Media & Entertainment Lets Build A Smarter Planet

The annual Grand Slam tennis tournament held in leafy Wimbledon,

south-west London is known simply as The Championships. It is one
of the worlds highest-prole sporting events, and a cultural institution
since its establishment in 1877.
The Ofcial Technology Supplier to the AELTC for the past 24 years,
IBM is becoming a more and more visible part of the Wimbledon
experience as the tournament reaches out to a growing global audience
via multiple digital channels. Each year, IBM provides exciting new
capabilities in support of the AELTCs goal of delivering a world-class
experience for the digital user that replicates the unforgettable
nature of a day at Wimbledon, putting its reputation on the line in a
high-pressure environment with the world looking on. In 2013, IBM
again showcased its ability to design and deliver a highly complex
data-centric solution that delivers tangible benets and ROI to a
high-prole global business for which high quality and innovation are
key brand elements.
The rise of mobile and social
As the AELTC works to extend the geographic and demographic
appeal of The Championships, the rapid growth in the use of web,
mobile and social media technologies ofers a golden opportunity to
provide more engaging content and to build stronger relationships with
a truly global audience. This audience has a growing appetite for more
information, delivered more rapidly and through an ever-growing set of
platforms.
Mick Desmond, Commercial Director at the AELTC, comments:
We want to deepen our relationship with tennis fans through digital
channels, and expand the reach and exposure of our tournament into
new geographies and demographics. The shift in the digital landscape
has been enormous over the past four or ve years, with more and more
people now accessing our website on mobile devices so we need to
innovate and ensure that we give fans the information they want, via
the channel they prefer.
A key objective for the AELTC is to increase the time people spend
watching and talking about the tournament, so as to enhance its prole
and reach. The organization is achieving this by feeding their hunger
for information and rich media, which depends on harnessing vast
quantities of data in real time.
Wimbledon
Championships serves up
an ace performance
Using analytics, mobile and social technologies to
engage and retain a growing global fan base
Smart is...
Building closer relationships
with fans by putting real-time,
media-rich information at their
fngertips
The Championships, Wimbledon is one of
the most prestigious and popular sporting
events in the world. For its organizer, the
All England Club, the ongoing challenge
is to keep expanding the tournaments
appeal by enhancing the experience for
tennis fans. Today, this means delivering
rich, engaging content in real time to
a huge global audience and building
stronger relationships with fans through
social media. For the past 24 years, IBM
has been a key partner for the AELTC,
providing technologies to constantly
improve the capture and dissemination
of vital match information to the global
audience. In 2013, IBM analytics
capabilities delivered fascinating new
analysis and insights direct to viewers via
mobile, TV and web, combining detailed
match data with sentiment analysis for the
frst time.
W
I
M
B
L
E
D
O
N
.
C
O
M
TICKET HOLDERS GUIDE
THE CHAMPIONSHIPS, WIMBLEDON
MONDAY 24
TH
JUNE SUNDAY 7
TH
JULY 2013
Media & Entertainment Lets Build A Smarter Planet
Managing big data at Wimbledon
IBM describes big data in terms of the four Vs volume, variety,
velocity and veracity and Wimbledon certainly features all of them.
To develop compelling content for its audience, the AELTC needs to
discover, gather, process, integrate, understand, enrich and disseminate
these volumes of data. Variety stems from the huge number of sources
of both structured and unstructured data, including: new on-court
player- and ball-tracking radar technologies, current and historical
match data, expert human observations, data from fans attending the
tournament, match and performance data from other tournaments,
and fan-contributed information on social media. Data changes at
high velocity, with sub-second updates on a huge number of variables
for every point of every match, and with the need to analyze hundreds
of tweets about the tournament every second. Finally, tennis fans are
highly knowledgeable, so veracity is crucial if the content is to maintain
its credibility.
Only a few hundred thousand people can attend The Championships
in person each year. To ensure that an estimated 800-million plus
people around the globe can enjoy the event, IBM gathers, processes
and disseminates real-time data on every point of every match on
Wimbledons 19 courts. In 2013, that meant 101,778 tennis points
across 660 matches, corresponding to 852,752 data points. IBM
employs and trains a team of 48 statisticians all of them high-quality
tennis players to provide contextual data that is used to enrich the
machine-collected data such as the speed of serve. All of this match data
is combined with historical performance data and live data from the
web and social networks, and fed into an advanced set of analytical tools
that provide real-time insight to sports analysts, TV presenters and the
global audience.
