As you watch in awe at golf pros’ accuracy at the Ryder Cup in two weeks’ time, take a moment to consider the impact technology has had on their respective swings. Increasingly, golfers are delving into the data related to their game and subsequently tweaking their technique, their club choice and more.
Perhaps the best known use of data analytics in the sport is the employment of video analysis of the player’s swing. By taking high frame rate footage of the player hitting the ball, it’s possible to create 3D images that provide great insight into where the golfer needs slight improvements to get added power and accuracy.
There are other ways golfers exploit all the data they create when making their way around the course. By taking in various data types - drive distance, putting quality, chipping ability, accuracy from the sand - players can learn about which bit of their game needs improvement. It’s also possible to attach sensors to clubs during practice, which will create streams of information on the swing, pinpointing precisely where shots have gone wrong or right. This could highlight why a drive was swinging to the left or right, or how spin could get the ball even closer to the hole once its on the green. Using GPS and historical data, drawn from the cloud, can also let the golfer know what clubs have been successful at certain points of the course in the past.
For the amateur and pro alike, this data is now accessible over the standard mobile device, whether that’s an iPhone or Android smartphone, whatever. Indeed, this democratisation of high-quality data analysis can help every player improve their game.
This combination of Big Data analytics, cloud and mobile has become common across other sports. Thanks to Moneyball, the 2011 film focusing on the Oakland A’s use of analytics to acquire players, many now understand the usefulness of data mining in baseball. Today, most teams in America’s top leagues use a form of “sabermetrics”.
In the world of football, it’s believed the German national team used an analytics solution to determine which players were performing in different aspects of their play, whether that was passing accuracy, tackles made or metres covered on the pitch. Perhaps it was partly responsible for their success at this summer’s World Cup…
All these technologies are providing similar benefits across the business world. Indeed, the business side of sport has shown what’s possible. When the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament for college teams in the US kicked off in 2013, HP decided to see what data it could bring together from social media feeds. It analysed 500,000 Twitter posts using a range of hashtag and keyword information. This would then be collated to visualise when people tweeted, from where, whether they were positive or negative and the influence they had.
From a business’ perspective, such data could be incredibly useful in determining marketing strategies, improving customer service or simply gaining a better understanding of what people want. This could then be fed into cloud and mobile systems so the entire workforce has access to the insights the data provides.
But to guarantee the accuracy, quality and safety of data, sports teams have had to invest heavily in protecting that information. A number of Premier League teams have already suffered as a result of hacks on their systems. Manchester City were embarrassed by a breach of their website over the summer, which led to a video being posted on their website related to the apparent transfer of FC Porto centre-back Eliaquim Mangala before the deal was done. Tottenham Hotspur and Barcelona have both had their Twitter accounts hacked in recent memory, indicating they weren’t adequately protecting their social media accounts.
In the Formula One world, information security is even more critical. Teams know that if their secrets are leaked, especially those related to race strategy and car design, their competitors will benefit. Security issues can cause operational issues. In February this year, Marussia was hit by a computer virus during testing in Bahrain, setting back the young team’s preparation for the upcoming season.
The same goes for any business hoping to maintain their competitive advantage and their systems uptime. The past year has made it clear that security breaches can cause severe financial and reputational damage. After US retailer Target saw more than 40 million shoppers’ credit card data compromised, it suffered notable declines in revenue. The CEO and the chief security officer left just months after the hackers broke in.
What’s become apparent over recent years is that Big Data, mobile, cloud and security have become major pillars within sport as well as the wider business world. It would appear these technologies are making an impact in almost every aspect of our everyday lives, whether at work or whilst on the couch watching Rory McIlroy sink another Birdie.
The Driving innovation hub is funded by HP. All content is editorially independent except for pieces labelled advertisement feature. Find out more here.
