NFL sponsor SAP is bringing a massive data-analysis expo to ‘Super Bowl Boulevard’ on New York’s Times Square.
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SAP is hoping to provide football fans some idea of what its technology is all about in the course of the SAP Stats Zone, an interactive exhibition set to seem on the corner of 42nd Street and Broadway from January 29 through Super Bowl Sunday.
SAP is one in all eight NFL sponsors bringing interactive exhibits to Super Bowl Boulevard, a 13-block stretch of Broadway from 34th Street to 47th Street that may be temporarily closed off to vehicles and packed with football-related exhibits. The NFL is hosting a league apparel shop at Macy’s Herald Square, an autograph and concert stage at 39th Street, and a field-goal kicking challenge on Times Square among other exhibits. SAP’s Stats Zone should be joined by sponsor exhibits by Papa John’s Pizza, Bridgestone tires, Pepsi, Snickers, GMC, McDonald’s, and Microsoft’s Xbox One.
SAP’s Stats Zone should stand out amid the glitz of Times Square, which presents quite a challenge, consistent with Ben Riches, an executive with GMR Marketing, the firm that helped SAP design and build its 40-foot by 45-foot display.
“Our strength is that we have got real data from social analytics, and it’ll help fans become smarter in regards to the Super Bowl,” Riches said.
[Want more on football and technology? Read NFL Examines Stadium WiFi Analytics.]
The exhibit is powered by SAP analytics software, NetBase sentiment analysis, and the Hana in-memory platform, however the spotlight will be on football, not the technology. The outside of the display includes giant led-scoreboards in an effort to scroll through stats on 20 different topics regarding the Super Bowl. Head-to-head comparisons will show fan passion — as expressed across social networks and the web — for the Denver Broncos and Seattle Seahawks.
A season-long analysis shows positive and negative sentiment for every team tracked in the course of the 20 weeks leading as much as the Super Bowl. Passion for Denver, as an example, hit a season high when it came back against Kansas City in week 13 (see image below).
Another display shows which teams nearly all of fans are routing for state by state around the country. It’s pretty obvious which way Colorado and Washington are leaning, but fans will see trending sentiment from Hawaii to Maine and within the Super Bowl host states of latest York and New Jersey.
SAP Stats Zone under construction in a warehouse in Bethpage, NY.
Tracking the freshest topics throughout Super Bowl week, a word tag cloud display will show the most important buzzwords cropping up within the social sphere. For instance, early analyses show that 65% of fans are hoping it should snow in the course of the game. The newest sentiment scores will appear when the Stat Zone goes continue to exist the 29th, but they’re also accessible at SAP.com/superbowl for those not visiting Times Square in person.
Displays within the Stats Zone will include an interactive NFL Archive Quiz game on the way to promote the NFL Game Rewind feature on NFL.com. an ideal Bowl Character Creator display lets kids (and adults) create their very own player stats, digitally placing their face inside a helmet, and share the resulting image via email.
Playing off of SAP’s sponsorship of fantasy football on NFL.com/fantasy, the Stats Zone also will feature head-to-head player matchups statistically analyzing various aspects of player performance. There has been no word on whether Seattle Seahawk Richard Sherman — he of the controversial post-game interview — can be one of the most featured players.
The Stats Zone scoreboard displays trending fan-sentiment analysis scores.
If you ask the typical tourist on Times Square what they learn about SAP’s ERP, CRM, or HCM applications, you’re more likely to get a blank stare. SAP is hoping the Stats Zone, just like the NBA.com/stats site it developed with the NBA, will make the company’s technology more accessible.
“During the last two years, SAP’s sports sponsorships have changed focus,” explained Dan Fleetwood, group director of worldwide sponsorships as SAP. “We’re attempting to consult the fans and humanize the logo rather than talking in 1s and 0s.”
Doug Henschen is executive editor of InformationWeek, where he covers the intersection of enterprise applications with information management, business intelligence, big data, and analytics. He previously served as editor-in-chief of Intelligent Enterprise, editor-in-chief of Transform magazine, and executive editor at DM News.
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