Business benefts
Enhances the experience for fans,
deepening their relationship with the
tournament through rich interactive
media.
Provides detailed real-time analysis
of match play and in-game trends,
feeding global audiences appetite for
information.
Helps the AELTC understand what its
fans are talking about and builds new
communities of interest through social
media.
Smarter Entertainment Enhancing the Wimbledon experience through social media
Instrumented Gathers large volumes of data in real time from on-court
electronic sensors, on-court scorers, of-court analysts and global
users of social media services.
Interconnected Integrates and enriches multiple sources of structured and
unstructured data, then distributes information to analytical tools,
web sites, mobile apps and global TV broadcasters.
Intelligent Real-time analysis of match data reveals winning patterns of
play; cloud infrastructure uses analytics to predict demand and
automatically adjust resources to match.
Media & Entertainment Lets Build A Smarter Planet
Smarter Analytics
At Wimbledon, a key element in creating compelling content is
layering analysis on top of both live and historic match information.
IBM Smarter Analytics technology is the beating heart of the analytics
capabilities at Wimbledon, powering applications such as IBM
SlamTracker a rich and interactive tool that acts as a single source
of information about all matches, providing intuitive performance
dashboards that allow fans to gain deep insights into the match data.
For 2013, IBM refreshed the design of SlamTracker and began pulling
in live sentiment analysis from Twitter to show the ebb and ow of
support for each player.
Before each match, IBM analyzes historical matches between the
players (over eight years of Grand Slam data corresponding to
41 million data points) to identify the Keys to the Match, a set of key
performance indicators showing what each player needs to do in order
to be successful against any specic opponent. During the course of the
match, each player is then measured against his or her keys in a series
of real-time updates, giving fans a deeper level of insight as the match
unfolds.
In a rst for 2013, IBM also combined data on player and ball
movement with point-outcome data, enriched by court-side observers,
using it to generate intuitive 3D graphics for broadcasters.
Only a handful of global businesses have exactly the same requirements
as the AELTC, yet millions face the same general challenge of
needing to capture, process and analyze huge sets of structured and
unstructured data in real time. IBMs analytics solutions at The
Championships demonstrate how businesses can generate valuable
insights from fast-moving data to better understand their business,
their products and solutions, their customers and their competitors.
The mobile experience
As the use of smartphones and tablets continues to grow rapidly, IBM
is helping The Championships to keep its mobile content fresh and
relevant. Mobile users accounted for 20 percent of the 19.7 million
unique visitors to wimbledon.com during the 2013 tournament, and yet
were responsible for a massive 55 percent of the 433 million total page
views (up from 40 percent in 2012).
For the AELTC, it is crucial to provide the same high-quality brand
experience regardless of the channel, so IBM worked closely with
the AELTC to tailor the design and content to each type of device
based on both the technical characteristics for example, screen size
and resolution and the typical usage pattern. For example, most
smartphone usage is to check headline scores and results when on the
move, while tablet users can browse more unique interactive content
and delve deeper into the statistics and insights behind a match. The
new iPad app for 2013 was designed to supplement and enrich the live
action on television, bringing fresh insights and unique content to fans
watching at home.
We want to increase the
reach and exposure of The
Championships, taking
it to new demographics
and geographies.
Understanding the
social impact of the
tournament as a whole
is vitally important,
because it enables us to
understand what fans
really think and to
start to build a two-way
relationship with them.
That in turn will help
us to focus and enhance
our digital platforms
so as to strengthen the
tournament in the years
to come.
