While technology is being widely used globally across major sporting and entertainment properties, so too is the tech companies expenditure on sponsorship. This is great news for anyone utilising sponsorship as a marketing channel because it brings with it more branding and engagement opportunities for everyone.
If we look at the technology at Wimbledon as well as the Australian, French and US Opens, tennis fans now have new ways to experience live tennis. Real time insights into each player's key performance give fans exactly what they need to know for their favourite player to win the game. At the Aussie Open IBM's Slam Tracker lets fans know exactly where a tennis player needs to hit a ball and accesses nearly a decade's worth of Grand Slam data that includes serve speed, rally duration and ball movement.
Companies such as IBM, SAP, Hewlett-Packard Co and Cisco are partnering with major sporting and entertainment bodies to bring fans new ways of experiencing live events with access to statistics, data visualisation and predictive technology. It works for everyone.
Fans become more engaged than ever with their favourite team; the event-holder is winning because the technology is propelling the sport onto a new playing field that grows their fan base and sponsors win because they have a platform that better reaches their target market.
Ultimately technology is helping event-holders optimise operations, improve performance and enhance relationships with fans and sponsors because of the immersive experiences they now offer Who can't be happy with that?
It's not hard to notice the power of sponsorship and what it can do for your brand.
