Jessica Carroll, Managing Director, Information & Digital Technologies, USGA

By Jessica Carroll

A nimble, dynamic infrastructure, with round-the-clock support, and an environment where you can deliver on your customer’s needs faster. This is what the smart CIO wants. The cloud promises all of these advantages (and more), but does it come through on the promise?

At the USGA we’re a case study in action. As a non-profit organization, our focus is not on technology or sales. It is on serving the game of golf and the growing universe of people who play the game or want to learn more about it. The cloud enables us to support this mission by focusing technology on these growth areas, rather than legacy IT utility services.

There’s no better place to see this than on usopen.com, the USGA’s online destination for the U.S. Open, golf’s national championship. With over 6 million visitors, over 83 million pageviews, and 1.3 million video streams across all platforms in one week alone, the infrastructure to serve up a high performing website is a brilliant case for using the elastic cloud. As we consider the hardware, bandwidth and manpower required to support this volume for one week of the year it’s obvious that the investment needed could not possibly make long-term sense for us.

Roll in the cloud. The USGA has partnered with IBM to provide a scalable cloud hosted solution that can flex with our growing digital offerings and our growing online fans. Problem solved.

Beyond usopen.com, we have embraced cloud thinking in many areas, including disaster recovery.

The cloud helped us step up our game regarding business resilience in ways we simply could not have considered previously. Years ago disaster recovery solutions, such as mirrored data centers, were outside of our reach and we settled on traditional tape backup rotations off-site. With today’s dependency on real time access to information we knew we had to rethink our disaster recovery strategy. The cloud made this transition easy. IBM’s SmartCloud afforded us a means to backup up mission critical data nightly off-site, with minimal infrastructure and support on our part.

Often discussion about the cloud lands on loss of control by IT, but that truly misses the big picture. The key is to choose cloud environments and cloud vendors you know you can trust. The customer service and reliability of your vendor is equally as important as the hardware any vendor’s sales team will extol. It’s critical to remember that wherever your systems live, they are still your systems. Wherever your data resides, the responsibility of that data is still yours. While not every application may present the right case for the cloud, at the USGA we have found the right balance by carefully placing the right systems with the right vendors to give us the service we require.

Whether we’re serving up a first-class online experience of the U.S. Open to our fans or we’re providing resilience for our data, the USGA has turned to cloud technology as a way to provide agile solutions to support the business.

Technorati Tags: backup and recovery, Big Data, IBM SmartCloud, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, mobile computing, social business

Patrick G. Childress, Program Manager, Real-Time Events, Global Business Services, IBM

By Patrick G. Childress

One of my favorite parts of summer, much to my wife’s chagrin, is watching golf on Sunday afternoons. Sometimes it’s on in the background while I’m tending the grill, and other times I’m parked on the sofa seeing who can sink that 30-footer to win the tournament. I enjoy watching the pros hit shot after shot that I can’t ever seem to pull off myself.

Working at IBM, I am fortunate to be able to combine my love of golf with my day job of managing and designing new mobile applications as part of the IBM Interactive design team. Over the past 15 years, this team has been developing unique digital experiences for clients. Most recently, we were tasked with designing and building a new iPad app for the United States Golf Association (USGA), to launch in conjunction with the 2013 U.S. Open, the largest golf tournament in the U.S.

Designed with fans in mind, the U.S. Open iPad app is the ideal companion for following the toughest test in golf. One of the features I’m most proud of is “Hole Insights,” which allows fans to watch live, hole-by-hole, golf statistics, as well as understand the impact of those stats to a player’s score. For example, you will be able to see in real-time what percentage of golfers who missed the fairway on Hole 3 went on to card a birdie, par or bogey (or worse!) for that hole. One fun result of this is that as the tournament unfolds, fans will know which shots on the course turn out to be most important to the eventual winner.

For fans who like their live video and sports statistics in equal doses, the app has a video console that integrates streaming video with live data from the course, on one screen. For each day of championship play, the console will present a full leader board (where you can choose up to five favorites to follow), Hole Insights and individual scoring information for each of the featured golfers in the Marquee Group.

The beauty of living in today’s digital world is that sports statistics, data and information is abundant and available in real-time.

