Published on the 25/01/2017 | Written by Newsdesk

IBM and Tennis Australia introduce deeper insights and new digital experiences at the 2017 Australian Open…

Just when you thought the most exciting thing to happen at the Australian Open so far was the accidental impact of a ball with a ‘kid’, IBM and Tennis Australia have come out to announce new digital capabilities which they said are designed to further enhance the fan experience. What it also does is demonstrate that data insights can truly be an engaging and fun experience, a ‘gamification’ which could apply to business analytics.

It’s not cricket, to be sure, but with this application of analytics to the game, IBM said it is ‘serving’ further real-time player insights via SlamTracker which are delivered right to the fans on the Australian Open (AO) mobile app.

Fans will know that IBM’s SlamTracker isn’t anything new; around since 2012, which does seem an awful long time ago, SlamTracker is a data analytics system which provides match statistics at a glance in a visual way. It was introduced at Wimbledon in 2013, where, already, it drew on eight years of Grand Slam data to deliver a wide range of information to stat-hungry followers of the game.

So, what’s changed, then? Per IBM, this year SlamTracker offers real-time analytics on players and how they are likely to perform under ‘pressure situations’ within a match, such as a tie break, based on their playing style and historical data. This insight will be available to fans from the second week of the tournament, when the intensity of competition and pressure on players kicks in.

The new capability is underpinned by IBM’s BlueMix cloud technology.

“We take a fan-first approach to every Australian Open, and this year we have taken a step further to provide a full end-to-end digital experience to spectators in Australia and around the world,” said Primoz Trcek, Tennis Australia CIO in a statement.

“In 2016 more than 2 million unique visitors accessed the mobile Australian Open site, indicating an increasing appetite to access match stats on the go. By offering SlamTracker analytics in the app, specially designed for mobile consumption, we’re ensuring that all fans, whether in the stadium, travelling on the Melbourne tram or watching from the other side of the world, are able to receive up-to-date information in real time.”

Ian Wong, of IBM Interactive Experience, said fans of many sports are increasingly choosing mobile to consume and engage with their favourite sports. “The Australian Open mobile experience is all about connecting the consumer to the action on the court. Moving to a cloud platform gives Tennis Australia the agility it needs to react quickly to provide faster and more in-depth insights to fans.”

While some find the idea of fiddling with a smartphone the anathema to enjoying a match, there’s no shortage of evidence in your own living room that this is the way people take in their games. However, the broader extension of the concept is noteworthy: tennis, cricket and rugby become enhanced experiences thanks to visual analytics, it isn’t too hard to agree with Gartner, which after its 2016 BI and Analytics Summit, said (among other things) that, ‘every business is an analytics business’. Every sport, too, we’d venture.

While tennis fans want analytics for entertainment, the stakes are higher for the business user; Gartner said: ‘Today BI is no longer about just capturing and storing information, it’s about getting insights to business users so they can make data-driven decisions, faster. For companies to truly succeed, IT and the business need to work hand in hand, and decisions about data analytics need to be made in support of the end user and key business use cases’.