Explore the success story between the San Francisco 49ers and SAP
The San Francisco 49ers football team uses the Executive Huddle, enabled by SAP solutions, to enhance the fan experience, provide insights that help deliver measurable operational improvement, and inform sustainable choices at Levi’s Stadium.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Sports | Santa Clara, California | 3,000 employees |
increase in fan satisfaction using the Executive Huddle to inform decisions.
minutes to resolve most stadium-related issues, down from days.
increase in net concession sales during home games.
Executive Vice President of Technology, San Francisco 49ers
Providing fans with the ultimate stadium experience
The San Francisco 49ers is an ambitious and highly successful football team that strives for perfection in all areas, on and off the field. This includes the smooth management of venue operations on game days at Levi’s Stadium to give fans an unparalleled experience while using resources efficiently.
However, achieving this optimal in-stadium experience is complex due to the multitude of fan touch points. Operations staff must consider the sheer size and scope of managing a venue on game day. This involves coordinating thousands of full-time and part-time staff as well as catering to tens of thousands of fans and effectively managing the systems and vendors used for ticketing, parking, concessions, retail, and customer service.
Director of Business Intelligence and CRM, San Francisco 49ers
Creating a powerful venue management platform
With a bold goal to create a truly first-of-its-kind venue management system, the San Francisco 49ers used SAP Business Technology Platform (SAP BTP) to develop the Executive Huddle, a solution that helps monitor game-day operations and more easily detect fan experience issues. By bringing together automated data analytics and visualizations on one platform, the Executive Huddle enables the San Francisco 49ers to deliver consistent and connected experiences along its business processes and derive a robust view of the organization’s data, no matter where it resides.
To achieve this comprehensive and real-time picture of the stadium, the Executive Huddle integrates 10 different data sources such as concessions, ticketing, retail, and game-day surveys. The data is then managed in SAP HANA Cloud and visualized in dashboards with the SAP Analytics Cloud solution. On game day, these dashboards update every one minute to five minutes. With rapid insights, the business intelligence team can respond in real time.
For instance, the ticket-scanning API integration quickly notifies the team of VIP arrivals to help ensure special guests receive additional personalized services throughout their game-day experience. Other game-day issues can be detected early from fan-feedback surveys that continuously track customer satisfaction, enabling facilities staff to react and adapt to situations across the stadium.
Making informed decisions for the perfect game day
By bringing real-time information together at the right granularity, the San Francisco 49ers can better understand the impact of interconnected systems on the fan experience. This season, staff were able to identify and address fan experience issues within a 10-minute time frame.
Since its launch in 2017, the Executive Huddle has led to a 43% increase in game-day fan satisfaction. Furthermore, fans are not only more content but also willing to spend more. As a result, net concession sales have risen by 31% since 2019.
Innovating further with sustainability tracking
The San Francisco 49ers and Levi’s Stadium are committed to improving their environmental impact by continuing to innovate the Executive Huddle. SAP BTP makes it easier to unify new data sources and extend the functionalities of the solution. In partnership with SAP, the San Francisco 49ers integrated venue utility-tracking data into the Executive Huddle in 2022.
Thanks to six 3D-printed water and gas meter readers throughout Levi’s Stadium, utility usage information now feeds directly into the Executive Huddle in real time. This data is then visualized to help staff closely monitor utilities and make more-informed decisions on conservation efforts.
And the Executive Huddle will soon introduce new advancements, such as the use of predictive analytics to increase planning accuracy and further reduce environmental impact.
Want to know more about the San Francisco 49ers?
San Francisco 49ers: Ensuring the Perfect Game-day Experience with Real-Time Cloud Analytics (SAP Business Transformation Story)
The San Francisco 49ers Redefine the Stadium Experience for over 70,000 Fans (Customer Conversation Series)