Business Intelligence Application in Newcastle United Football Club

This report investigates the implementation of Business Intelligence (BI) within Newcastle United Football Club (NUFC) to improve performance. It begins by introducing the concept of BI in the context of football and explores relevant theories such as field sensors, wearable technology, efficient team drafting, and fan involvement. The report then applies Soft System Methodology to model organizational processes, followed by a SWOT analysis of NUFC's players, identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The analysis highlights the potential of BI to leverage data-driven strategies for enhanced player performance, team management, and fan engagement, ultimately aiming to increase matchday revenue and competitive advantage for the club. The report concludes with recommendations for NUFC to integrate BI effectively.

Running head: BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN NEWCASTLE UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE IN NEWCASTLE UNITED FOOTBALL CLUB
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Business intelligence theories associated with football...................................................................2
Soft System Methodology...............................................................................................................5
SWOT Analysis...............................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
Issues in the Newcastle United Football Club is not a new thing. The team was not able to
put up with hopes of the fans of the club. From past few years, the team is not performing well.
Not only the management, but also the players failed to give their best on the field. In the last
Premier League, they finished at the 13th position with seven losses out of ten matches. Fans are
now giving up hopes over the club and thus the business of the football club is also at stake. The
first and the foremost thing that NUFC is thriving for is to get back their players on form.
Various plans by the management has come forward but it came into revelation that the football
club is introducing new technology that will monitor the performance of the players and will
help the team to analyse the present situation of the players. Introduction of Business Intelligence
will surely prove to be the best source of improvement in the overall performance of the team
(Salman, Alhakkak & Jaber, 2018). Besides, Business Intelligence is making its mark in the field
of football by introducing several technologies that will monitor the necessary details regarding
their physical aspect and would help the authorities of the team to take the better decision for the
team.
Business intelligence theories associated with football
1. Field Sensors- The work of sensor is to record changes occurred in its surrounding and
send those recoded data to another device (Melzer et al., 2015). The purpose of field
sensor is to collect the data present in the field of any on-going sports. However, many
leagues of sports avoid to use these sensors for the purpose of making calls which a
referee does normally (Zhang et al., 2018). However, the use of sensors have increased

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exponentially in every types of sports. Several companies have come up with various
ways in order to collect data like tags of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) that is
attached to the devices to monitor distance, speed, movement and other measurable units
in the live game Tian, 2016). The collected data are used by the coaches for the decision
making process. One example is the use of Statcast in MLB, this device records the rate
of spin of baseball rather than only measuring the velocity of the ball (Sawinski, 2015).
2. Wearable Technology- The aim of the wearable technologies is to keep tract of the
fitness of the trainers and players in order to maintain their progress and ultimately
achieve their fitness goal (Parker et al., 2018). Also, the wearable technologies are used
to detect, prevent and track the injuries of the players. The collected data can be used in
order to make future fitness plan and be consistent in the performance (Jakicic et al.,
2016). Any deviation from the prepared plan can detect the altered performance of the
players, such as any injuries of the players or trainers. To conduct these analysis a good
interaction between managers and experts of data are essential (Schüll, 2016).
3. Efficient Team Drafting- In this modern age of technologies, data science have aided
sports more. The sports teams have used the collected data from on-going matches by the
use of advance technologies (Fiscella et al., 2017). Several teams have also incorporated
their methods to utilize the services of several technological companies. Oakland
Athletics’ coach have clearly stated that statistics have effected in drafting efficient teams
for their sports (van Dongen et al., 2018). In several sports, individual teams collect
statistics and recorded them in a central database. The recorded films of the game are
utilised to enhance the skills of the players and assist them in the future games.
Therefore, the aggregated data are easy to analyse and manage for future references.

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Lastly, all the collected data will aid to the formation of better teams in future.
4. Fans involvement - The statics and collected data and not enough for the analysis of a
team. The fans of a particular sports also conducts their analysis to enhance the
enjoyment of the sports (Perin et al., 2018). Also those statistics are used on several
websites of sport-betting. The analytics have always finds its way to engage more fan by
the use of those statistics and collected data. Several franchise hire specialist of data
analytics as said by the general manager Bryan Colangelo and Toronto raptor (Porecca,
2016). The fans are hired dedicatedly for the position of sport analytics and franchises get
benefited by it in large amount. This analysis helps in managing strategies of team and
bring effective coaching.
As the use of field sensors have increased drastically in the arena of football. The sensors
are attached to the shoes of the players in order to measure the angles in which the players are
kicking the ball, which angle is suitable to goal from a certain corner (Bae & Tomizuka, 2013).
The sensors collect all the measurements of the above mentioned and later those can be utilised
for future analysis of techniques and tricks used in the playing ground. The tag of Radio
Frequency Identification (RFID) is used as mentioned above in order to monitor the distance
from with the football players are hitting the ball, their speed of running is recorder and all the
associated movements in order to make a goal can be recorder (Zhou, Chen & Yu, 2016).
The wearable technologies can be used by the football players in order to keep them on
track for their fit health and for playing a matches with full strength. The daily physical activities
of the players can be recorded and maintained by the help of data science (Althoff et al., 2017).
Those recorded data can then be used if any football players get injured and possible treatment
can be done on that basis, also for future reference those injuries or diseases can be prevented.

