Social Sports is an application which facilitates the environment fans need to support their teams, in doing so our application aids hospitality businesses market their events and brings business during their downtime. Social Sports allows businesses to market their sports screening events to fans and supporters. Fans and supporters using Social Sports are able to see the percentage of supporters/fans on each side and decide which bar or restaurant to go watch the game. Social Sport’s mission is to connect sports fans with other like minded passionate fans and enable community formation and allow sports fans around the world to socialize with much ease.

Social Sports is an application which facilitates the environment fans need to support their team, in doing so our application aids hospitality businesses market their events and brings business during their downtime. Social sports allows businesses to market their sports screening events to fans and supporters. Fans and supporters using social sports are able to see the percentage of supporters/fans on each side and decide which bar or restaurant to go watch the game. Social Sport's mission is to connect sports fans with other like minded passionate fans and enable community formation and allow sports fans around the world to socialize with much ease.

“Social Sports is an application which facilitates the environment fans need to support their teams, in doing so our application aids hospitality businesses market their events and brings business during their downtime. Social Sports allows businesses to market their sports screening events to fans and supporters. Fans and supporters using Social Sports are able to see the percentage of supporters/fans on each side and decide which bar or restaurant to go watch the game. Social Sport’s mission is to connect sports fans with other like minded passionate fans and enable community formation and allow sports fans around the world to socialize with much ease.”

Historically, the predominant strategy for evaluating baseball pitchers has been through statistics created directly from the offensive production against the pitcher, such as ERA. Such statistics are inherently relative to the abilities and competition level of the opposing offense and the field defense, which the pitcher has no control over, making it difficult to compare pitchers across leagues. In this paper, I use cutting edge pitch-tracking data to develop a pitch evaluation model that is intrinsic to the attributes of the pitches themselves, and not influenced directly by the outcomes of each individual pitch. I train four different classifiers to predict the probability of each pitch belonging to different subsets of outcomes, then multiply the probability of each outcome by that outcome’s average run value to arrive at an expected run value for the pitch. I compare the performance of each classifier to a baseline, examine the most impactful features, and compare the top pitchers identified by the model to those identified by a different baseball statistics resource, ultimately concluding that three of the four classification models are productive and that the overall intrinsic evaluation model accurately identifies the sports top performers.

The purpose of this thesis is to outline the importance of setting an inclusive organizational culture within a professional baseball franchise, with a network of teams ranging from Rookie Leagues to Major League Baseball. In addition, the purpose of this research is to assess the current state of culture throughout Major League Baseball organizations to determine the most appropriate approach to culture for an MLB franchise, showing evidence for culture as a competitive advantage. Through qualitative research through the form of interviews (n=8), former players at the MiLB and MLB levels (n=3), player development staff (n=3), and directors of international scouting (n=2) provided insight into professional baseball culture in the United States (U.S.), its successes, and its shortcomings.

The transition from high school to college (TTC) is a critical period of change, the effects of which may be exacerbated for Latino students, who often face additional minority-specific stressors, such as ethnic/racial discrimination (ERD). Research has documented links between ERD and sleep outcomes in adolescents, but less is known regarding the longitudinal impacts of ERD experiences during unique risk periods (e.g., TTC). Further, despite the central role of family in Latino adolescents’ lives, less research has explored the protective role of family factors (e.g., familism, family support) in links between ERD and Latino students’ sleep health. Thus, this study examined: 1) longitudinal associations between peer- and adult-perpetrated ERD in high school and actigraphy-measured (e.g., duration, efficiency, midpoint) and subjective sleep (e.g., problems) during the first year of college among Latino adolescents, accounting for college ERD experiences, and 2) familism and family support as potential moderators of these associations. Participants were 209 Hispanic/Latino adolescents (Mage=18.10; 64.4% female; 84.7% Mexican descent; 67.9% first-generation students) assessed at two time points (i.e., last semester of high school and second semester of college). There were no longitudinal associations between high school ERD and college sleep. However, there were concurrent associations between ERD and sleep in college. Specifically, greater college peer- and adult-perpetrated ERD were associated with less duration and lower efficiency at the same time point. Further, more college adult-based ERD was additionally linked with greater sleep problems. There were no significant moderation findings; however, the interaction between high school adult-based ERD and family support predicting college sleep problems suggested that adolescents reporting low levels of adult ERD in conjunction with higher levels of family support had the fewest sleep problems. Study findings provide additional evidence that ERD from both adults and peers is associated with reduced sleep duration and quality among Latino college students and suggest that current cultural stressors may be particularly influential on sleep during major socio-contextual shifts. These findings can inform future programs (e.g., sleep interventions) that provide support for students experiencing race-based stressors, such as ERD, to promote Latino student health and well-being.

The FIFA Men’s World Cup is returning to the United States for the first time since 1994 and will be the very first edition to host 48 teams, 80 total games, and have three host countries. The bid process for this edition of the World Cup is extremely complicated, and the final host cities for the United States are not yet known. What follows is a recommendation to FIFA on who the ten host cities from the United States should be in 2026. Based on the FIFA Bid Book that the bid from the United States, Canada, and Mexico sent to FIFA, along with additional research and surveys sent to fans, the final ten host cities from the United States should be Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, New York/New Jersey, Miami, Houston, San Francisco, Seattle, Denver, and Baltimore/Washington DC. Further, it is shocking that the City of Phoenix did not submit a bid to host games in the 2026 FIFA World Cup. Following the recommendation of the final ten host cities, a potential bid for Phoenix to host the games is created that likely would have won the city the rights to host matches because of Phoenix’s high potential revenue, new stadium, and city location. Ultimately, if Phoenix would have sent this bid to FIFA, they would have an extremely strong case for hosting games in the 2026 FIFA World Cup.