As the Official Technology Partner of The
Championships for the past 33-years, IBM continues to accelerate
innovation at Wimbledon and improve the digital fan
experience
LONDON, June 21,
2022 /CNW/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and the All England
Lawn Tennis Club today unveil new ways for Wimbledon fans around
the world to experience The Championships digitally, powered by
artificial intelligence (AI) running on IBM Cloud and hybrid cloud
technologies. Co-created by the All England Club and IBM for
Wimbledon.com and the Wimbledon app, the new features join a
comprehensive suite of digital fan experiences - including the
award-winning1 IBM Power Index with Watson,
IBM Match Insights with Watson and Personalised
Recommendations and Highlights Reels – all designed to
help global audiences stay more informed and engaged with players,
matches and the tournament.
New features for 2022 include:
- 'Win Factors' brings enhanced explainability
to 'Match Insights': Building on the existing Match Insights
feature of the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, IBM is providing an
additional level of explainability into what factors are being
analysed by the AI system to determine match insights and
predictions. Win Factors will provide fans with an increased
understanding of the elements affecting player performance, such as
the IBM Power Index, court surface, ATP/WTA rankings, head-to-head,
ratio of games won, net of sets won, recent performance, yearly
success, and media punditry.
- 'Have Your Say' with a new interactive fan
predictions feature: For the first time, users can register
their own predictions for match outcomes on the Wimbledon app and
Wimbledon.com, through the Have Your Say feature. They can
then compare their prediction with the aggregated predictions of
other fans and the AI-powered Likelihood to Win predictions
generated by IBM.
The Wimbledon digital features are
underpinned by IBM Watson and leverage a hybrid cloud approach –
using a combination of on-premises systems, private clouds, and IBM
Cloud - enabling increased flexibility and efficiency. IBM Cloud
provides the foundation and scalability for these digital
experiences. It hosts and processes data from matches that is fed
into AI models built using IBM Watson
Studio and IBM Watson Discovery to produce
insights for fans, commentators and media.
Alexandra Willis,
Communications & Marketing Director, The All England Club,
said: "Leveraging technology to help fans become more informed,
engaged and involved throughout the Wimbledon Fortnight is at the
core of our strategy to ensure we are leveraging innovation to keep
Wimbledon relevant and deliver outstanding digital experiences for
fans, wherever they may be. In partnership with IBM, we are
thrilled to bring an even more dynamic and interactive digital
experience to fans around the world this year as Wimbledon returns
to full capacity. Core to these experiences is our ambition to help
fans get closer to Wimbledon by understanding which players to
follow and analyse, and inviting them to get involved with new
match predictions and insights features, alongside our extensive
scoring, news and video content across our channels."
Kevin Farrar, Sports
Partnership Leader, IBM UK & Ireland, said: "The digital fan features
on the Wimbledon app and Wimbledon.com, beautifully designed by the
IBM iX team and powered by AI and hybrid cloud technologies, are
enabling the All England Club to immerse tennis lovers in the magic
of The Championship, no matter where they are in the world. Sports
fans love to debate and we're excited to introduce a new tool this
year to enable that by allowing people to register their own match
predictions and compare them with predictions generated by Match
Insights with Watson and those of other fans'."
As the Official Technology Partner of The Championships for the
past 33-years, IBM has developed solutions to modernise and
streamline workloads, and delivered innovative digital experiences
to engage sports fans around the world through IBM iX, the
experience design arm of IBM Consulting. Leveraging the same
technologies IBM uses with businesses across industries and around
the world, Wimbledon continues to accelerate innovation and improve
the digital fan experience. The full suite of IBM-powered digital
experiences on Wimbledon.com and the Wimbledon App includes:
- IBM Power Index with IBM Watson
-
- An AI-powered analysis of player performance to help fans
know who to follow beyond the most well-known, highly ranked
players.
- Uses IBM Watson Discovery and IBM Cloud
to analyse performance data, mine media commentary,
and measure player momentum.
- Produces insights for fans including Ones to
Watch and a Likelihood to Win
probability.
- IBM Match Insights with IBM Watson
-
- Uses AI to generate a player factsheet for
main draw singles matches, surfacing player insights, presenting
the IBM Power Index and winner predictions.
- Features an 'In the Media' section that leverages
IBM Watson Discovery to extract key insights about players
from trusted news sources.
- Includes a 'By the Numbers' section that uses open-source
AI to translate historical match statistics into player
insights.
- New this year - users can register their own predictions
for match outcomes on the Wimbledon app and
Wimbledon.com, through the Have Your
Say feature.
- Personalised Recommendations and Highlights Reels
-
- Once a fan has decided who to follow via the IBM Power
Index, they can stay updated through a series of
personalised recommendations and highlights
reels.
- This enables fans to discover new players by making
suggestions based on their current favourited players,
the IBM Power Rankings, top players, country, and age.
- Includes links to other features such as the IBM Power
Index Leaderboard and Match Insights with Watson. If
you are registered with myWimbledon, you will
receive personalised highlights based on the players
you are following.
The Championships, Wimbledon will run from June 27 – July 10,
2022. To see the technology in action, visit Wimbledon.com
or download the Wimbledon app on your mobile device, available on
the App Store and Google Play Store.
IBM Contacts:
Gregor Hastings
Gregor.hastings@ibm.com
1 The All England Club and IBM were awarded 'Best Fan
Engagement by a Brand' at the 2022 Sports Technology Awards
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SOURCE IBM