Every year we trick ourselves into thinking we can build brackets that won’t bust in the first weekend. Every year we’re wrong. But good news may be coming to all March Madness bracket geeks — Adobe is offering their enterprise-grade data tool, Adobe Analytics, to the public over the course of the tournament.
They’re calling it ‘Hack the Bracket’ and it purports to give you the analytical tools to best predict who’s going to win each matchup:
We just opened up Adobe Analytics to the public for the first time—EVER—so college hoops fans have the insights they need for a shot at a perfect bracket. Start analyzing: https://t.co/T7VvmEsupO #HackTheBracket pic.twitter.com/yVgcp6Ppr5
— Experience Cloud (@AdobeExpCloud) March 13, 2018
Get The Latest Sports Tech News In Your Inbox!
Here’s what you need to know:
-The platform uses data from SportRadar. Metrics from 56,000 different games have been loaded into the system including metrics like field goal percentage, blocked shots and fouls drawn.
-Adobe Analytics allows you to compare any two teams in the entire tournament side-by-side. Here you can take a look at which team might have a statistical advantage in each category as well as the exact percentage chance that the system gives each team to win the game.
-The whole system is customizable. You can look at as many or as few metrics as you would like when making decisions. Chances are you will be sorting through data in a much different way than another user.
-Two-thirds of all Fortune 100 companies use Adobe Analytics to curate reports. Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association have both made use of the platform.
SportTechie Takeaway:
SAP did something last year that was similar to Adobe’s efforts this year. They used the SAP Analytics Cloud to best predict which teams had the greatest chance of surviving and advancing. They even went as far as to add a ‘luck percentage’ to see which teams had the best chance of pulling off an improbable win.
It’s no secret that analytics as a whole are ramping up across all sports. Baseball’s rampant use of numbers has been known for quite a while. Still, it’s interesting to see how data is being used on an increasing basis, not just to play the game better, but to watch it ‘better.’
Aside from Adobe Analytics opening up to those who want to build a better bracket, the NCAA has partnered with Google Cloud. It was supposedly used to more accurately seed teams for the tournament and will be a prevalent tool for broadcasters.