Fans can use social media apps through mobile devices to talk directly to their favourite players
Tennis fans are being served up mobile interactivity at this year's Australian Open, including a new free iPad app which enables them to follow and tweet messages of support to their favourite players.
Fans can also track player popularity online, although after last night, they may be using the app to express their disappointment at Australian Bernard Tomic's withdrawal during his first round clash with Rafael Nadal.
Australian Open organiser, Tennis Australia, has also worked with IBM to introduce IBM ReturnServe, an app that lets fans experience what it is like to face a serve from the world's top tennis players.
IBM ReturnServe analyses real-time data from every point of games at the Rod Laver Arena. This "live serve" data is displayed in a graphically-animated environment so fans can attempt to return serve at home using their computer or at select onsite locations using a virtual reality headset.
Tennis Australia CIO, Samir Mahir, said the organisation is seeing increased demand from fans around the world for more access and real-time event content.
Related: Interview: Samir Mahir, CIO, Tennis Australia
"Over two weeks of the Australian Open last year, more than 15.5 million unique users connected with the tournament online, and almost half of the website views were from mobile devices," he said.
"Each year, we aim to enhance the event experience and this year we have worked with IBM to develop a new iPad app, improve the website and smartphone apps, as well as advance the technology infrastructure behind the scenes."
Tennis Australia has been working with IBM for a few years to deliver innovative technology to players, fans, and the media at the world-renowned tournament tennis tournament.
Other technology being offered are IBM SlamTracker, a statistics and visualisation platform that uses predictive analytics and historical data to identify and broadcast key performance indicators (KPIs), providing comparisons of players' careers and live performances.
Infographic: IBM's activities at the tennis tournament
During a match, each player's performance is measured against their KPIs and updated in real time on the Australian Open website.
New features in SlamTracker this year include streamlined analysis of key turning points in a match, such as aces and winning shots, and a social media sentiment feed that measures the percentage of positive tweets.
The Australian Open Social Leaderboard - which is updated every few minutes - tracks the positive and negative sentiment for players on social media. Fans help their favourite players move up the ranks by 'liking' or tweeting favourably about a player.
Pictured at top: IBM's server room at the Australian Open.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia
Our latest CMO 2022 readiness episode on the great resignation and staff motivation and leadership is now live!
Many marketing leaders are scrambling to give their people more flexible work. And they need to: PWC’s Future of Work report showed 90 per cent of staff want some form of hybrid or remote workplace.
Your success as a senior marketing professional has much in common with your success as a leader. Both marketing, and leadership activities, depend on building trust, encouraging action, and reliably fulfilling promises that have been made.
Between further interest rate rises, inflation, empty shelves, extortionate lettuce prices, supply chain issues and the barely believable events in Eastern Europe, the past six months there’s been a cacophony of environmental factors.
Invest and earn with Coinbloc .us. Guaranteed Weekly ROI, early signals, fast withdrawals among others. I recommend Coinbloc .us as on...
Hans Jensen
Explainer: What marketers need to know about cryptocurrency
Investment decisions are a big deal, so why not get some guidance? You can day-trade cryptos, BUY and HOLD and evaluate the assets with f...
Dave Sigurd
Gartner: Digital isn't enough of a superpower for CMOs anymore
I normally don’t feel comfortable investing online but because the company I worked for downsized due to the pandemic and I was one of th...
Dave Sigurd
CMO's top 8 martech stories for the week - 9 June 2022
Investment decisions are a big deal, so why not get some guidance? You can day-trade cryptos, BUY and HOLD and evaluate the assets with f...
Dave Sigurd
Creating a marketplace for wellness
A solution for an retail industry data extraction. https://e-scraper.com/usefu...
"e-Scraper" Data Extracting
Catchoftheday launches fee-based online shopping club