Bloomberg Sports and the National Football League have teamed up for the launch of the Decision Maker fantasy football application for PCs and Apple?s iPad.

Bloomberg has partnered with Roundarch, which specializes in digital design and implementation, to create the iPad application that provides real-time statistical-based head-to-head analysis for every NFL player. With the Decision Maker application, Bloomberg Sports is trying to reach the 20 million-plus fantasy sports players, including women and men of all ages.  

?The partnerships with the NFL and Roundarch were the natural next step for Bloomberg Sports after our initial launch of our fantasy baseball product and as we expanded our sports offerings into football,? said Bill Squadron, head of Bloomberg Sports, New York. ?With the new Bloomberg Sports Decision Maker app, we are trying to reach as many fantasy players as possible.

?Bloomberg Sports Decision Maker allows fantasy players to make better decision for their best starting lineups each week by simply comparing players that make up their fantasy rosters,? he said.

?The players are ranked by a system using a sophisticated analysis and formulas update based on several years of performance and other factors such as the opposing defense that week and the weather forecast at that week?s venue.?

Bloomberg Sports is a subsidiary of Bloomberg L.P., a privately held financial software, news and data company founded by Michael Bloomberg, current Mayor of New York City.

Roundarch designs and implements digital experiences, including Web sites, Web applications, mobile applications, social media applications and digital marketing campaigns.

In addition to Bloomberg Sports, its clients include Avis, HBO, Hershey?s, the NFL?s New York Jets and the U.S. Air Force.

Bloomberg helps iPad users be deciders
Bloomberg Sports Decision Maker leverages a multi-factor analytics engine to quickly provide casual football fans, fantasy football players and other customers with the insights they need to determine the most valuable players each week.

This includes an analysis of individual player performance, team support for position, opponent matchup against position and game conditions.

Here is a screengrab of the team support feature:

In addition, Decision Maker provides a Risk/Reward calculation that captures the weekly volatility of individual NFL players, helping users to make informed decisions regarding the potential upside of any NFL player.

This level of player analysis has traditionally required in-depth research across multiple sources, and is often based more on opinion than fact.

However, Decision Maker for iPad aggregates a number of disparate and opaque data sources into a portable tool using Bloomberg?s proprietary scientific algorithms.

The result is player insights presented through the iPad?s touch screen interface.

Here is a screengrab of a head-to-head matchup in the iPad application:

The iPad is one of the newest platforms in the mobile computing market and its size, form factor and touch-based user interface are an ideal match for the Decision Maker, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg Sports is working with its developing partner Roundarch on a few promotional initiatives to spread the word about the Decision Maker application.

Bloomberg will also be launching a social media campaign and will use its own Web site at http://www.bloombergsports.com to get the word out.  

?One of the key differentiators the for this app is that a lot of football fans and especially fantasy fans have to go to five or six different locations to get the information they need to make fantasy decisions,? said Rob Bischoff, engagement director at Roundarch, New York. ?We wanted to offer a one-stop-shop so fans can get a multi-factored analysis in one place, with a portable form factor so that they can do this anywhere.

?We were looking to recreate the experience of the Web application in the iPad app, and it is the same experience in the iPad platform and users get the same benefits,? he said. ?With Bloomberg?s help, we take rich analytics that they use to analyze stocks and things of that nature and apply that to sports.

?We don?t just look at a player and his team, we look at a whole host of details and combine that into a single algorithm, from what the weather will be to what this player and his opponent have done over the past 12 months.?

Final Take
Dan Butcher, associate editor, Mobile Marketer