Mick Desmond, Commercial Director, AELTC
Solution components
Software
IBM DB2
IBM InfoSphere
IBM SPSS
IBM Tivoli
IBM WebSphere
IBM Proventia
IBM Rational
IBM QRadar
Hardware
IBM SmartCloud
IBM System x
IBM Power Systems
IBM System Storage
Services
IBM Global Business Services
IBM Global Technology Services
Media & Entertainment Lets Build A Smarter Planet
Alexandra Willis, Editorial Content Manager at the AELTC explains,
The idea behind the new iPad app for 2013 was to make it the next
best thing to being at Wimbledon. For those who couldnt get to the
tournament, we wanted to recreate the beauty and tradition of what
The Championships looks and sounds like, as well as creating an
immersive second-screen experience that would be relevant to someone
watching the live broadcast. With IBMs help, we have been able to
target content to diferent platforms and make it appropriate to the
people who use it.
In 2013, The Championships saw almost two million downloads of
IBM-developed Wimbledon smartphone and iPad apps, all optimized
to deliver the best possible experience, while the mobile variant of
wimbledon.com is designed to deliver the optimal balance between fast
performance and a rich user experience.
Naturally, IBMs involvement goes far beyond the design of mobile
and web content, to encompass the management, security and analytics
around the service provision for this very visible, high-prole channel.
The lesson for other businesses is that mobile is continuing to grow
rapidly in importance, and must be treated as a channel in its own right.
For business-to-consumer organizations, mobile is increasingly the
channel of choice for customer interactions, particular in geographies
(for example, Africa) and demographics (the 14-25 age group) where
it may be the only telecommunication channel available. To ensure
a rich, seamless brand experience, it is vital to understand both the
opportunities and the limitations of the mobile channel. IBM has deep,
proven experience in building reliable, responsive and secure mobile
capabilities that deepen the engagement with customers.
The idea behind the
new iPad app for 2013
was to make it the next
best thing to being at
Wimbledon. For those
who couldnt get to the
tournament, we wanted
to recreate the beauty and
tradition of what The
Championships looks and
sounds like, as well as
creating an immersive
second-screen experience
that would be relevant to
someone watching the live
broadcast. With IBMs
help, we have been able to
target content to diferent
platforms and make it
appropriate to the people
who use it.
Alexandra Willis, Editorial Content Manager,
AELTC
Figure 1: A screenshot of the Wimbledon iPad app
Media & Entertainment Lets Build A Smarter Planet
A very social event
Mobile technology increasingly means social technology many of
the heaviest users of social media tools such as Facebook and Twitter
interact predominantly via smartphones and tablets rather than
conventional computers. For The Championships, the rapid growth of
social media represents an unprecedented opportunity to gauge public
opinion in real time and to engage with the audience in a direct and
interactive way. It also provides an increasing buzz of free publicity
and helps extend the tournaments reach to potential new fans that
would not otherwise be exposed to it.
To help the AELTC understand what is being said, where, and by
whom, IBM technology sifts enormous volumes of social media content
to identify and analyze relevant content. In 2013, IBM analyzed
6.6 million Wimbledon-related tweets, a 100 percent increase on 2012.
At the height of the action during the Mens singles nal, 400 tweets
per second were analyzed to reveal insights into changing patterns
of sentiment among Wimbledons global audience. This data-driven
approach based on semantic analysis enabled IBM to create intuitive
visualizations of the social media landscape, providing dynamic
heatmaps and trend graphs in real time to broadcasters and the wider
public across digital channels. The insights also helped Wimbledons
digital team to tune and tailor their own social channels and content on
wimbledon.com
We want to increase the reach and exposure of The Championships,
taking it to new demographics and geographies. Understanding the
social impact of the tournament as a whole is vitally important, because
it enables us to learn about what fans really think and to start to build
a two-way relationship with them, says Mick Desmond. That in
turn will help us to focus and enhance our digital platforms so as to
strengthen the tournament in the years to come.
The take-home for other businesses is the need to recognize and have
a strategy to address the growing importance of the social channel.
Some 65 percent of people on Twitter use it to learn more about
brands, products and services, and their numbers are swelling rapidly,
with one million new accounts added every day in 2012. Social is a
golden opportunity to engage in a direct yet mutually convenient and
cost-efective way with customers, to understand what they want and
what they think about products and solutions, and to create customer
advocates who can drive new sales.
Scaling up with cloud
All of IBMs innovation across analytics, mobile and social at The
Championships depends on the fast and reliable capture, processing
and dissemination of enormous amounts of data. The combination
of a dynamic, unpredictable sporting event and a huge global
audience across every time zone underlines the need for a reliable,
high-performance data-processing and data-serving infrastructure.