I hope you enjoy the new U.S. Open iPad app’s immersive look at the 2013 U.S. Open, and invite you to check it out here.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, mobile computing, smarter mobile computing, smarter sports, USGA

Elizabeth O’Brien, Worldwide Sponsorship Strategy, IBM

By Elizabeth O’Brien

Big Data is a term we hear a lot about in the business world. But these days, thanks to the insatiable hunger for player, team and league stats and analysis, it’s also becoming widely used in the world of sports.

In tennis, for example, Big Data includes tournament, match and player stats, things like serve speeds, rally counts, winners and aces. But more important than what Big Data includes, is how it is used to enhance and, in many ways, transform how we experience and enjoy the sport of tennis.

This week marks the 28^th year of IBM’s partnership with the French Tennis Federation in support of Roland Garros (also known as the French Open).  IBM brings a suite of solutions to Roland Garros, all centered on real time and historic Grand Slam data. We capture, analyze, secure, store and distribute the data—in fact Big Data is the heart of our collaboration with the FFT.

Click here to view the embedded video.

There are many ways we use Big Data to enhance the game of tennis, bringing the action at Roland Garros to fans, coaches, players and media around the world. One example is through SlamTracker, an analytics tool available on rolandgarros.com that has changed the way many fans watch and enjoy tennis.

SlamTracker analyzes 8 years of Grand Slam tennis data (41 million data points per match) to identify the 3 key strategies that will affect the dynamics of a particular match for each player. We call these ‘keys to the match.’ Before matches, fans can go on the website to check out each player’s keys to the match and during the match, watch player’s progress against these keys in real time—point by point.

At this year’s tournament, we focused on helping fans gain a better understanding of how Big Data has affected and impacted coaches, players and media, IBM convened a panel discussion of tennis experts including

• Justing Gimelstob, a former player, Roland Garros mixed doubles winner (with Venus Williams) and current Tennis Channel commentator
• Sebastien Grosjean, a former #4 ATP player and current coach of Richard Gasquet
• Leo Levin a former coach and tennis analyst for whom this is his 107^th Grand Slam

These experts, with their combined 70+ years of tennis playing, coaching, analyzing and commentating, participated in a lively discussion featuring their views of the importance of Big Data in the sport of tennis, how it impacts Roland Garros and insights about players they have both coached and played against.

 The action at Roland Garros runs through June 9, and we’ll be analyzing the Big Data daily. Follow the action and insights via SlamTracker on rolandgarros.com and join the conversation on Twitter (@eryanobrien) and via daily blog posts  at http://asmarterplanet.com/gamechangers.

Technorati Tags: Big Data, Big Data analytics, French Open, French Tennis Federation, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, smarter analytics

Samir Mahir, CIO, Tennis Australia

By Samir Mahir

For two weeks in late January, the eyes of tennis fans, media, players and coaches around the world focused on Melbourne and the first Grand Slam of the season – the Australian Open 2013. In addition to generating a lot of great tennis and good will, the tournament created, analyzed and shared a tremendous amount of data – Big Data.

To give you an idea of the numbers: 684,457 fans attended the tournament live; 14.1 million unique visitors came to the Australian Open website; and the Australian Open Social Leaderboard tracked over 9 million Twitter references for players. In addition, about 60TB of data and video assets were captured and stored by Tennis Australia during the event, which saw 764 sets of tennis played in 127 matches in the men’s draw.

As a CIO, an ongoing and important aim of our technology solutions for the Australian Open is to deepen our fans’ engagement and enjoyment of the event. And increasingly, data is becoming a game-changer for how Grand Slam tennis is viewed and played.

For example, a real-time tool available on the Australian Open website is IBM SlamTracker which analyzes more than 41 million data points from eight years of Grand Slam tournament matches. Among other things, the tool helps fans understand what players need to do to succeed in a particular match, with a feature called, “Keys to the Match.” As a match unfolds, each player’s performance is measured against their keys and updated in real time providing a deeper level of insight – whether it’s returning a high percentage of second serves, or, if net approaches favour one opponent over the other.

