Skip to main content

Open goal - How SAP technology has taken this small village football team to the big leagues

Away from SAP's traditional focus on industry and enterprise, the company's technology is also being utilized in some other potentially surprising ways.

TSG Hoffenheim has enjoyed an incredible growth over the past 20 years, rising from the fifth tier of German regional football to the Bundesliga, and qualifying for European competitions several times.

Based in a village of around 3,000 nestled in the industrial heartlands of western Germany, Hoffenheim is an incredibly unlikely place to find a top-tier sports team of any time - but SAP'S technology has helped nurture this spectacular growth.

TSG Hoffenheim

"We have to do things in a different way...we have to find a unique path," Jan Meyer, CEO of TSG Research Lab, told a media event attended by TechRadar Pro at TSG Hoffenheim's training centre.

The team places heavy emphasis on technology in the role of talent development, with multiple data analysis platforms used to identif and nurture young talent that can be trained and sold on for a profit.

SAP's entry into top-level football began with a partnership alongside the German men's national team for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, a tournament memorably won by the team.

This success led to the creation of a specialized SAP division dedicated to sports and entertainment, and the development of SAP Sports One, an all-in-one platform covering tasks from team management to data analytics, instant messaging and video highlights.

TSG Hoffenheim has a number of unique tools and services that are able to feed data into Sports One for its own usage, including Footballnaut, a mini training zone that measures how quickly players can react to passes. Taking the form of a (somewhat) enclosed cage, the player has to control and pass a ball fired from any of four cannons to a randomly-selected zone, boosting their skill level and providing useful data for coaches and managers at the club.

SAP / TSG Hoffenheim The Helix

(Image credit: TSG Hoffenheim)

When it comes to mental stimulation, the club offers HELIX, a virtual-reality based space where players can test their reaction time, speed of movement, and spatial awareness (among other things) with a variety of games and challenges. Data from these events can again be used by the management team at TSG Hoffenheim to spot potential areas of improvement that could be the difference between winning and defeat.

SAP Sports One can then combine this data with that provided by official third-party sources such as video footage from the Bundesliga to be analysed by SAP Analytics Cloud and mined for vital insights.

We were shown how historical video and sensor data could be used to create a penalty analytics platform, showing the placement, speed and success rate of the team's takers, but also allowing goalkeepers the chance to predict where their next opponent might place their kicks.

The team can use this wealth of sensor and video data to optimize individial or team training schedules to help with injury prevention, and also use AI for scouting and talent detection reports - combining the findings of multiple reports over time into a single point of reference.

TSG Hoffenheim stadium

(Image credit: TSG Hoffenheim)

Away from the pitch, SAP provides TSG Hoffenheim with a host of software platforms and tools that make it one of the most technologically-advanced teams not just in the Bundesliga, but world football as a whole.

Combining the likes of SAP ERP, Sales Cloud, Ariba and Commerce Cloud, the club is able to offer supports a connected, smart experience across the board, whether that is by sending out promotions for the club shop or ticket sales, optimizing queuing times at food and drink stalls, or by offering a mobile app to let fans order ahead.

SAP / TSG Hoffenheim

(Image credit: SAP / TSG Hoffenheim)

And when it comes to business, a specially-optimized SAP Interactive Data Space (pictured above) meeting room provides an ideal way to impress new partners or clients the way of combining business and sport, with slides or documents projected onto the room's table, putting the information that matters in front of the people who need it.

So, for a team based out of a sleepy rural village, it seems that TSG Hoffenheim has showed how embracing technology, and analytics in particular, really can make a difference when it comes to sporting success.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The latest Apple TV 4K test lets you watch four sports streams at once

Apple is trying something new with the latest beta version of tvOS 16.5: the option to watch up to four simultaneous streams at once. Right now it's limited to live sports streamed through the Apple TV app on the Apple TV 4K , specifically MLB Friday Night Baseball and the MLS Season Pass. A multi-view option was spotted in the tvOS software last month, but the code was hidden and not enabled. MacRumors reported that the feature would be enabled this weekend, and beta testers have since been able to use it. As yet multi-view hasn't been officially announced by Apple, but it's expected that tvOS 16.5 is going to be pushed out in its final form within the next month or so. WWDC 2023 is around the corner as well, when we should be hearing about the next major updates for Apple's various operating systems – including tvOS 17. How it works Over at 9to5Mac there's a hands-on demonstrating how the multi-view feature works, and it's pretty much as you would expe...
Post a Comment
Read more

Quantum computers are fast becoming cheaper and smaller — and they could be coming to a data center near you very soon

IonQ claims we’re closer to widespread enterprise quantum computing deployment as it lifted the lid on two rack-mounted models that can be deployed on-premises.   The startup has built the fourth-generation #AQ35 IonQ Forte Enterprise and fifth-generation #AQ64 IonQ Tempo, both of which are designed to be deployed in enterprise and government data centers. It’s also said it is deploying two quantum computers to the US Air Force.  While revealing these two models, IonQ co-founder and CTO Jungsang Kim said quantum computers are already in use by enterprises to churn through machine learning workloads. This, he added, suggests we’re much closer to readily available and affordable machines. Priming enterprises for a quantum future “We believe in the enterprise-grade quantum computing, which is where it can be something of value for enterprises, can happen in the next few years as we build powerful enough quantum computers that can actually do things that classical computers w...
Post a Comment
Read more

Nvidia RTX 4080 GPU could get cheaper with a new version – but don’t get your hopes up

Nvidia’s RTX 4080 is purportedly getting a new spin on the GPU which could reduce the cost, but any price reduction will likely be very minor, sadly, if it happens at all. Tom’s Hardware flagged up this rumor – and treat it with caution, as with anything from the ever-spinning mill – that originated from HKEPC (a tech site in Hong Kong), claiming that while the current RTX 4080 graphics card is built on the AD103-300 chip, Nvidia is going to use a slightly different GPU in the future, namely AD103-301. There’s now more evidence this is actually happening, Tom’s points out, courtesy of a graphics card maker, Galax, which under its RTX 4080 product details lists the GPU as ‘AD103-300/301’. Furthermore, VideoCardz , which also picked up on this, informs us that Gainward, another card maker, has also listed the updated GPU variant AD103-301 in its product specs. With two separate third-party graphics card makers mentioning this new spin on the GPU in their specs, it seems pret...
Post a Comment
Read more