The following is a guest post by Mark Snyder, the Creator and Chief Executive Officer of TennisData and an IT Manager at Northrop Grumman.
What do you do if you’re an IT person and a tennis fan? Create your own iPhone app of course. If you watch a match on TV, the announcers give a quick review of each player’s stats – then they’re gone. During the match other stats may be mentioned – but they may not be the ones a fan is interested in, when he or she wants them. I thought I could do a better job, exploiting the latest technology and providing a rich second screen experience for tennis fans. Deciding which match to stream or capture on your DVR? Check out the head to head records with my app. Wonder how a player performs against left handers? Use the app to pull up the player’s win/loss record. What’s the player’s best result at the tournament? Just a few clicks away.
How do you create this app? First you need to decide the type of stats you want to provide; this will determine how to construct the database. I decided to focus on match results; wins and losses are the ultimate measuring stick in sports. Aces, break points, winners – nice – but there’s only 1 winner. Building the database is hard work – but it proved to be educational. I’ve played and followed tennis for decades – but I didn’t know that on the men’s pro tour 80% of the time the winner of the 1st set wins the match. The top players like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic come back to win over 40% of their matches after losing the 1st set. I also decided that the app should cover the current generation of tour players; so the database was built out to include all the current players matches and the recently retired – going back to 1997. Davis Cup (world group) results were also included; while Davis Cup ties are very different from the usual single elimination tournaments, they do provide interesting insights into players’ careers. This adds up to over 47,000 matches and over 1300 players. Each match includes the winner, loser, tournament, date held, surface, seeding, and score by set.
Next, create the queries that will deliver the statistics you want to present with the app. And again – test and double test. Make sure the queries create accurate results
Now it’s time to create the app. And the decision – do you learn the programming language to create the app on your own or outsource this part of the project? I chose to parcel this out – I decided to concentrate on the data which is the cornerstone of my app. But I did manage the project. This started with storyboarding out the app: I sketched out, screen by screen, what the flow of the app should be and the presentation of the data returned by the query. Finding a firm to create the app is tricky; there are very large companies with known track records creating apps for high profile customers and there are small companies with a limited apps in the store. Your budget will guide you to the appropriate segment. But I will offer this one very important piece of advice (that I learned the hard way): only select a company that has created an app that performs a similar way; in my case, that meant a cloud app that sends a request to a server, receives the query output, and displays that data for the user.
Once the database is created, the next thing to do – check and double check your data. I’m sure everyone has downloaded an app and quickly deleted it if it did not provide the functionality promised. And in the information app space, this means accurate match results and data analysis. Now to create the queries. First thing to decide: what stats are going to be interesting to the tennis fan? Who are the past winners of the Australian Open? What is Andy Murray’s record on clay courts (50 wins, 33 losses)? How does John Isner do in tiebreakers (199 wins, 109 losses)? How many tournaments did #1 seeds win in 2013 (18)?
I knew from day 1 my app would be a cloud app; today’s users expect instant access to the latest data. The men’s pro tour runs for over 10 months; there are matches almost every day. It would be impractical to expect users to update the app to gain access to the most recent match results.
If you decide on a cloud app, you either need to stand up and support your own server or contract a third party solution. Again, I chose to let someone else handle this task. Earlier in my career I spent plenty of time keeping servers up and running – I have no desire to do that again. And when the internet rolled out in the 90’s host companies were formed. The hosting company provides the server, networking, and all required software. Besides reviews from other users, another important feature to consider: metrics. Understanding how your app is being used is very important and cloud apps give you insights that standalone apps can’t. I can run daily weekly, monthly, or yearly reports to determine where my app is being used (25 countries and counting), number of unique users, the most popular queries. This information allows me to determine how to improve the app and where to focus my marketing.
Once you’ve created the app, you have to get the word out. For my app,Twitter has been a very powerful method to connect with tennis fans. Tweeting during matches, when interest is high, is very effective. Another strategy is to attend tournaments, meeting fellow fans and get the word out.
For more information, please visit www.tennisdata.net and download the app.