For players and coaches, top performances and winning is what matters. For the first time this year, we also provided match and video analysis securely online to the players and coaches after each match. A suite of IBM analytics software crunches the match data and synchronizes it with point by point video of the entire match to deliver a detailed view of what went well and what needs to improve. Previously this analysis was only available on DVDs or USB Keys and over IPTV. Not only do we host the Australian Open event, but we are also in the high-performance business of developing professional tennis players and supporting the next generation of rising stars. Throughout the year we also use match and video analysis to refine and improve our Australian tennis players’ game and performance.

Consistent with the worldwide trend, we have also seen a huge increase in the volume of fan conversation via social media. The two weeks of the Australian Open 2013 generated more than one million tweets with the #ausopen hash-tag alone and Australian Open Facebook page grew to 887,158 likes. But tweets and status updates mean more when they are translated and visualized as trends which are directly relevant to both tennis fans and business leaders alike. Social media insights have an increasingly important role in how Tennis Australia and other organizations make decisions and engage consumers. During the tournament, advanced IBM analytics software and natural language processing was used to gauge positive and negative sentiment shared across hundreds of thousands of social media posts on Twitter, Facebook, news sites, blogs and videos.

On the court, matches are won and lost based on game plans and tactics, as well as quick reactions and decisions during rallies on the court. Players are constantly evaluating and analyzing information from the ball’s velocity and trajectory to their opponent’s body language after each point in an attempt to gain the winning edge to secure victory.

Off the court, it is true to say that data, and more importantly the analysis of this data will continue to transform the way we consume, watch and interact with tennis and other sports. Organizations that embrace and leverage this technology to inform their business decisions and connect with their consumers will gain that same winning edge over their competitors.

For more social stats on the Open check out: Australian Open 2013 Social Media Champions

Technorati Tags: Australian Open Tennis, Big Data, cloud, IBM Smarter Planet, innovation, mobile computing, smarter analytics, social sentiment

Jon Zerden, CTO, Core Performance

By Jon Zerden

It’s the time of year when holiday decorations go up, temperatures drop, and people huddle indoors and gather for feasts of turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, pie and much more.

But when the feasting comes to an end, people begin to think of their New Year’s resolutions. In addition to the occasional over indulgence in holiday comfort foods, people are more wary than ever of the risks associated with a lack of exercise.

According to the Center for Disease Control, the annual estimated medical expense associated with obesity in the United States is $61 billion. Diabetes costs $116 billion, while cardiovascular disease and strokes amount to $313.8 billion in expenditures.

With healthcare costs rising exponentially, companies are looking for ways to make wellness a competitive advantage, and lower costs at the same time. In addition to lowering costs, having a fitness center at your company can help reduce sick days by 13 percent and turnover by as much as 250 percent.

But just building a fitness center isn’t the answer. It’s getting employees to actually use it. As it turns out, “if you build it, they will come” is true, but only when you harness the power of technology to give people the support, tools and experience they need to start – and stick with – a workout program.

Athletes Performance’s heritage as a company is in elite athlete training. We have spent over a decade evolving our approach to National Football League (NFL) Combine training, supporting five of the last six number one overall NFL Draft selections, along with members of theUnited Statesmilitary, Major League Baseball All-Stars, the German National Soccer Team and dozens of Olympians from China in this year’s Games.

What does elite athlete training have to do with the rest of us?

Click here to view the embedded video.

As it turns out, when most of us do cardiovascular training we hop on a bike, treadmill or elliptical machine, and then read a magazine, listen to music or chat with our friends. With this knowledge, we saw a huge market opportunity in creating effective, efficient cardiovascular training that takes the thinking out of exercising while still delivering maximum impact.

However, one question still remained: how could we scale an experience typically reserved for the world’s best athletes and bring it to life for employees at companies like Intel and Walgreens?

We quickly realized that bringing to life our professional athlete’s training program – the Core Performance Energy Systems Development (CPESD) – required smart technology and impactful programming. The solution was to find a way to take years of research and turn that into usable code. By achieving this, we were able to harness the expertise of our coaching staff, use data that was typically relegated to spreadsheets, and create training logic rules to make our vision a reality.