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Any change occurred in the players’ health will indicate that they are out of their normal fitness
and necessary steps can be taken against it (Minelli, Chambers & Dhiraj, 2013). Therefore, to
lead these analysis that managers of the players must have a good interaction with the data
experts, the data experts can update the managers with all the deviation occurring it the players’
fitness.
As data science collects and manages data in large quantity, all the information related to
each player can be accounted and analysed accordingly. The data collection of the performance
of the players of a particular team can be recorder from their previous matches and those data
can be used for putting up an efficient team for the future matches. As quoted by a coach of
Oakland Athletics’ the statistics dose draft an efficient team so it can be estimated that this
statement can be followed in respect to football too. The statistics of the players and as a whole
the team’s statistics can be collected in the central database and efficiently used for the
enhancement of the skills of the players and eventually, it will help to put up an efficient team
for the future games.
The data collected from the games played by the players were never enough till the fans
of the players analyse their skill and games. Therefore, the fans’ involvement in the professional
life of the football players are very important. The fans somehow encourages the players for their
betterment and in the long run the fans are set as the sport analysis members. These analysis by
the fans helps coaches in maintaining strategies of the players as well as boosting them up in
their game.

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Soft System Methodology
The soft system methodology is used to model the process of an organisation and also
involves in general problem solving. There are seven stages of representation for the soft system
methodology and they are as follows along with the relativity to the considered agenda:
1. Entering into the situation that is considered as problematic: The first and the foremost
thing that has to be done to get into the situation that is considered as the problem for
which the organisational process modelling is required. In this context the main problem
is the performance of the players.
2. Expressing the situation of the problem: The problem has to be explained in detail so that
the further solution can be planned for the consideration. Here, the reason for the lack in
better performance of the players has to be analysed.
3. Formulating root definitions of relevant systems: The defining of the relevant systems
that can be used has to be done in this section of the analysis methodology. The systems
that can be introduced or can be modified so that the performance of the players can be
uplifted.
4. Building of the models of the root systems: In this section of the analysis, the root
systems that was defined in the previous section has to be constructed as a model. The
model has to be tested for the result to come forward.
5. Comparing the models with real-world situations: The models that has been constructed
of the root system have to be compared to the real-world situations and analysis has to be
done about the feasibility of the models.

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6. Defining the possible and feasible changes: After the comparison, the possible changes
that can be done for the upliftment of the performance of the players has to be defined
and the feasibility of the changes has to be analysed as well.
7. Taking action for the solution of the problem considered: After the completion of all of
the steps mentioned above and declaration of the changes that could be done, actions in
reality has to be taken. The changes that are considered as feasible for the team
management has to be finalised and implemented, so that the performance of the players
can be improved.
SWOT Analysis
This part of the report will be dealing with the SWOT analysis of the players of the New
Castle football club. SWOT analysis describes the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and the
threats of the systems on which the analysis is done (Phadermrod, Crowder & Wills, 2019). In
the below section SWOT analysis is done on the players of the New Castle United football club.
The strengths of the players representing the New Castle football club are the following:
 Happy and a proud moment of their life as they are representing such a club which
contains a legacy and stature. This attracts many people and helps the club to involve
more skilful players in the squad.
 First skilful squad with high experience.
 Regular and quick development skills which promote them to participate in many
national level tournaments.
 The stadium namely, St. James park with capacity of more than 50,000.
 Revenues are the boost by the sale of merchandise provided by the club.

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The weaknesses that are observed in the players of the new castle united football club are the
following:
 Decrease in the morality of the squad due to continuous loss in some matches.
 Hard and efficient competitors diluted the skills of the players.
The opportunities of the players of the New Castle united Football club are the following:
 Young players get many opportunities to showcase their skills in the field.
 They too get opportunity to learn some tactics from the senior players as the club posess
smart buys during the transfer windows.
The players have some threats too in this club like:
 Inconsistency which can result to the relegation
 Constant and continue play in the field can negatively impact the player’s health
 Increase in relation gap among the players as the club is always associated with transfer
of some players.
Conclusion
After the discussion of the implementation of the business intelligence system in the
functionalities of the Newcastle United Football Club or NUFC, it is seen that the
implementation will be beneficial for the club. However, the risks and the threats are associated
with it have to be analyzed. After the analysis is done the further installation has to be done.
Keeping all the risks and threats in consideration the further installation will proceed for the
betterment of the club. The later section of the report dealt with how the different theories of the
business intelligence system are associated with the improvement of the performance of the

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players of the considered football club. After a brief discussion over the association of the factors
of business intelligence, the following part of the report gave a brief SWOT analysis of the
Business intelligence. The analysis revealed about the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats of the system in use. The analysis made it clear about how the BI should be used for the
development of the performance of the players. Besides, it is also discussed that before the
installation proper planning has to be done for a successful use of the system under
consideration.

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