Dave Friend is the co-founder and CEO of Wasabi.
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Baseball season is finally in full swing. Whether you are watching the games from the comfort of your home or smelling those ballpark smells firsthand in the stands, many fans fall back into the season-long rituals they’ve carried for years.
While baseball, like many other sports, often feels timeless and evokes nostalgia for its fans, it’s also had to evolve to keep up with the times by embracing technology.
Sports have become increasingly data-driven. From the fan experience to analytics that drive player development and in-game strategy to surveillance analysis that enhances crowd and operational decisions, data has become central to how the world of sports operates. In fact, the sports analytics market is expected to grow from $2.5 billion in 2021 to $8.4 billion by 2026.
As a result, safely and efficiently storing and accessing this data has become a critical component of how sports teams operate as a business. More than ever, sports organizations need quick and easy access to that data and content — and what seems like endless storage. However, traditional legacy approaches of using on-premises storage are no longer cutting it. Storing files on-premises can be limiting in terms of storage capacity and cost as well as time-consuming for franchises to maintain and manage.
Enter the cloud. Sports teams that need seamless access to their data are beginning to look to flexible and sustainable cloud solutions to enhance their data storage and archival capabilities. This often comes in the form of a multicloud setup, an approach that combines public and private clouds to help minimize expenses, avoid vendor lock-in and optimize performance.
There are many use cases for the cloud within the sports industry that are worth keeping an eye on. Let’s dive into some ways teams are better leveraging their data with the cloud.
Easy Access To Player Data
Sports organizations that rely on data analytics to drive player development and in-game strategy need easy and fast access to that data before it becomes stale. Being able to seamlessly access data in the cloud to help garner actionable insights in real time can be the difference between a win and a loss for some sports teams.
We’re seeing top sports leagues and clubs, such as Formula One, Real Madrid and the Seattle Seahawks, striking more deals with cloud providers to support their data analytics needs that enable real-time insights into everything from how hard a ball has been hit to whether a team is set up to attack or defend. By moving to the cloud and consulting multiple cloud options, sports organizations can select the right solutions that best suit their data access needs while avoiding unnecessary vendor lock-in as well as egress and ingress fees every time they want to leverage their player data. Giving teams better access to these treasure troves of information by making it more manageable and reachable can be a game-changer for both player and team development.
Footage Archiving And Streaming
The sports entertainment world is now digital-first, with many companies seeking ways to monetize their archives through on-demand streaming services and other media projects. For reference, the ESPN/ABC Sports Footage archive “covers over 60 years of sporting events from all over the world.”
However, decades of sports team video footage often takes up too much space, is expensive to store and eventually outgrows organizations’ servers. Today’s consumer demands for 4K and 5K resolutions require much more data, and the on-demand nature of this content — once released to the public — necessitates quick, reliable and secure access to footage. These huge files also need to be easily transferred for editing and streaming processes, a reason why ESPN moved to a cloud-based media asset management system when preparing to launch its ACC Network just a few years ago.
Moving to the cloud can help address many of these challenges with its vast scalability, ease of access and security. To protect precious archives from disasters or bad actors, the cloud provides reliable backup solutions such as immutability for long-term preservation and protection.
Video Surveillance
A key part of the fan experience is ensuring their safety and comfort within a large crowd. As a result, many sports organizations have resorted to video surveillance to help protect fans, players and employees at their facilities. Surveillance footage is also helpful to analyze crowd sizes, traffic patterns and other trends that help teams appropriately staff on game days to enhance the fan experience overall.
However, the vast amounts of data generated through these surveillance systems have completely overwhelmed many organizations’ existing IT infrastructures and storage budgets.
Once again, teams have traditionally relied on on-premise storage, which has proved to be too expensive, slow and static for their current needs. These challenges have come to a head in recent years, causing franchises to seek alternative options for storing their data like the cloud. Leveraging hybrid cloud storage specifically can make a vast difference for organizations with crushing amounts of surveillance data on their plates. Not only does it enable them to store massive amounts of data at a cost-effective price, but it also keeps that data readily available so they can quickly access any footage when needed.
We’ve worked with the Boston Red Sox to help the organization take advantage of the cloud by putting its video surveillance content to good use not just to improve safety operations but to also enhance the fan experience and in-game entertainment. Storing that content in the cloud makes accessing the video easier and more affordable, enabling more analytics and applications as the sports world prioritizes a digital-first approach.
The demand for cloud storage in the sports industry will only increase as the torrent of data generated in the sports world continues to grow. While we cannot predict the exact future of the sports analytics industry, we have learned that teams must step away from outdated, legacy, on-premises systems and fully embrace the cloud in order to truly harness the power of their data. With the cloud, we know they will score big.
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