathematics education and sport
Computationally intensive methods
Financial valuation in sport
E-sports (gaming)
Betting and sports

The term sport is interpreted liberally here and includes games and pastimes, gambling, lotteries, general fitness and health-related activities.

Event program
Meet world famous athletes
During our Meet&Greet event, you will have the change to meet world famous athletes:
• Andy Schleck – 🚴‍♂️ Tour de France winner 2010
• Vincent Gérard – 🤾‍♂️ World Champion 2017 and Olympic Champion 2020
• Ni Xia Lian – 🏓 Mixed doubles World Champion 1983 and European Champion 2002
5 high-profile keynote speakers
The conference will host 5 keynote speakers on different exciting topics:
• Sports analytics by Paola Zuccolotto
• Sports scheduling by Frits Spieksma
• Sports medecine by Evert Verhagen
• Sports economics by Tim Pawlowski
• Data and coaching by Dan Lorang
Hands-on workshops
On day 2 of the conference, you will have the opportunity to participate to hands-on workshops, organized by Lunex and LIHPS.
Learn about Indiaka
As a closing session of the conference, on day 3, you will have the opportunity to sign up for an initiation to indiaka. Get your shoes ready to learn from the head coach of the Luxembourg national team!

Abstract
Abstract submissions are now open. You can submit your abstract until February 7th 2025 (extended deadline). Note that submission only requires a title and an abstract. Information about the conference proceedings will be announced as soon as possible.

Registration
You can now register to the conference. Note that early bird registration fees apply until February 28th, 2025.

OR in Sports at EURO XXXIV in Leeds (UK)
2025-06-22 - 2025-06-25 | Leeds, United Kingdom
The EURO working group “OR in Sports” is organizing a stream on OR in Sports, as part of the EURO Conference, 22nd June – 25th July, 2025 in Leeds, UK. We are aiming for a sports track covering various applications and methodologies (e.g. optimization, statistics, analytics, economics, …), much like the sessions we had at the previous EURO conferences in Poznan, Valencia, Dublin, Athens (online), Espoo, and Copenhagen in previous years.
We invite you to submit an abstract in our stream. Using the invitation code 43740d9f, you can submit your abstract by going to the abstract submission page
https://www.euro-online.org/conf/euro34/. Abstracts must be written in English and contain no more than 1500 characters (no formulas or mathematical notation are allowed). Each attendee is allowed to present one paper at the conference.
More information about the conference can be found at https://euro2025leeds.uk/.
If you have questions, or you wish to organize a session, please contact dries.goossens@ugent.be or f.c.r.spieksma@tue.nl.
Submission deadline: March 8, 2025.
Feel free to forward this call to anyone you think might be interested. We are looking forward to seeing you in Leeds!

2025 New England Symposium on Statistics In Sports (NESSIS)
2025-09-27 | Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1 Oxford Street, MA, United States
The 2025 New England Symposium on Statistics in Sports will be a meeting of statisticians, statistical researchers, and quantitative analysts connected with sports teams, sports media, and universities to discuss common problems of interest in statistical modeling and analysis of sports data. The symposium format will be a mixture of invited talks, a poster session, and a panel discussion. Students in particular are encouraged to submit abstracts; a prize will be awarded to the best student poster as decided by a panel of judges.

Registration is now OPEN
Registration information, including fees and methods of payment, can be found at https://www.nessis.org/registration.html

ABSTRACTS FOR TALKS AND POSTERS ARE NOW REQUESTED, AND SHOULD BE SUBMITTED ON THE ONLINE ABSTRACT SUBMISSION FORM
THE SUBMISSION DEADLINE FOR ABSTRACTS IS JULY 15, 2025.

Decisions for accepting abstracts will be made by August 1, 2025.

Further details of the 2025 NESSIS are forthcoming. Complete up-to-date information will be posted at the 2025 NESSIS web site. Please contact Mark Glickman (glickman@fas.harvard.edu) or Scott Evans (sevans@bsc.gwu.edu), the co-organizers of the symposium, with any questions.

First Central Asia Conference on Sports Science
2026-04-28 - 2026-04-30 | Tashkent, Uzbekistan
The New Uzbekistan University (NewUU) is organizing a conference on sports science. It is aimed to highlight high quality research of the sports industry as well as to facilitate the cooperation between academics and practitioners.
The organizers invite researchers to submit extended abstracts for presentation. Theoretical and empirical research papers that cover various aspects of sports science are very welcome. The list of possible topics includes but is not limited to the following major subfields:
– sports economics
– sports management
– operations research in sports
– sports analytics
– computer science in sports
– sports psychology
– sociology of sport
Paper submission

Please submit your paper (3 pages extended abstract) via link before January 25, 2026.
Registration & fees
Registration form will be open later.
The fees to attend the conferences are presented below.
Speaker, in person: €100
Speaker, online: €100
Participant, no paper: €100
Student partipant: free
The fees include participation to the event, the lunch and coffee breaks.
Conference dinner – not included in the fees – €50

Fairness in Sports Workshop
2026-06-12 | Budapest (Hungary), Budapest, Hungary
The Fairness in Sports workshop aims to bring together academic researchers and practitioners with an interest in sports, and fairness issues in particular. Following its inaugural session in Ghent (2018), the subsequent edition in London (2018), and the third edition in Ghent (2024), the workshop is hosted now by the Hungarian capital, Budapest!
Fairness in sport does not only mean assigning the top prizes to the best competitors. It is also about the way the tournament itself is organised. How to design rules that do not favour certain competitors? How to design a schedule of play that offers similar chances to each participant? How to reconcile various, often conflicting design criteria?
The workshop focuses on scientific methods to improve fairness in sports, both from a theoretical and a practical point of view. Topics will include tournament scheduling and rule design. Methods will mainly include game theory, operational research, and statistics.
The workshop will be a 1-day event and will take place on 12th June 2026 (Friday). It is hosted by Corvinus University of Budapest.
Registration will open in 2026.
