NHL partners with SAP to give hockey managers easy access to sports data with its new Front Office app

General managers around the National Hockey League are putting some of their old roster and team management tactics on ice. That’s because NHL front offices, through a partnership with software company SAP, are now using the SAP-NHL Front Office App, bringing reams of data and information into a single all-encompassing platform.

Given that so much of the sports world is driven by numbers—goals, shots, saves, salaries, and more—all the data and information can be difficult to wrangle. For those working in the front office in the NHL, it could mean “staring at eight computer screens,” and “carrying around a big binder” to make sure it’s all on-hand, as Don Waddell, GM of the Columbus Blue Jackets, tells Fast Company.

But the new Front Office app brings it all onto a single dashboard. Waddell says that it was immensely helpful during the recently passed NHL trade deadline, as he was able to look at or access roster information, look at contracts for every player in the league, and even get a quick gauge on which players had no-trade clauses. 

While SAP has been working with the NHL since 2017, offering on-the-fly insights on the bench and generating in-game insights, the front office staff—the people running the team or organization—have had to cobble together data and information from different sources. The NHL has had that data, and the whole idea behind the Front Office app was to make it easier than ever to access for general managers and others.

“It’s been in the hands of the clubs since December,” says Steve McArdle, chief operating officer at the NHL. “We’ve heard very positive feedback on the design and functionality. It’s not just an app for the sake of an app—it’s taking the best of all worlds, and changing the way information is delivered.”

‘One-stop shop’

Given that each and every NHL team relies on data to inform decisions about roster moves, contract negotiations, and more, the league wanted to make sure it was doing its best to make decision-making as efficient as possible.

So by leaning into the existing relationship the NHL had with SAP, and then building an app for iPads, which were already being used in various faculties by the clubs, creating the app was a natural next step.

Its designers see it evolving and becoming even more useful in the future. “The first iteration, we were focused on pulling the data together to answer core questions that GMs might have,” says Dan Fleetwood, VP of global sponsorships at SAP. “We wanted to get information to their fingertips.”

Fleetwood also says that the magic of the app is its simplicity. “It’s a consumer-grade application,” he says, meaning that NHL GMs—many of whom were hockey players themselves, lacking tech-heavy backgrounds—can pick it up and use it with ease.

“The beauty of it is that it’s a one-stop shop,” says Waddell. “SAP has been around for a long time,” he adds, “and though we’ve always had smart hockey people,” it’s great to add some “smart technology, too.”

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