The David Eccles School of Business recently hosted its largest Game Day Analytics Challenge (GDAC) to date, both in the number of participating teams and sponsors. GDAC is an annual competition that gives student teams just four days to analyze millions of Tweets related to Super Bowl ads and produce a professional infographic and white paper.

This year 32 made it to the finish line of this challenging competition. Teams analyzed more than 1.5 million tweets about 70+ Super Bowl advertisements and extracted valuable metrics related to reach, performance, influence, and return on investment.  At $6M per ad plus production costs, this type of analytical work is extremely useful and gives students valuable hands-on experience. Nearly $5,000 in scholarships were awarded.

Students from Information Systems and other undergraduate majors, as well Master of Science in Information Systems (MSIS) and Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) students competed in undergraduate and graduate categories. We also had student teams from Utah Valley University, BYU, and BYU-Hawaii also competed. This year’s sponsors were Alteryx, David Eccles School of Business, Domo, FireToss, Layton Construction, Molio, Thomas Arts, and Swire Coke. In addition to financial support, sponsors provide industry experts to judge the students’ work.  And many of these sponsors have open positions for analytics and other IT positions. There was an amazing amount of professional networking going on.

Students applied business analytics skills and gained practical knowledge including data collection, data processing and cleaning, data analysis, and data visualization. Technology learned includes PHP, MySQL, Python, MongoDB, Twitter API, Domo, and Alteryx. These in-demand skills prepare our students for success in the job market.

Congratulations to the winners!