The New England Patriots are one of the most well-known teams in professional sports— having won six Super Bowls and nine conference championship games since 2000. As with any other business, the Patriots’ success is dependent on a healthy and secure infrastructure behind the scenes, keeping the team safe so their focus remains on the playing field. Acronis’ #TeamUp program enables the leading cyber protection company to partner with a managed service provider (MSP) and professional sports teams, securing a team’s backend while offering a far greater reach of brand recognition for all parties involved.
The Kraft Group, which encompasses several sports, entertainment and event management companies including the New England Patriots and Major League Soccer’s New England Revolution, has worked with managed service provider HUB Tech to implement Acronis Cyber Protect on over 200 endpoints as part of the #TeamUp Program.
Representatives Michael Israel, Chief Information Officer for The Kraft Group, and Paul Shiff, Vice President of HUB Tech, spoke with Acronis about how the partnership secured the teams’ infrastructure and protected its data.
Protection beyond helmets
The Patriots and Gillette Stadium began partnering with Acronis in December of 2021 to back up the fleet of laptops across their enterprise and protect their data. When asked why The Patriots chose Acronis, Israel cited failed experiences with previous providers. Israel said these previous providers were unable to protect the team’s edge while Acronis provided “an enterprise-class solution” with regard to backing up its edge devices.
The team’s previous provider could not supply such an enterprise-class solution and was overly difficult to use, according to Israel. This provider presented issues such as an inability to create backups for devices, causing problems when a restoration was requested, along with failure to log reports about active backups. These issues caused the team to “forklift another more consumer-oriented endpoint platform.”
The benefits of using Acronis Cyber Protect are plentiful, according to Israel. Ease of use and implementation are two of the key benefits of the platform, which allow users to control all their data protection and backup needs in one unified, central agent. This enables businesses and organizations to save valuable time and resources which can then be allotted toward other critical areas. Edge protection is also a huge benefit, as devices on the playing field are vulnerable to being dropped and sustaining other types of damage that could potentially call for data restoration. Overall Israel said Acronis protects “against the unknown.”
HUB Tech learned about the #TeamUp Program when their distributor, D&H Distributing, brought the partnership to their attention. This partnership has been “very exciting,” according to Shiff. Acronis, he says, is the only company in the marketplace pairing up sports teams with local vendors, benefiting the company in several aspects, including critical areas such as brand recognition — taking it “to a pinnacle.” HUB Tech praised the partnership for bringing the company’s name to the Acronis website as well as on the football field, giving a huge boost to brand recognition and generating much additional business. The great success of the partnership has since prompted HUB Tech to explore other opportunities within Acronis.
These results are consistent with other cases — showcasing how a single-platform cyber protection solution simplifies security while strengthening backend operations. The #TeamUp Program continues to prove highly successful, offering the expertise of each party to benefit all involved and expand the reach of brand recognition.