In many ways, fantasy is more complicated than reality, especially within NFL Fantasy Football. NFL fans are some of the most hardcore fans in the world and their engagement with the league is even more intense when they enter their own “front office” of fantasy football.
But the days of just hoping you are able to land a few well-known names on your team that stay off the injury list are long past. Today there are countless variables to consider and strategize around when building your winning fantasy franchise. There are drafts, rumors, keepers, sleepers, rookies, results and well it’s enough at times to make you throw down your headset on the sidelines or if you're lucky jump up and hug your people in the General Manager’s box!
The NFL understands the pure adrenaline and excitement that now surrounds fantasy football and they have exponentially grown their fan base as well as their trust with help from the power of data and the Cloud.
The upgraded NFL “Fantasy Player Comparison Tool” on NFL.com is one of the most technologically advanced fandom engagement tools in the world. How well fantasy team owners do on the leader board depends on the decisions you make week to week within your roster. There’s an old saying that goes, “if you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. Decisions that separate fantasy league fact from fiction are based on trillions of bits of hard data processed in mere seconds.
Let’s look at some cool new enhanced features that enable data driven decisions based on individual player metrics.
Play me or trade me!
- TRADE Here fantasy football franchise owners can make the crucial decision on whether or not to make a trade and make comparisons of players from other teams while doing so.
- SIT OR START With this tool users can make important game day decisions based on data like how that player performs in certain weather conditions or on the road.
- ADD OR DROP This feature is very exciting and allows participants to make all important decisions around whether or not to add or drop individual players to and from their roster.
Fantasy decisions made easier
But just how did the NFL accomplish this inventive technology in just a few short months? In the video below, Cory Mummery, Sr. Director of Fantasy Football for the NFL explained the leap this way, “The NFL team and the SAP Professional Services team worked together to build the Fantasy Player Comparison Tool.” Corey added, “The culmination of these two teams working together resulted in a product that our users have found to be indispensable to help them make their fantasy decisions”.
Specifically the NFL implemented SAP HANA and through the SAP Services Team the software was intuitively designed and delivered for the league to meet their fantasy football objectives. NFL fans and fantasy team owners are now able to instantly analyze and track over 100 stats from each player. Fantasy franchise decisions now factor in data ranging from passing % to home versus away performance to type of turf and even wind direction at kick off to name just a few. This data is then all fed into a predictive statistical model to predict what a particular player is most likely to do.
NFL.com/FantasyFootball is stacked with the latest NFL news and trade rumors all year long. As a result, many fantasy team owners are as engaged on the developing player and team story content as often in the off season as they are week to week in the fall. NFL-Managed leagues have also incentivized the overall fan experience by offering prizes for league champions including trips to the Super Bowl.
The NFL is committed to the experience of their fans and their attachment to the game. Working with SAP allowed them to quickly bring exciting enhancements to the Player Comparison Tool as well as build an interactive application for the future. As NFL Fantasy Football director Corey Mummery recently pointed out, “SAP Services helps the NFL run better.”
Armed with the very latest in predictive technology, NFL Fantasy Football team owners now have even more skin in the game and they’re having a ton of fun with their family and friends while doing it.
How’s your fantasy team looking in 2014?!
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