IBM WebSphere ILOG JRules helped us to automate 35,000 rules and launch the Core Performance Prescription Engine. This tool takes data from an individual employee, along with decades of knowledge and experience from our coaches, and uses it to automatically generate a personalized workout based on an individual’s goals, current fitness level and how many times per week they plan to train with us. By integrating the Prescription Engine into both our strength and cardiovascular equipment, we not only saw incredible usage rates and retention, but also huge biometric outcomes.

Participants in a study at Intel saw a 6.08 percent drop in body fat percentage in just 14 weeks, along with a 19.6 percent increase in theirpeak oxygen uptake, a key indicator of cardiovascular fitness. In addition, the average employee lowered their cholesterol by 5.74 percent and improved their functional movement by 23 percent. When you consider that reducing just one health risk factor for one employee can save a company $420 per year, that’s a significant impact on both wellness and savings.

IBM’s software allowed us to take the highest level of prescriptive programming – typically accessible only to elite athletes and teams due to price point and labor inputs required – and bring it to the corporate wellness market. This revolutionized what’s possible in terms of both engagement and results for non-athletes and those that need the extra help to get a fitness regimen going.

In addition to the programming, we also added interactive features, such as allowing employees to complete “Challenges of the Week” or share their workout on Facebook and Twitter.

The results: smarter fitness centers that take the thinking out of working out and make your company a healthier and happier place to work.

Technorati Tags: Core Performance, IBM Smarter Planet, Smarter Healthcare, smarter sports, Smarter Training, Smarter Workout

by Martin Guillaume, Media & Entertainment Leader, IBM Global Business Services, Europe

The era of the connected consumer is forcing many media organizations to rethink not only how they operate but also how they remain relevant. Today’s audiences are exposed to more content across more channels than ever before. The way this content is discovered, shared and consumed is also changing.

Standard forms of TV viewing are no longer the norm as more and more consumers turn to the Internet and catch-up services to access the latest in programming. As a result, delivering differentiated live content such as sports, concerts, reality shows or news across an expanding set of channels and devices is a challenge broadcasters need to tackle quickly and claim their rightful place in this rapidly changing landscape.

As an example, today at the International Broadcasting Conference in Amsterdam, Canal+ announced it is using IBM technology and services to launch and manage new multi-channel and services platform delivering on-demand, web and mobile TV to enhance the customer experience. This demonstrates how broadcasters are seeking to differentiate in a world where they no longer have audiences –  they have consumers.

Broadcasters must continue to innovate and look for news ways to engage this connected consumer and the growing phenomenon of ‘second screen’ is becoming an integral part of this strategy. How many times have you caught up on your Facebook or Twitter feed whilst watching TV? Consumers tweet, comment, play, blog and surf the Internet all the while watching television, therefore, broadcasters need to work even harder to engage viewers.

This challenge is an extraordinary opportunity in disguise and broadcasters can use it to enrich experiences and engage viewers. Television stations are beginning to tap into how audiences are second screens whilst watching TV, and are encouraging consumers to provide feedback and create an online buzz by providing Twitter hashtags at the start of a show.

Broadcasters can also integrate and capitalize on second screen functionality in other ways.

For example, the boundaries between television, Internet and gaming are blurring – simply look at EA’s FIFA 2012 football game, which now offers a replay of any action from any angle. Consumers expect to navigate and experience live sports in the same way with the ability to replay a sequence from the vantage point of any player via a second screen embedded in live programming.

This live television fusion phenomenon for sport does not stop there. The depth of statistics available for football matches and other sports is reaching unprecedented levels. Speed, pace and stamina can be captured, analysed and compared in real time offering viewers new insights. At the recent Wimbledon Championships, fans were able to view an additional layer of insight through SlamTracker on www.wimbledon.com that tracked points, player momentum and progress against each player’s ‘keys to the match’. Revenue opportunities can be realised through price-tiered ‘data’ packages, which enable customers to pay for additional insightful data related to the content they are viewing.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But the real payback for the CMO or broadcaster is that they do not need to guess who is watching, they will know who is actively interacting with them. Knowing it is Kevin Smith, the twenty-something football and cooking and fan rather than Susan Smith, Kevin’s mother who prefers cycling and gardening is invaluable information. From placing better ads to making more intelligent program suggestions, this interaction with the Smith household is changing forever. And we are beginning to see uptake of this strategy – TP Vision recently that it using data stored within IBM SmartCloud to provide new insight about consumer needs and behavior.

