President Obama made a speech before the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, and everyone there was told to keep it a secret.

In a bizarre demand, the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference apparently called for attendees of Obama's speech, which took place inside the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, to keep it a secret. "The 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, will address the 2018 Sloan Sports Analytics Conference on February 23, 2018 at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center," a description of the ESPN-sponsored event says. "A lifelong sports fan and athlete, President Obama will address a wide range of subjects in his talk, from his most memorable moments in the White House, to his post-presidency plans." But attendees and members of the media were given a policy that requires them not to talk about it.

That's a good way not to keep it a secret. Here's one leak from the MassLive website:

"Getting diversity around you isn't hard if you are intentional about it. If you say you can't diversify your team, you just aren't trying hard enough." @BarackObama @SloanSportsConf #SSAC18 #changetheratio

— Women in Sports Tech (@WomenSportsTech) February 23, 2018

The group is dedicated to affirmative action for women in sports and obviously was so pleased at what he said (having paid good money to be there to hear it) that its members weren't about to keep what they liked about the speech secret. Being lefties, they worship the man, after all.

But seriously, a sports conference? Obama? Who can barely ride a bicycle, let alone play sports? He's not exactly the guy who'd know all that much about the topic enough to keep a secret on, except for the fact that major-league sports is getting increasingly politicized by the left, and Obama is the left.

That raises questions about the real secret here: why they wanted such an unimportant conference to keep Obama's remarks secret. Was it Obama's doing? Or the conference that paid him for the speech? Could be either, actually.

If it was the conference that wanted Obama's speech kept secret, why the pinned tweet at the top of its Twitter feed advertising the event? Why did the company promote the conference so hard? Why did they let reporters in...to not cover it? The MassLive report was obviously a fill-in story from one of the stiffed reporters who wasted his time going there, only to be told he couldn't report anything. If he had guts, he would report it anyway, given that that's his job, and let the conference and Obama howl. Naturally, since this was Obama, he didn't.

And with numerous students expected to attend, based on the ticket-order form, where did they get the idea that all this could be kept secret in the age of kids' cell phones with all their Instagram and Snapchat apps?

Perhaps they intend to market the Obama speech, but that is unlikely, too, given that they would be lousy marketers if they didn't know that the time to market it is right at the time of the event, with the reporters present and the audience eager to lap it up.

The conference seems a little at cross purposes with itself with this Obama secrecy policy.

Then there is the possibility that Obama wanted the speech kept secret. Here, we are going places.

Was the speech so left-wing in content that it would offend the mainstream and cause controversy? For the Colin Kaepernick crowd inside, obviously not. Outside, among the Reagan Democrats and independents, Obama's likely leftist content could well cause controversy that could stir the pot during an election year where Democrats are hungry to retake power.

This is more like it. And it underlines once again just how far left the Democrat agenda really is. It's so far left that they don't even want to publicize it. Note that among the Democrats who have claimed seats from Republicans in special elections, they all ran on sedate, moderate platforms (think Doug Jones, who beat Roy Moore), not rabid left-wing screeching and Trump-bashing, which is the normal stance of most Democrats ensconced in power.

Another reason Obama may have wanted the speech kept secret might have been to keep himself out of the news, the better to make the times he is in the news more important. He's well schooled in the spin and narrative of Ben Rhodes, so there's that idea, too.

Lastly, maybe Obama wanted it to be kept secret because he knew that keeping it secret would draw attention. Being the former narcissist-in-chief, there's always that.

I'm going to go with the first theory: that the Obama speech was so left-wing that Obama didn't want it to see the light of day. Socialist always operate in secrecy. This would fit the pattern.