Where else could you hear the flow of talent in major league baseball compared to the Black-Scholes model for stock option pricing? Or see grown men not named John Henry behaving like teenage girls trying to get a picture from Red Sox senior baseball operations adviser Bill James, the doyen of the advanced statistical analysis crowd?

Sports management and team building now more than ever is a brain game, and some of the best and the brightest are channeling their mathematical expertise and methodologies into professional sports. The outliers, to borrow a term from this erudite crew, are professional sports teams that don’t employ some form of advanced analysis.

The book and Academy Award-nominated movie “Moneyball’’ have not only turned analytics mainstream, but made a meme of viewing sports through the prism of advanced math.

Twenty-seven NBA teams had a representative at yesterday’s conference. During the baseball panel, Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli, Cowboys coach Jason Garrett, and former Browns coach Eric Mangini were all listening intently. The Celtics, Bruins, Red Sox, and Patriots were all represented.

Like statistical analysis since the days that James was mailing out his unbound baseball manifestos, the conference has grown exponentially. This year more than 2,200 people were estimated to attend; the original convention in 2007 drew 175.

These guys are no longer outside-the-box thinkers. They’re the box.

That doesn’t mean that statistical analysis isn’t still without its skeptics. The hockey symposium here yesterday was rollicking proof of that. Maple Leafs GM Brian Burke relished the role of curmudgeon/contrarian/comedian.

“There has not been a statistical breakthrough in hockey yet,’’ said Burke. “Baseball was made for this … In hockey, stats are like a lamp post to a drunk - they’re useful for support, but not for illumination.’’