In a creative career with the NFL and NBA, alumna supports community
As an ambitious 16-year-old, Leighla Waterman ’21 scoured the internet from her home in Trinidad and Tobago, searching for opportunities to study in the United States. She stumbled upon United World College (UWC)-USA in New Mexico. She claims her application “was a shot in the dark,” but she was accepted with a full scholarship. Eventually, she found her way to Skidmore, a Davis UWC Scholars Program partner.
Today, the Skidmore alumna is a consumer insights analyst for the National Football League’s New Orleans Saints and the National Basketball League's New Orleans Pelicans. She is promoting the growth of the two teams, which are co-owned, by using data to enhance fan satisfaction and ultimately the teams’ bottom lines.
Just like the paths that led to her to high school and college, Waterman says her journey to the business of professional sports involved a whole lot of determination and some unexpected turns along the way. Finding, building, and strengthening community have been important throughout.
“As the first person in my family to go to college, all we had heard about were places like Harvard and Yale,” she says.
My high school counselor recommended Skidmore because it is a nurturing place with a strong community base that also offers generous need-based financial aid.”Leighla Waterman '21consumer insights analyst for the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans
The Skidmore political science major studied abroad twice – first as part of the First-Year Experience in London and later in Australia, where she volunteered at a center for multicultural youth. Serving as a sophomore senator in the Student Government Association helped her “realize that I could be an individual change agent.”
After graduation, Waterman landed a job as an instructor at Yale Young Global Scholars, developing and teaching seminars on domestic and foreign policy, economics, and political theory, and mentoring students.
Recognizing the importance of data analytics to governments, think tanks, and campaign work, Waterman decided she could make a “tangible impact” by pursuing a master’s degree in data analytics at Tulane University.
“Embracing data wasn’t as hard as you might think, because Skidmore encourages critical and analytical thinking.”
She had intended to pursue policy work in Washington, D.C., but ended up landing a
data analyst position at Delgado Community College in New Orleans instead and fell
in love with the
community. Never a huge sports fan, she was intrigued when the opportunity with the
Saints became available.
“During my job interview, I was asked if I could name any of their players and I said, ‘No, I don’t follow sports that closely,’” she recalled. “But if you live in New Orleans for any period of time, you know the Saints are a big deal.”
Leighla Waterman ’21, second from right, at the New Orleans Saints headquarters
At the Saints’ Metairie, Louisiana, headquarters, Waterman is using machine learning to construct models for enhancing ticket sales. She tracks social media metrics across different platforms, and she recently automated the social media report and uses it to make predictions.
“Basically, I gather and synthesize information into actionable insights that keep the fanbase engaged and happy,” she says. “Working with data allows me to take millions of bits of information that may seem insignificant on their own but offer fascinating insights into human behavior.”
During her first year on the job, she collaborated with the NFL to execute a season-long Saints fan experience study that provided an in-depth visual look into the Superdome gameday experience.
She has also led the development of the companies’ new charitable giving request system, enabling the two teams to assess and respond to requests for donations.
“The Saints and increasingly the Pelicans are embedded in the New Orleans and Gulf South region communities. I’m honored to lead the charitable giving request system, and the better I do, the better off the community is.”
