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 /PRNewswire/ -- 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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