Nowadays everything is digital – including sport. It is now quite normal to combine data science and sports management. SAP was really an integral part (the “twelfth man”) for the victory of the German national soccer team at the 2014 World Cup. SAP had also announced that the German team will be using two new prototypes during the 2016 European Football Championship. And now the Qatar Aspire Academy will enter into a cooperation partnership with SAP to redefine the interface between youth, sports and technology.
The secret of winner teams such as the German national team or clubs such as Bayern Munich are a program for talent promotion. To ensure top-class sporting performance in the long term, teams must continually build top athletes, who will join the team in five or ten years.
In 2014, the German Football Association (DFB) began its “century project” and invested 89 million euros in a DFB academy in Frankfurt am Main. The academy, whose construction is to be completed by the end of 2018, will be the talent for German football. There, experts can work together and, above all, teach players how to play. Germany is not alone in this – other countries also invest in youth sport at the national level. Bahrain’s Minister for Youth and Sport has made strong talks with government officials in Bahrain on initiatives to promote young people.
But the latest developments are from Qatar. The Aspire Academy has teamed up with SAP to promote the youth sport of the country. Since its founding in 2004, the Aspire Academy has been aiming to develop young talents from Qatar and at the same time to provide a good school education. In the center is the largest indoor stadium in the world, where 13 different sporting events can take place at the same time. There are also many other facilities, including seven outdoor football pitches, sports arenas, a state-of-the-art school and living space for the performance athletes. Young athletes are promoted, so that they can fully exploit their sporting and academic potential. Aspire has already achieved considerable success with some athletes at the Olympics and at the World Cup.
Through the innovation partnership with SAP, Aspire ensures that trainers and athletes can access important data. On the basis of these data they can derive tactics, once to be at the top of the winner’s podium. SAP HANA is the fastest database in the industry and offers numerous applications and solutions that can be used for data analysis in sports. With this, SAP is optimally positioned to support the Aspire Academy in the training of top athletes. The data for Aspire is provided in real-time on a mobile device, in addition to the player performance, the development and the fitness as well as the training strategy and the general procedure to improve.
“The SAP solutions help players improve their performance, be a step ahead of the competition, and avoid injuries.”
As technology plays an increasingly important role in sporting performance, and demand in the market for sports analysis is rising, SAP has developed the Digital Athlete Framework. This framework uses SAP solutions to help athletes improve their performance, be a step ahead of their competitors and avoid injuries. It is based on the following four pillars:
Networking of sportsmen: using the internet of things (Internet of Things, IoT) for networking with athletes and collecting data
Digital core for athletes: consolidate and process data in real time from different devices and systems
Intelligent sports analyzes: Gaining information and reacting quickly by analyzing huge amounts of data
Bundling of team activities: to combine all disciplines on a real-time platform
With this framework, SAP has developed a comprehensive solution for sports management with the name SAP Sports One. This allows players, coaches and managers to contribute to the success of the team.
