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.