With the new Netflix docuseries ‘Break Point’ and the Australian Open about to begin, the world of tennis is soon to be on display. The amount of current and potential fans of tennis is changing, as well as how fans the press and players want to engage with the sport. Digital technology is at the forefront of that change.
From technology to help determine whether serves were in or out to wearable tech to help improve the player’s swing and protect against injuries, the sport of tennis has always been ahead of the game in terms of technology adoption. The popularity of the new technology is being cited as a direct reason why interest in tennis increasing.
For this year’s Australian Open, Infosys is at the forefront of the Open’s digital innovation. Infosys is providing virtual experiences for fans at the Open. They also provide digital visualisation called MatchBeats, where every statistic from the match, including speed and ball trajectory, is shown live in real-time. CourtVision is where you can get real-time updates about player performance and compare tennis styles between players. There is even the option of watching the matches in 3D with shot analysis present on the screen of your choice.
IBM has implemented hybrid cloud and AI to work with Wimbledon to co-create a flexible platform to give fans a personalised digital experience. Since 1990, IBM has captured 9.2 million Wimbledon data points and during The Championships in 2021, Wimbledon reached approximately 18 million fans through its digital platforms. IBM brings Match Insights with IBM Watson using AI-powered fact sheets for every singles match and IBM Power Index brings an AI-powered ranking of players before and during Wimbledon, analysing player performance, media commentary and other factors.
Live sports production in the cloud can now significantly enhance the flexibility of a broadcaster’s production and delivery workflow, enabling every production element to occur in the cloud. This allows production crews to operate anywhere around the globe and provides content and revenue opportunities for broadcasters and rights-holders – from quickly producing clips for social media to production of replays and highlights packages.
Veritone offers the Veritone Digital Media Hub (DMH) to broadcasters, corporations, entertainment groups and content creators in the realm of sports. With DMH, an AI-powered asset management and monetisation solution, content owners can generate more revenue from their existing assets by setting up a digital storefront, making their content easy to find with AI metadata tagging, as well as sharing and managing content. United States Tennis Association (USTA) and the French Tennis Federation are clients that implement the DMH to enhance and monetise their workflows.
Even with the benefits of new technology being implemented, there is always some pushback and concern, especially when it comes to individual sports’ adoption of tech. In 2014, president of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) Francesco Ricci Bitti stated,
“Every sport must evolve and progress and technology offer the opportunity for new players to develop their skills, experienced players to analyse their games in more detail, and fans to interact more closely with tennis. What we must avoid is technology that affects the outcome of matches, or which changes the essential character of the game.”
If you’d like to learn more about technology such as remote video production and AI and how it can benefit your business, speak with one of base’s media experts.
