The uncertain trajectory of the pandemic and precarious cultural environment affected every aspect of the 2021 Super Bowl, be it advertising or audience. Brands were worried they would not be able to strike the right tone with the audience. But in 2022, ever so slightly, there is a shift in confidence as Super Bowl, as well as brands, are getting their mojo back.
Every year, millions of sports fans settle into the arena and gather in front of the TV for the Super Bowl – America’s most popular game face off to be crowned as NFL world champions.
Real-Time Big Data
Implementing analytics in sports is complex. Predicting the events or outcomes requires taking many variables into account, including complicated statistical probabilities.
While data and statistical methods can predict who wins a football game with accuracy, the complexity of the process can leave the coaches scratching their heads. The use of data analytics boils down to not the availability and accuracy of the data, but the willingness of the coaches and players in receiving and processing the data.
Data-driven Insights On and Off the Field
Game-day strategy is just a part of the puzzle. While the player’s performance on the field plays a crucial part, the other part that completes the puzzle of scoring a winning streak is Data Analytics.
Trainers are leaning on new technologies to develop personalized training programs. To keep athletes in game shape, data-driven insights are being employed to enhance their progress. Data analytics also assists trainers and players in preventing an injury before it occurs.
America’s most popular sport – Super Bowl is embracing Big Data Analytics as part of its everyday on and off-field game plans to assist coaches and trainers in exploring and implementing the correlations and to drive the teams to victory.
Protecting Players with Big Data
Safety in a game is one of the crucial factors that requires constant improvements, specifically for preventing, diagnosing, and treating head injuries. Data is already helping with other injuries in NFL. Motion-capture and RFID data sensors are being installed in helmets and shoulder pads to monitor and collect data. The RFID data sensors help detect the heavy impacts faced by a player and assist in diagnosing injury blows to the head.
With the advancements in technology and changes in landscape, it is anticipated that big data will help facilitate the right analytics to protect NFL players when it comes to head injuries.
Read more: How Big Data & Analytics Has Disrupted the Gaming Industry
Acceptance of Analytics
Over this century, data has changed many sports, including football.
Let’s have a closer look at the role data analytics plays in American football and how predictive analytics is changing the game and sports industry.
Data analytics is playing an increasingly extensive role in the NFL, from strategy formulation, personnel decisions, to ultimately the outcome. While analytics is still a confounding idea that clashes with their traditional view of football, for others, it’s merely a buzzword thrown out by coaches and broadcasters to demonstrate the modern approach followed by a team.
But the core focus is on –
- How exactly is analytics utilized in the NFL?
- How does it impact the game?
Data analytics makes game planning more efficient, as the data can quickly guide coaches on how often an opposing offense or defense employs different plays and formations and how they can deliver successful plays against those formations. But better analysis requires better communication. For analytics to deliver precise results, there need to be better communication patterns for the coaches to understand and apply these insights.
Predictive Analytics: Predicting Champions
Today’s environment allows for a very little margin of error. It’s in this situation that analytics comes into play.
Predictive Analysis is changing not only the scope of the game but also the course of predicting the winner. It helps to put all the pieces together to make data-driven and informed decisions.
The need to leverage data to the team’s advantage is rising as it helps to – win the game, drive revenues, and deliver better performance. This breadth of data allows data scientists to predict not just the game insights but also the champions.
Predictive analysis assists in predicting possible Super Bowl scenarios. Employed to extract useful information from available data, it helps in deriving an accurate prediction.
Advertising: The Future of Commercials in Super Bowl & other Sports
Ads are a great deal when it comes to the Super Bowl. Super Bowl ads cost millions of dollars and their influence is able to spur online shopping spikes.
Online advertising is the need of the event and also the growing cause of the game. Super Bowl in the realm of advertising offers an important manifesting aspect and a game-changer.
Technological advancements are now making it feasible and accessible for advertisers to engage their audience at a reduced cost. Data analytics is helping reach the ads to the targeted audience, bringing in a better return on investment.
Is it a profitable and advantageous opportunity for the advertisers to make this big-time investment among certain fan bases?
Super Bowl predictions are awash in data
It is no mystery that data analytics is a growing enterprise, with sports being a leading cause for the boom. The excitement produces a mountain of data. This shift toward a reliance on data analytics is all about winning.
NFL teams are formulated enterprises looking to gain a competitive edge with a combination of new technologies and Big Data analysis. Coaches analyze data to predict their opponent’s plays and to determine the target areas on the field. This plethora of data benefits coaches in uncovering answers to questions such as – whether to kick a field goal or go for a first down, when to use a timeout and when to challenge a call.
Data Analytics to Keep Viewers Engaged
Whether for the game or the commercials, the excitement around the Super Bowl draws people of all ages from across the globe.
The Super Bowl LVI highlighted some unique features and changes to a great extent. Improvisation in gaming mechanics, players becoming faster and quicker, enhanced gaming tactics, and a giant leap in the commercial standing were captivating attributes of Super Bowl 2022.
With data analytics disrupting sports and games to revolutionize the world of fans and players, Super Bowl likely took a decisive step in the field of technology.
Read more: #Euro2020 Nothing Left to Chance: How Big Data Transformed Football
Super Bowl with Data Analytics: The New Reality
One of the leading sports events of the world, the Super Bowl attracts viewership and fans from all over the world. With approximately 160 million viewership, an event of such magnitude certainly involves an extensive sum of money and pressure zones amidst coaches and players.
Data analytics is slowly becoming a boon to various NFL teams as assistance to decision-making.
NFL signed a deal with Zebra, for the installation of RFID data sensors in the players’ helmets, shoulder pads, and across the entire stadiums. The chips in these sensors assist in collecting data and demonstrating progress. It also detects the heavy impacts faced by a player and aids in diagnosing the injuring blows to the head. Coaches employ these stats to review and regulate the players’ success and their progress.
Thanks to data analytics, NFL can now track players’ data at regular intervals and analyze it around 15 times per second. Along with sports and players’ performances records, this data is being utilized for predicting sports events.
Data analytics is offering a computerized and systematized technological upgrade that promises accuracy.
With the growing competition for attention from consumers, marketing teams are relying more and more on the competitive edge that big data and predictive analytics offer. The most logical step to take for companies making millions of dollars, data analytics certainly equips them in taking fruitful decisions.
Final Verdict
The most awaited event for the players and fans, Super Bowl, is changing the course of its game mechanics. Data Analytics is on the verge of transforming the event into a grand form that facilitates accurate predictions.
The role of analytics is changing, as NFL coaches and general managers around the league are opening up to it. GPS tracking of player movements and machine learning models are being employed to project players’ success. The understanding of data is deepening as well as the implementation of predictive analytics is turning into a more nuanced conversation.
The future is promising for the NFL, as teams continue to acclimate to this new and effective practice of employing data analytics. With more and more teams creating analytics positions within their organization to embrace this technology and stay ahead of the rest of the league. With the increased development in AI and predictive models, NFL teams will continue to retain more usable data.
While there’s still a long way ahead, it’s just a matter of time before teams start appreciating and working effectively with data analytics.
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