Using advanced analytics to better understand these evolving customers allows the CMO to capture and leverage valuable information that allows them to anticipate customers’ changing preferences and turn these insights into new offerings which drive customer loyalty. For broadcasters this information can help improve production, cross-channel distribution, customer service and implement marketing strategies that are in line with customer sentiment.

Technorati Tags: broadcast, IBM, International Broadcasting Conference, Media, TV

By Albert Larcada, ESPN Stats & Information

With the quantity of data and quality of computers rising at an exponential rate, the role of analytics in all industries is growing. Stores are using analytics to increase sales, pharmaceutical companies are using analytics to develop better drugs and human resource groups are using analytics to make smarter hires. The sports industry is no different.

Professional sports organizations across the world are using analytics to make better decisions. Successful front offices like the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder are using new data and analysis to make decisions on which players to draft and acquire. Successful coaches like the NBA Miami Heat’s Eric Spoelstra are using advanced statistical analysis to determine what plays to run and what lineups perform best together. Some coaches, like the Atlanta Falcons’ Mike Smith, are even starting to use analytics to break old traditions when the numbers say it’s a good choice to do so.   And abroad players at major professional soccer clubs like England’s Manchester City are beginning to use data to help themselves improve while on the pitch.

Media companies are beginning to use analytics as well to help tell better stories. Data visualization is a great way to summarize a large number of data points into a picture that a viewer or reader can grasp quickly. In the specific Mariano Rivera case below, plotting thousands of Rivera’s pitches illustrates that he consistently keeps the ball on the inside part of the strike zone vs left-handed hitters, which limits the damage against him.

Analytics also help media put context around big events like the effect of free throw shooting in the NBA Finals or the pros and cons of onside kicking in the NFL. These are things that help fans better understand the intricacies of the games they love.

Another way to add context to events and performances is through ranking systems and win probability tools. Player ranking systems like ESPN’s Total QBR can shed light on some of the previously unknown aspects of quarterback play in the NFL. IBM’s Keys to the Match does the same in tennis, showing fans exactly what their favorite players must do in key categories to win a particular match. Insights like these can help fans know what to look for while watching a sporting event on TV.

Sports analytics used in this way is a bit of a diversion from the traditional sports statistics seen in box scores. While box scores and recaps may give you a decent overall summary of the game, the deeper dive into the underlying data of a sporting event is what yields interesting analysis. Of course this underlying data must exist before it gets analyzed – which is why data providers such as Pitch F/x in baseball, SportVu in basketball, and Opta in soccer are becoming so popular in the sports industry. The constant enhancement of data, as well as the understanding of analysts across all sports, is crucial to help the sports analytics movement continue to move forward.

But as long as there are advantages to be gained for teams and fans who persistently want to know more, this movement does not appear to be slowing down anytime soon.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, ESPN, NBA, sports industry

The end of summer brings one of the most popular global sports events of the year — the US Open.

More than 700,000 fans are expected to attend the matches at the USTA’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in  Queens, making the US Open the most-attended, single sports event in the world. Even more viewers are expected to watch this year’s tournament on TV, topping the 53 million viewers who tuned in last year on CBS and ESPN.

And a record number of fans are expected to follow the US Open matches on their mobile devices, or seek out the latest match results, news or live streaming of tennis matches at www.USOpen.org on their computers at work or at home. We’re expecting to easily top the 15.5 million visitors who caught the action last year via the tournament’s website. These are big numbers all around.

Click here to view the embedded video.

You might not realize, however, that major sporting events like the US Open are not only exciting to watch and follow, but are also a living lab for how “big data” can translate into big business. This year, the USTA is using business analytics to improve the experience for everyone: fans, tennis players, event organizers and broadcasters.

