A startup, Edge Up Sports aims to use IBM’s Watson to help people with fantasy football teams choose their lineups for the US National Football League. They will use IBM Watson Developer Cloud which uses cognitive computing solve complex problems like for example the process of choosing a fantasy football lineup which involves making a decision from various statistics.
The problem people face when they are deciding who to put in the lineup in their fantasy football team is the sheer amount of data one needs to consider before choosing somebody. What Edge Up Sports is aiming is to do all that heavy lifting for you so that you can focus on having fun while playing Fantasy football. They have an awesome video that explains their project:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsQYoxJVGl4]
On Kickstarter, they are aiming to raise $35,000 from pledges where the backers are able to choose from two platforms: The Edge Up Standard tier is from $15-$37 where the person backing it will receive statistics, weather and matchups but if you pledge $38 or more, you are in the Edge Up Cognitive Tier which includes the functionality of the standard tier and also gives you access to a wider sample of analytics & what has trended over period of weeks. A spokesperson from Edge Up told Ars Technica that these backers will get a sneak peek of the app and a wider access when the NFL season begins.
The insights that will be given include weather reports, injury history, news stories and mental, physical and situational statistics which have been pulled from various social media interactions. It would be awesome if the platform extends from the current focus on the NFL onto other sporting leagues, like the EPL, which in partnership with their respective fantasy football framework will make it easy for users to come up with their lineups.
