Team Liquid Harnesses Powerful Data Analytics to Win Esports Championships

Learn how Team Liquid is transforming data analysis in high-stakes professional esports

Sports have always been about data, from RBIs to possession time to break points converted. In recent decades, as popular films like Moneyball have highlighted, these traditional statistics have been revolutionized by the science of data analytics, which is now an essential element in professional, and even collegiate, athletics. Today, athletic organizations of all stripes use data analytics—to draft and train players and to prepare and strategize for competitions.

The same is true in the fast-growing universe of esports, where an ultra-elite cadre of the world’s more than three billion gamers competes for titles and millions in prize money. Esports is already a multibillion-dollar industry, and the fervent fan base is growing at a rapid rate.

Data analytics is especially critical to success in the data-rich arena of professional gaming, and there are insights to be gleaned from literally millions of hours of gameplay. Analysis of this complex data is typically done manually, with a handful of analysts combing through endless hours of matches and practice sessions and inputting data into spreadsheets—a cumbersome, error-prone, labor-intensive process.

The legendary and victorious esports franchise Team Liquid—which someone more rooted in traditional athletics might think of as the Manchester United, New York Yankees, or New England Patriots, esports—knew there was a better way.

Unleashing the Power of Data Analytics

Primed for innovation, Team Liquid, which fields more than 120 international players in more than 15 different esports, partnered with SAP to focus first on two of their top-tier games—Dota 2 and League of Legends. These are both complex, multiplayer games with nearly infinite gameplay scenarios. With SAP Business Technology Platform,= (SAP BTP) Team Liquid has been able to retire their data-tracking spreadsheets and store six million competitions in the cloud, amounting to almost three million hours of gameplay, all with real-time access for analytics.

Deploying SAP BTP and its powerful data analytics capabilities now provides Team Liquid players with detailed datasets before and after matches to quickly visualize and digest valuable information. Players, coaches, and team captains benefit from this analysis to better understand their competitors’ tendencies, anticipate their movies, and gain a strategic advantage in international competitions.

All of this has resulted in:

• 60x increase in productivity as key competitor data is analyzed in one minute versus one hour
• 5 million hours of competition gameplay stored in SAP HANA Cloud
• 50% time saved in Dota 2 match preparation in 2019
• A Dota 2 championship win at ESL One Germany in 2020
• 300+ saved working hours of match preparation in 2021
• Team Liquid maintains its status as the world’s best esports organization

Tune In

In this episode of Better Together: Customer Conversations, we sit down with Mike Milanov, Chief Business Development Officer, Team Liquid, to explore how 2022 SAP Innovation Award winner Team Liquid leveraged SAP BTP and its powerful data analytics capabilities to dramatically increase productivity and hone their competitive edge.

• Podcast: Mike Milanov meets with Tamara McCleary, CEO of Thulium, to discuss the thriving world of esports and why advanced analytical insights are changing the landscape.
• LinkedIn conversation: Dan Lahl, Global Vice President of SAP Marketing & Solutions, sits down with Mike Milanov to explore the nitty-gritty of how data analysis works for Team Liquid. They dig in to what’s next for Team Liquid and how their innovative approach to data analytics will help them stay ahead of the competition.

Interested in more stories about using data insights to improve performance? Check out:

• San Jose Sharks: Embracing Data Insights to Grow Fan Engagement
• Ottogi: How Does Faster Access to Data-Driven Insights Help Uphold a Reputation for Innovation?

Visit sap.com/btp to find all our Better Together: Customer Conversations episodes.

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