According to the challenge’s website, since 2016, the University of Utah has conducted the Game Day Analytics Challenge to conduct an in-depth analysis of Twitter tweets on Super Bowl ads. This competition has teams of undergraduate and graduate teams from top universities from around state of Utah, including the U of U, BYU, UVU, SUU, and USU. This year, Alexa McKell, Sebastian Cruz, and Andrew Jensen (not pictured) of UVU placed first in the undergraduate competition, winning not only $1000 in cash and other prizes and interviews with the competition sponsors.

In this competition, students apply business analytics skill and gain practical knowledge including data collection, data processing and cleaning, data analysis, and data visualization. Technology learned includes PHP, MySQL, Python, MongoDB, Twitter API, and Domo. Teams then present the best infographics and white paper in relation to extracted insights from the Super Bowl ads to judges from sponsored organizations such as Swire Coca-Cola, Domo, Alteryx Sparked, Molio, Firetoss, Layton, and more.

Judging is based on the following criteria:

• Value of findings – Are the results relevant and helpful to advertisers? Does this information help inform if the marketing spend was successful?
• Complexity of findings – Judges are looking for relationships between variables and in-depth analytic conclusions.
• Quality of materials – Team deliverables should be professional-quality, well written/designed, and easy to understand.
• Professional presentation – Judges are looking for students to deliver a business-quality poster presentation, including visual or other aides. Finalists also are expected to deliver an oral presentation in the final round.