Explore NHL’s journey with SAP
The National Hockey League (NHL) is focused on expanding and enhancing the game of hockey. It also aspires to reduce the League’s impact on the planet to ensure hockey thrives for generations to come. SAP technology helps the NHL move forward in new and exciting ways.
> 100
million
annual visits by fans to NHL.com/stats.
30
gigabytes
of puck and player tracking data instantly analyzed per game.
32
clubs
can access environmental sustainability reporting across the League.
Over the years, the data we have collected has enabled the League to obtain significant hockey insights. These insights give the League the ability to constantly evolve and innovate the game, and that’s exactly what SAP helps us to do.
The Challenge
Unlocking the power of data
Hockey is a fast-moving sport that generates a lot of data – both on and off the ice. Collecting, analyzing, and acting on that data helps the NHL better serve its teams, engage with fans, and advance its business and sustainability goals.
Real-time game data helps teams, coaches, and players improve performance on the ice. Historical and current game stats provide passionate hockey fans with a fun and educational digital experience. And operations and carbon impact data collected from its clubs and arenas help the NHL define new environmental standards and share key learnings across the League.
SAP technology helps us advance hockey in ways that are good for our teams, our fans, and the planet.
The Solution
Teaming up to support innovation on and off the ice
Enhancing the Game
In-game tracking technology captures the movements of the puck and players, every second of every game. Massive amounts of high-speed game data gets processed in the SAP HANA Cloud database in milliseconds – and is pushed to other apps used by coaches, players, and fans to enhance their experiences.
During games, coaches and players use the SAP-NHL Coaching Insights mobile app to quickly see face-off wins per zone, player speeds, player time on ice, and more. This type of real-time game data was unattainable before and helps teams make tactical in-game adjustments on the fly.
Satisfying Fans
Game data also flows to the NHL.com/stats page, which is the go-to source for hockey analytics. The site runs on SAP HANA Cloud and combines real-time data with more than 100 years of historical stats. Last season, over 100 million data-hungry fans engaged with the site. Intuitive dashboards and filters make it easier for them to analyze the performance of their favorite teams and players, as well as legends from the past.
At a high level, from an innovation standpoint, the NHL is focused on expanding and enhancing the game of hockey. For a big portion of that, we need to capture a tremendous amount of data. We need to process that data, distribute that data, and turn it into meaningful experiences.
David Lehanski
EVP, Business Development and Innovation, NHL
Going Green
As a leader in the sports world, the NHL aspires to reduce its environmental impact on the planet. In 2010, the League launched its NHL Green initiative and became the first sports league in North America to voluntarily release two sustainability reports on its carbon footprint.
With the help of SAP, the NHL recently used SAP Business Technology Platform to create NHL Venue Metrics, an end-to-end, cloud-based platform designed to revolutionize how the League collects, analyzes, and reports on operations data across its clubs and arenas. The data will be processed through SAP HANA Cloud and visualized with the SAP Analytics Cloud solution. The insights gained will enable the NHL to define and embed sustainability best practices into its business operations and reduce its ecological impact wherever possible.
In order for us to impact any change, we need to measure. NHL Venue Metrics is a perfect example of how we were able to expand SAP HANA Cloud to create a new sustainability solution for the League.
Omar Mitchell
VP, Sustainable Infrastructure and Growth Initiatives, NHL
SAP helps the NHL run better
Key business outcomes and benefits
Featured solutions and services
SAP HANA Cloud is a fully managed in-memory cloud database that integrates data from across the enterprise, enabling faster decisions based on live data; and
SAP Analytics Cloud combines business intelligence, augmented analytics, predictive analytics, and enterprise planning into one cloud environment.
About the NHL
The National Hockey League (NHL), founded in 1917, is the second oldest of the four major professional sports leagues in North America. Today, the NHL consists of 32 member clubs, each reflecting the League’s international makeup, with players from more than 20 countries represented on team rosters.
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