We’re all asking the same questions about the 2012 Open. What does Sam Stouser have to do to repeat last year’s women’s victory, or how can past winners Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova reign again? What can we expect from the men’s side? With Rafa Nadal sidelined by injury, will past US Open winners Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer win the men’s title? Or will Andy Murray break through, fresh from winning his gold medal at the Olympic Games in London. How can each of them outplay the others to bring home the trophy?

Answering those questions while connecting tennis fans to the action on the court requires a unique digital experience powered by analytics and cloud computing technologies. By offering deeper analysis and a better understanding of how players are performing and ensuring that USOpen.org can handle peak traffic when website demand picks up, my company is helping the USTA serve up an engaging and interactive experience.

For example, SlamTracker is an online dashboard that serves up statistics and information for every match being played. Not only can fans follow live scores, point by point, but they can click on a point on the match’s timeline for additional details.

But most importantly, a SlamTracker feature, “Keys to the Match”, provides insight into what each player needs to do in order to have a higher likelihood of winning. We analyzed 39 million data points covering Grand Slam matches over the past seven years to provide analytic assessments of players and what they need to do to succeed.

Based on head-to-head games in the past, the system filters and ranks the top three keys to the match for each player. Examples might be the need for an individual player to return a certain percentage of second serves in order to win or whether longer points favor one opponent over the other. Take a look at the keys before the match, then follow a player’s performance against them as the sets progress. You’ll see in real time that they keys are a great predictor of success.

Use of this technology is not limited to sports. The same analytic software is being used by hospitals to monitor babies in prenatal wards, police forces to prevent crime and financial services companies to improve customer service and cut costs.

Dating back to 1992, when my company became the official information technology provider, the US Open has embraced this type of cutting-edge technology in order to improve tennis fans’ enjoyment of the sport.  And 2012 is bringing even more ways for fans to follow the action.

This year a new free iPad app has been added to the iTunes Store. It joins the existing US Open iPhone app, US Open Android app, and mobile version of www.USOpen.org at m.usopen.org to provide the latest news and scores. Last year, fans viewed a record number of 84 million pages from their mobile devices.

And while sports writers like to predict who they feel are the most likely to win the US Open, we’ll use the IBM Social Sentiment Index to measure what fans are saying and expressing about the tournament on Twitter. Later in the tournament, we’ll reveal unique insights based on our analysis of fan sentiment.

Enjoy the tennis no matter how you choose to follow it, since the experience will be immediate and insightful, thanks to technology.

Technorati Tags: Analytics, IBM, mobile, US Open

By Alan Flack, Client and Programme Executive, IBM UK

There’s no shortage of European sporting events for fans to enjoy these days. The Euro 2012 football championships are going strong in Poland and Ukraine even while fans gear up for the London Olympics. So, how does the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, whose Wimbledon Championships qualifying rounds kicked off this week, get people to pay attention to tennis?

One way the club generates excitement is by enriching the fan’s experience through the use of cutting-edge technology. For several years, IBM, a sponsor of the Wimbledon Championships, has used the event as a showcase for some of our leading-edge solutions–technologies that we believe can make the whole world work better. It’s a way of using a popular sport to bring our Smarter Planet agenda to life.

This year, in collaboration with the All England Club, we’re introducing a new technology to Centre Court. It’s called IBM SecondSight. Using a handful of strategically placed video cameras, we track the movements of players in real time and present to fans a digital on-screen representation of the match, complete with avatars representing the players. Fans can click buttons to see up-to-the-second analysis of the match. Who is moving faster? Who is running more? Is somebody tiring?

It’s the deepest look ever at the purely physical dimension of the game, enriching the fan’s (and coaches and officials) knowledge of the science of tennis.

Here’s a video that shows how the technology works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The idea for IBM SecondSight emerged out of a remarkable happening at the Championships two years ago when American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut played the longest match in professional tennis history. Their 183 games lasted a total of 11 hours and five minutes over a three-day period.

I was sitting in the control room as the points racked up in the tie-breaker session. The designers of the scoring system had not anticipated ever needing to record and display such a high score, so we were in danger of running out of numbers. I was a nervous wreck. But, at last, Isner put the match away with a passing shot and won the tie breaker. The score: 70-68. When he flopped to the ground in a combination of exhaustion and elation, I bet I was as relieved as he was.

