On Monday, the San Francisco 49ers officially announced the opening of its new data war room, housed in an executive suite known as Huddle and named after the SAP analytics platform on which it’s based. Huddle pulls in real-time data from nine different sources, allowing the 49ers to keep tabs on important business metrics such as attendance, parking, food and beverage, retail, ticketing, and social media.
For Moon Javaid, the 49ers’ vice president of business strategy and analytics, the adoption of this new SAP technology puts the franchise ahead of the field. The Niners already boasted the largest analytics team in the NFL, if not in all of American professional sports, but now they can monitor metrics as they occur to optimize the experience on gameday, and not after the fact.
“It’s a fundamental shift in how we can operate,” Javaid said. “It helps us to operate on a holistically different level than we were before.”
The walls of the suite are covered with monitors showing graphical feeds, such as heat maps of seating sections or parking lots, and charts of concession sales. This past Sunday, Javaid invited both Rams CTO Skarpi Hedinsson and Oakland A’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Giles to the suite during the 49ers game against the Rams. The Rams ended up beating the Niners 39-10.
“I can tell you right off bat with the first two games that interest from my peers has been significant,” Javaid said.
(Courtesy of the San Francisco 49ers)
Since the opening of Levi’s Stadium and hiring of Javaid in 2014, the Niners analytics team has been implementing real-time and post-game surveys to get feedback from fans on their experiences. The surveys have been helpful, leading to a whopping 150 different enhancements to the stadium and gameday experience.
Last year, the team took those efforts a step forward, adopting a real-time HappyOrNot survey system, which urges attendees to press buttons on kiosks depicting faces of their various moods. If a wave of unhappy data poured from a bathroom or concession stand, the 49ers would dispatch an employee in real time to figure out what was going on and fix the problem.
After the success of HappyOrNot, 49ers President Al Guido, whose ambitious plans to reinvigorate the franchise include turning the Niners into a media and entertainment company, said at the end of last season that he wanted more gameday analytics in real time. The team has just eight regular season home games, so every event is valuable, especially when taking into consideration high-spending season ticket holders.
“If a customer has a bad experience on a game they’re missing out on one eighth of their season ticket value,” Javaid said. “We need to be able to solve our customers’ problems in real time.”
San Francisco 49ers Build Data War Room in Levi’s Stadium Suite
