By Alex Smith |
The NFL has streamlined its game-day operations by introducing a unified, AI-powered reporting solution, The Game Ops Dashboard, built in partnership with Microsoft using Copilot Studio and Power Platform.
To stage an NFL game, thousands of operational tasks must be completed beyond the field. When any of these tasks go wrong, from a stadium access problem to a malfunctioning microphone, staff record each incident and begin developing a report. Previously, this was done using an Excel spreadsheet during the game, a time-consuming process which involved multiple staff inputting notes that could be inconsistent.
To create a more consistent approach to stadium operations, the NFL worked with Microsoft to build the Game Ops Dashboard to provide a single source of truth for game-day incidents across venues and improve post-game reporting and operational learning.
The solution centres on a Power Apps application designed for the NFL Game Operations team. Staff can select a specific game and log operational notes or incidents from a phone or tablet. They describe the incident, before AI automatically classifies the incident using a model in AI Builder in Power Automate. The model chooses from a list of categories and subcategories – such as broadcasting, uniform policy, game presentation or stadium facilities – and assigns it to the incident, along with a predicted priority level and a confidence score.
These predictions are based on domain-specific knowledge about stadium operations, including historical data of previous incidents stored in Dataverse. Using Power Automate, the system also pulls official game schedules and metadata via league APIs, ensuring each incident is associated with the correct game, teams, venue and kick off time.
The model recognises patterns in how different types of incidents are categorised with each incident reported.
“As the season went on, we found ourselves making fewer and fewer manual corrections,” said Quentin Autry, game operations associate at the NFL. “It was clear that the model was quickly learning and moving to near-perfect accuracy.”
The tool also consolidates all incidents after each slate of games into a single standardised view in the app. Built-in filtering allows reports to be tailored to surface incidents by category and customised for NFL leadership, or individual teams. Reports can be automatically exported to Excel.
The Game Ops Dashboard app also features an embedded AI-driven agent built in Copilot Studio. The agent provides staff with a way to query data stored in Dataverse, allowing them to pull up the latest notes for a specific game or week and filter notes by category.
“The platform has helped save the Game Ops team between eight-12 hours a week in data entry and report generation,” said Greg Horrocks, senior coordinator of game operations at the NFL. “Additionally, we look forward to the unrecognised efficiencies the platform will provide us as a year-by-year database. This will allow the Game Ops team to be more informed in making policy changes each offseason.”