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How technology could help the Vikings build next year’s ‘…

by ailona•

The Vikings built Viper, a customizable Azure-based video and data platform integrating game, practice and prospect footage, tracking, and analytics. Rapid developer iteration via GitHub Copilot and Entra ID security lets coaches and scouts access filtered video and insights quickly for evaluation and draft planning.

The Minnesota Vikings adopted Viper, a cloud-based video review and analytics platform built on Microsoft Azure. This change centralizes game, practice, and scouting footage while adding player tracking, secure access, and rapid feature updates. The platform replaces physical drives and manual clipping with searchable video, enabling faster, data-driven decisions across coaching and scouting workflows.

Main feature/change and impact

Viper integrates full-game video, practice film, player-tracking data, and historical records in one searchable platform. The Vikings host hundreds of thousands of files per season, enabling cross-game comparisons and situational queries. Secure access through Microsoft Entra ID maintains data confidentiality. The result is faster evaluation cycles, reduced manual workload, and a single source of truth for coaching and personnel decisions.

Practical implications

Coaches and scouts gain near-instant access to filtered footage by player, formation, and play situation. Developers ship weekly updates using GitHub Copilot, exposing requested data points within minutes. The platform supports draft and free-agent workflows by aggregating college and combine footage alongside NFL data. This reduces turnaround time for tape requests and improves alignment between coaching plans and front-office evaluations.
“It can give us real, formidable things that we can use to be better than our opponent, and that’s what we’re all really looking for on a daily basis.”
The Vikings must maintain operational rigor around data governance and access policies as usage expands. Teams considering similar platforms should plan integration of identity controls, secure storage, and developer workflows for rapid iteration. Next steps include scaling analytics models, adding more automated tagging, and expanding real-time insights to accelerate player evaluation and game planning.

Key points from the article:

  • Viper centralizes game, practice, and prospect video for unified analysis.
  • Azure provides cloud storage, compute, and scalability for large video datasets.
  • GitHub Copilot speeds developer iteration for rapid feature delivery to coaches.
  • Entra ID secures access with centralized authentication and conditional access.

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