For 50 weeks of the year, the AELTC infrastructure supports a
level of activity tting for a mid-size business. However for the two
weeks of the tournament itself, the same infrastructure must support
With key input from IBM, in 2013
The Championships set records
and broke new ground in a
number of areas:
19.7 million unique users of Wimbledon
digital platforms.
433 million page views serving up a
total of 155 TB of data equivalent
to over 35 years worth of CD-quality
audio recording.
55 percent of views on wimbledon.com
came from mobile devices, up from
40 percent in 2012.
Mobile users represented 20 percent of
the total user base yet drove 55 percent
of page views.
Fans downloaded 1,954,862
IBM-developed Wimbledon apps for
smartphones and tablets.
Content incorporated fan sentiment
analysis for the frst time, strengthening
the emotional connection between the
tournament and its audience.
More detailed and comprehensive
analysis of current and past data
enabled the creation of more interesting
and engaging content.
Copyright IBM Corporation 2013
IBM United Kingdom Limited
PO Box 41
North Harbour
Portsmouth
Hampshire
PO6 3AU
Produced in the United Kingdom
October 2013
IBM, the IBM logo, ibm.com, Lets Build A Smarter Planet,
Smarter Planet, DB2, Global Business Services, Global
Technology Services, InfoSphere, Power Systems, Proventia,
QRadar, Rational, SlamTracker, SPSS, System Storage, System
x, Tivoli and WebSphere are trademarks of International
Business Machines Corp., registered in many jurisdictions
worldwide. Other product and service names might be
trademarks of IBM or other companies. A current list of IBM
trademarks is available on the web at: www.ibm.com/legal/
copytrade.shtml.
This document is current as of the initial date of publication
and may be changed by IBM at any time. Not all oferings are
available in every country in which IBM operates.
The client examples cited are presented for illustrative purposes
only. Actual performance results may vary depending on specic
congurations and operating conditions.
It is the users responsibility to evaluate and verify the operation
of any other products or programs with IBM products and
programs. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT
IS PROVIDED AS IS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT ANY
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND ANY WARRANTY OR
CONDITION OF NON-INFRINGEMENT. IBM products
are warranted according to the terms and conditions of the
agreements under which they are provided.
astronomical levels of interest while delivering score updates globally
within half a second of each point played on court.
This presents a conundrum: how to ensure sufcient capacity to deal
with the peaks without over-spending during the troughs. Equally,
as systems are increasingly opened up to unknown numbers of users
via the web and on mobile devices, how can the organization predict
changing patterns of demand and ensure that the right resources are
available?
IBMs answer is SmartCloud: a fully virtualized, secure and
highly exible set of computing resources that can seamlessly and
automatically rise and fall in line with changing patterns of demand.
Rather than invest in permanent capacity, IBM uses its SmartCloud to
access only the resources it actually needs at any given time.
The IBM SmartCloud infrastructure that runs wimbledon.com requires
just four minutes to dynamically provision new services in response
to emerging demands, and IBM is constantly enhancing its ability to
match resources to peaks in demand. In 2013, this included the analysis
of data from multiple sources including social media sentiment data
to anticipate peaks in demand and pre-provision new computing
resources accordingly.
This intelligent, dynamic infrastructure helps the AELTC grow rapidly
without a corresponding increase in costs. Since 2008, the organization
has seen the number of web users rise by 45 percent, but the cost
per user has fallen by 35 percent. Likewise, page views are up by
42 percent, yet the price per page view is down by 34 percent.
All businesses today face the challenge of achieving more with
restricted IT budgets. Driven in part by the growth of mobile and
social, trends now come and go faster. This means that businesses
need to sharpen their responses accordingly if they are to capitalize
on opportunities and ward of competitive threats from smaller and
more nimble competitors. IBM SmartCloud provides the optimal
combination of rapid response to new business requirements, resilience,
performance, security, exibility and cost-efciency.
For more information
To learn more about how IBM and its customers are building a Smarter
Planet, contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner,
or visit us at ibm.com/smarterplanet
GBC03119-GBEN-01
Please Recycle