Per Duke Sports Information Desk
Duke Takes Next Level Approach to Basketball Data
Wednesday October 22nd
DURHAM, N.C. — Duke Athletics will partner with SAP and NTT Data to help take men’s basketball data to the next level by launching one of the most intuitive and powerful data visualization tools in college sports history as announced this week in Las Vegas at SAP TechEd, SAP’s premier tech conference for developers. Historical player and team data will be brought to life, through the use of the SAP HANA® platform, for Blue Devil Fans around the world through a simple and elegant web and mobile interface.
“This is the culmination of a project more than a decade in the making. We always have and always will look to be a leader in the digital space because that’s what our student-athletes and fans deserve,” said Ryan Craig, Director of Digital Media for Duke Athletics. “We’re looking forward to providing the greater Duke community with the ability to engage in our history and tradition like never before.”
MBA students at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, in cooperation with SAP and NTT Data, have developed a groundbreaking visual dashboard to enable Blue Devil Fans to interact with the team’s historical record book. The powerful in-memory capabilities of SAP HANA allow for the tool to draw almost instantly on decades of Duke Basketball tradition – and perhaps the most complete archive of historical team data in college sports today — dating back to the 1930s.
“Big Data is revolutionizing how coaches, players and teams in sports around the globe contextualize information and develop unique insights to improve training and perform at a higher level,” said Steve Peck, senior vice president, media, sports and entertainment, SAP SE. “With the power of SAP HANA, the media and Blue Devil fans alike will now have ubiquitous access to this information and become more knowledgeable and invested in this storied team and university.”
Duke Athletics will pioneer Version 1.0 of this innovative solution as part of a multi-phase project designed to develop a tool that is “by Duke Fans, for Duke Fans.” Insights are also intended to benefit sports media by empowering them to deliver a better-informed commentary. The tool will be launched for the general public in the coming weeks.
