NFL Paperless Playbook Joins iPad Menu & iPad Reservation System5 min read
Tradition. “Because of our traditions,” says Tevye, in the prologue of the Tony Award-winning musical, “Fiddler on the Roof,” “we’ve kept our balance for many, many years…we have traditions for everything…” Commenting on the classic musical, Noel Katz writes: “The opening number, ‘Tradition,’ explains what’s unfamiliar about the world…as well as what’s common to all societies… Once the goal of upholding traditions is established, the rest of the play shows how they get dissolved.”
Today, we have a tradition for printing everything. We have a tradition for printing a restaurant menu on paper; we have a tradition for printing a restaurant reservation book on paper; and, we have a stalwart tradition for printing a pro football playbook on paper. One source cites estimates that teams in the National Football League (NFL) use about 5,000 pages of paper per game. So much tradition…so much printing; so much paper! While the goal of some restaurateurs and some in the NFL is seemingly to uphold those traditions, forward thinkers from both groups are replacing them. And, what are they replacing them with? Like Tevye says in Fiddler, “That I can tell you in one word”…iPad, or, more specifically, an iPad menu.
An increasing number of restaurants across the country and around the globe have replaced their traditional paper menu and/or wine list with an iPad menu; some have transformed the Apple point of sale device into a powerful Apple POS system. (Find out now in “iPad Menu: Apple Point of Sale Device or Total Apple POS System”?)
Likewise, the iPad reservation system has replaced the traditional paper reservation book in many restaurants, with an iPad app that transforms it into sophisticated “high-tech table-management tool.” No expensive electronic booking system required. No space-eating, proprietary hardware required. No dedicated terminals and software required. Just an iPad and an app – an app which provides a “portable restaurant reservation booking system and subscription service” and lets restaurateurs track empirical consumer data, yet is so intuitive, it requires virtually no training to use.
Unlike bulky electronic booking systems, the iPad reservation system retains the portability of the paper reservation book, so busy restaurateurs, chefs, restaurant managers or other restaurant staff can keep it close by; but, unlike its traditional paper counterpart, it not only manages reservations and tracks empirical data, it’s drag-and-drop feature makes it easy to re-configure tables and seating on a virtual table-layout to manage walk-in traffic and optimize guest count and seat utilization.
For the consumer, the iPad menu is the fastest, easiest, most convenient way for a guest to order and pay; likewise, the iPad reservation system is the fastest, easiest, most convenient way for a customer to make a restaurant reservation. (Don’t miss our previous blog post to see why we say that with a “Reservation App: Never Call a Restaurant for Reservations Again.”)
Now, pro football is following suit with its own iPad menu. Last week, the New York Times reported that two NFL teams, the Baltimore Ravens and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, have replaced their traditional bound paper playbook – a telephone-book-thick, iconic 3-ring binder — with a 1.3-pound iPad. But the teams are not switching just to save money by eliminating all of the printing and paper costs; nor are they switching just to go green (although both of these factors are important). The iPad playbook is an effective tool for both players and coaches.
For the players, an iPad-based playbook is the fastest, easiest, most convenient way to receive, access, or study a tremendous amount of information, and, since they can instantly find the information they’re looking for, it’s much more likely that a player will consult the iPad playbook than the old paper tome, and the note-taking feature makes it easy to annotate.
A file on the iPad menu contains the playbook app. If the coach adjusts strategies, the app updates the playbook in real time; if practice or training schedules are changed, the playbook automatically notifies the players. If individual nutrition guidelines are modified, the playbook lets the player know. And, like the iPad reservation system, the iPad playbook can track user-specific empirical data, such as total time spent studying.
Previously, in order to view a game or practice video at home, a player had to ask for a copy to be burned to DVD. Now, the videos are on the iPad menu – players can access them anywhere, anytime (except when players take the field at game time, of course, since, as the New York Times points out, tradition-centric NFL rules still ban any computer and “[a]ny device that can record or play video,” on the sidelines or the field “during pregame preparations or the game itself”) and, instead of having to fast-forward or reverse with a TV remote, players can simply flick through the game, touching a play to quickly analyze it or tap it again to get out of there and go to another play.
The iPad menu also provides far greater security for the heavily-guarded, top secret playbooks. Entering a user name and password just unlocks the iPad itself; a second set of identifiers is required to access the file which holds the playbook. Enter the wrong password three times and the data self-destructs. Both teams use data encryption and digital rights management to protect the digital playbooks, and some features can only be used when a player is logged onto the team’s own wireless network. Access to the playbook can be shut down instantly, if a player is cut or traded, and the device remotely wiped clean, at the push of a button, if a playbook is lost or stolen.
According to the Ravens’ IT Director, Nick Fusse, other teams in the league are likely to copy the Ravens and Buccaneers foray into the iPad menu; judging from the number of calls the Ravens and Buccaneers have received from other teams’ IT departments, he is probably right. Who knows? This may be the beginning of a whole new NFL tradition.
READ NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE HERE
Disclaimer: This is an independent report sourced from one or more news articles and or press releases; none of the company’s, entities or technologies digressed in this report are affiliated with or a client of Open.
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