That’s when I had the revelation: why don’t we track the players’ movements? After all, we recorded almost everything else about the matches. So we set about developing just such a system in collaboration with a technology partner whose main line of business is tracking missiles. We tested the system last year in a discreet pilot program on Court 18.

For this year’s Championships, IBM SecondSight is moving to Centre Court, but, for now, it will only be available for visitors to Wimbledon. In the future, once we certify the quality of the data, I expect this system and others like it to be available for Web site viewers at all major tennis tournaments worldwide.

For next year’s Wimbledon, we plan on adding the capability to IBM SlamTracker, our cloud-based package of predictive analytics for enabling fans to gain deeper insight into matches. The movement-tracking technology will bolster the Keys to the Match feature, which leverages historical and real-time information to determine the top three things a player must do to win a specific match.

It’s early days, but I can envision powerful uses for the movement-tracking technology in realms far beyond tennis and sports. For instance, it could be used to monitor and analyze movements of people in a shopping mall, a factory or an airport, or traffic on highways. Imagine the valuable insights one could draw from that kind of information.

When IBM hosts clients at Wimbledon, we talk to them about Keys to the Match. We urge them to think about how analytics can help them understand the “three keys” (or four, or five…) in their businesses. And we can talk to them about how technology can boost their performance. It’s a useful exercise, clients tell us. Now, thanks to IBM SecondSight, we can give the concept of business velocity a whole new meaning.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Credit: Leicester Football Club

In professional rugby, one of the essentials for achieving a winning record is reducing the injury rate. That’s why the Leicester Tigers, the most successful professional rugby team in the United Kingdom, recently adopted predictive analytics software aimed at proactively reducing injuries. The goal is to avoid the physical and mental fatigue that sets players up for some of the most common rugby injuries, which include muscle and ligament tears and joint dislocations.

“Our data suggests that if we have a fully fit squad, we’ll rival any team in Europe. If we have a lot of injuries, we’ll have trouble competing with the best,” says Andy Shelton, Head of Sport Science. In spite of having three key players out with injuries right now, the Tigers are in second place in the premier division in the final weeks of the season.

The Tigers’ project is just one of many examples of data analytics helping to transform the way professional sports teams operate. Statistics have long played an important role in sports, but deep analysis of data to spot unexpected patterns became mainstream after Oakland A’s manager Billy Beane built a top-flight baseball team on a shoe-string budget–a story told in the book and movie, Moneyball.

It’s all part of the data analytics revolution. Industries from retailing and healthcare to banking and law are increasingly using analytical tools to gain competitive advantage.

Professional rugby teams have long used analysis of game play to improve their performance and prepare for the upcoming  rivals. For several years, led by Alex Martin, Head of Strength and Conditioning, the Tigers have been gathering detailed data on player’s individual fitness and performance. Now they’re going even deeper–evaluating each player’s vulnerability to injury.

They gather data in two ways. The sports science team records every event involving a player–collisions, leaps, kicks and sprints. In addition, players wear small monitoring devices during games and practice that measure the intensity of their activity and transmit the data wirelessly to a computer system on the sidelines.

Once the team gathers detailed information, it hopes to be able to anticipate when each player is fatigued and, therefore, is more vulnerable to injury. That way, the coaches can take the player out of a game or reduce the intensity of their practice or fitness regimen before they’re injured. They’ll also be able to better manage a player’s recovery from injury–making sure they don’t try to come back too quickly and risk re-injuring themselves. “The end goal is that nobody gets to a state which may predispose them to injury,” says Shelton.

Thanks to funding from The Matt Hampson Foundation, the Tigers are using software from IBM, SPSS Modeler, to perform predictive analytics. The plan is to spend the next year or so fine-tuning the system. They’ll discover each player’s fatigue threshold based on detailed activity and injury records. Ultimately, Shelton says, they’ll be able to measure each player’s freshness during the game and decide in real time whether to leave them in or send in a substitute. “We want to be the leader in analytics,” he says. “It’s simple. If you have your best players on the pitch, combined with the best tactical knowledge, you’ll win more games.”

Technorati Tags: IBM, Leicester Tigers