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Behind the Scenes
In midsummer, the Dolphins training camp comes alive as returning players crash into one another under the sultry South Florida sky and prepare for the start of the season in September. The team works out of a 93,000
square-foot training facility on the campus of Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale-Davie, Fla., north of Miami. There's no grand stadium, just a modest two-story office building, but the clues to its position in the NFL pantheon are there. The lobby is flanked by sea-blue championship banners emblazoned with the team logo -- a dolphin wearing a helmet and jumping through a hoop -- and the club's Super Bowl trophies from 1972 and 1973 shimmer from a shelf above the reception desk. Across the room, display cases feature five championship rings and other memorabilia. According to Forbes, the Dolphins rank 12th out of the 32 teams in the league in terms of valuation, which the magazine put at $856 million, with estimated revenue of $190 million in 2004; the NFL as a whole generated $5.3 billion in revenue last year, with an operating margin of 16%.
Technology has always played a behind-the-scenes role in the Dolphins' success. Analytical software has been used in football since the 1960s, mostly in scouting departments to evaluate players, and the Dolphins organization is no exception. It's also used to analyze opponents, scheduling and quality control, and to evaluate signage for sponsors. "There are something like 1,500 kinds of pass defenses, ways in which to line up," says Bailey. "Now you use information technology to find an opponent's tendencies. Some teams analyze officiating, when referees call a penalty or not. Everything is analyzed."
The only place technology wasn't used was to help run the business.
When Howard showed up on her first day, she was shocked to learn that each NFL franchise licensed software individually instead of buying it centrally at a discounted rate. In addition, although the NFL handles e-mail for all the franchises, individual clubs run their own IT shops. Further, competition on the playing field had made its way to IT departments. That is, there was little sharing of best practices. "I was dumbfounded," Howard says. "Every club was doing its own thing. But I believe we should share our views. It's good to understand what brings success."
Howard believed that pro football CIOs should work together whenever they shared common interests, and so she joined the NFL's Technology Advisory Committee, which is CIOs and IT directors of different teams who hold a monthly conference call to discuss challenges and initiatives. She formed personal relationships with many of these CIOs at the league's annual conference for club IT leaders. And, of course, she carried the ball for central software purchasing, which the league has adopted. As a result, "we were able to save a lot of money," she says.
With momentum behind her, Howard tackled additional IT initiatives. In 2001, the Dolphins became the first NFL team to equip its scouts with wireless laptops, running Verizon's new 3G Express Network via Sierra Wireless AirCards. The team's eight scouts live on the road, looking for talent, watching players and writing reports. "The wireless card was great," Howard says. "Scouts used to have to wait to get back to the hotel and use dial-up. It was a mess. As soon as the wireless cards were available in the marketplace, we immediately had the scouts use them. Also, we configured thin and light laptops to enable them to work from anywhere at any time without being restricted to connectivity and weight."
Next, Howard upgraded the scouting software to reduce the team's dependence on paper. "We spent two and a half months interviewing users trying to understand every piece of paper that crossed their desks," she says. "That gave us a lot of ideas. We documented their business needs."
The Dolphins worked with Hyperion Solutions Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif., to create a scouting program, which the club began using last year. The recruiting staff has its own SQL server database that stores information on player statistics and activities, tracks all potential college drafts and charts their performance into their professional careers. (Future performance is predicted by comparing new players with veterans who have similar characteristics.) Even the process of potential draft picks filling out paperwork is automated.
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