SAP Scouting Solution Enables Sports Franchises to Draft Players More Efficiently

BOSTON, March 1, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- [ SAP AG ] (NYSE: [ SAP ]) today announced the launch of the SAP® Scouting solution, an enterprise offering that will enable sports franchises to improve their ability to identify and acquire the talent that fuels their teams' on-field success. SAP developed the solution in partnership with the National Football League's (NFL) San Francisco 49ers during preparation for the 2013 NFL Draft. The announcement was made at the [ MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference ], being held March 1-2 in Boston.

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SAP Scouting will bring together the power of cloud and in-memory technologies to help teams take a major step forward in incorporating the use of technology to help drive key player personnel decisions. With the solution, sports teams across leagues will be able to continuously and systematically improve their scouting and player evaluation processes. SAP Scouting will enable teams to:

Provide scouts, executives, coaches and trainers with the ability to access and easily enter player evaluations with a modern, easy-to-use application powered by the SAP HANA® platform, SAP's in-memory computing platform.
Create a complete and unified picture of each prospect by bringing together information from qualitative evaluations with quantitative information from scouting databases and other sources
Compare prospects in real time and benchmark them against professionals at their position
Collaborate to develop a draft-day strategy with an interactive draft board

These capabilities will empower teams to transform scouting and player evaluation processes, making them more efficient so that they can execute faster, smarter and simpler as they prepare for draft day. By creating a persistent, player-centric data model, teams will also be able to create a strong foundation for the application of more advanced analytics for roster optimization in the future.

"We continue to work in partnership with SAP in an effort to develop a comprehensive, state of the art solution for our scouting department," said San Francisco 49ers General Manager Trent Baalke . "It is being designed to collect, manage and view every aspect our scouting department utilizes to evaluate a prospect's current and projected level of performance. While the development is ongoing, the solution is already helping us analyze testing and performance data at a level previously unavailable to our department."

"SAP is committed to delivering world-class solutions that help teams improve on-field performance and enhance the fan experience," said Vishal Sikka , member of the Executive Board of SAP AG, Technology and Innovation. "By partnering with the San Francisco 49ers, true visionaries in the sports industry, we've been able to develop a groundbreaking solution based on the SAP HANA platform that will help them drive a competitive edge."

SAP Scouting is one solution in a wider portfolio that SAP offers for the sports and entertainment industry. The offerings include real-time analytics and applications that enable sports franchises to maximize team performance, deepen fan engagement, optimize business efficiency and support them in maximizing revenues.

For more information, visit the [ SAP Newsroom ].

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SAP Scouting Solution Enables Sports Franchises to Draft Players More Efficiently