Wimbledon Hoping Big Data Will Improve Fan Experience (theguardian.com) 30
Wimbledon is turning to big data to help improve fans' tennis knowledge, after discovering even ticket holders at the Championships were not aware of most of the players in the game. From a report: Crowds at this year's tournament -- expected to return to sold-out levels with easing of coronavirus restrictions -- are to be exposed to more facts and figures organisers hope will help get them "closer to the sport." AI-powered stats will seek to better explain the strengths and weaknesses in players' games but also predict upsets and rising stars, with data built in part from trawling newspaper headlines.
Alexandra Willis, the All England Club's director of communications and marketing, said the idea had come about before Covid. "We found that most fans didn't watch tennis the rest of the year," she said. "They also hadn't heard of most of the players [and] this was a specific barrier to engagement." Spectators at Wimbledon fortnight, as well as television viewers and app users, will have access to Win Factor, a tool that will aggregate data from a number of sources to better predict a player's chances of victory in a given match. Fans will be able to input their own match predictions while being encouraged to scour more information on some of the game's lesser-known players.
Alexandra Willis, the All England Club's director of communications and marketing, said the idea had come about before Covid. "We found that most fans didn't watch tennis the rest of the year," she said. "They also hadn't heard of most of the players [and] this was a specific barrier to engagement." Spectators at Wimbledon fortnight, as well as television viewers and app users, will have access to Win Factor, a tool that will aggregate data from a number of sources to better predict a player's chances of victory in a given match. Fans will be able to input their own match predictions while being encouraged to scour more information on some of the game's lesser-known players.
What most boring sports need (Score:1)
Is to have WWE-like personalities.
Imagine how much more entertaining/amusing sports like golf, tennis or chess would be if the players were as flamboyant as the WWE wrestlers.
(Yes, I"m going for humorous here, but let's be honest, aside from a very small group of die-hards, who is excited to watch a golf tournament?)
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More John McEnroe, Jimmy Conners, and Ilie Nastase
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Yep..guys that were presence AND a force on the courts.
Although, it's also hard to forget Bjorn Borg.
He was just quiet....but won and won a LOT.
Conners was just plain fun to watch. He looked like he put everything into every shot he made.
You yourself would actually feel a bit tired watching him as that you'd be tensing up and all like you were hitting the ball with him...really fun stuff to watch.
FYI (Score:2)
McEnroe is planning to visit Bjorn Borg in prison [insider.com] during Wimbledon.
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That link was to a story about Boris Becker, not Bjorn Borg.
It appears Boris had some financial troubles and he got caught hiding assets or something.
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My bad. Only excuse was very tired at end of long day. Should know better. Cheers
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Makes this article quite timely (Score:2)
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nor sports interests me
But yet is strangely very strongly opinionated on which sports are boring and what they should be doing (Let's never mind the fact that that cricket is the 2nd most popular sport on the planet with 2.5b followers)
We get it, you're far too sophisticated to drag yourself into the plebian levels of athletic entertainment. I bet you like to tell everyone you "don't own a TV" either.
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WWE has been a consistent ratings grabber multiple nights a week for almost 4 decades now with multiple generations of fans. I think they have a good grasp on what people find entertaining and i think you'd be hard pressed to say tennis is more popular or has a bigger impact on the culture. (i could be wrong though, but tennis doesn't have 4+ national popular leagues and is on multiple nights a week)
It's very clear the OP's point was not to make tennis "scripted drama" but what the WWE excels at is having
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Well in a lot of countries WWE is actually pretty popular multiple nights a week. Assuming from your usage of the word "footie" you are either British or Australian and they have been broadcast in both countries for decades now with good success. The UK not only gets WWE but AEW as well to also very good ratings. There is little to deny in terms of success in many countries there.
All professional sports are trying to attract bigger crowds and more ratings. Always, that is in fact their business model. S
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Measuring popularity by TV ratings, since you bring those up, some quick searching shows
(source [bbc.co.uk]) vs a claim that AEW (whatever that is) is more popu
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That was actually the point. Boring compared to WWE, yet far and away more popular.
My guess is his point is your claims that one sport is objectively more boring than another, especially when one is far more popular than the other, makes it hard to take the rest of your post seriously. It at least makes it more likely that you haven't put much critical thought into the rest of your post either.
I for one don't like WWE or cricket, but cricket appears far less boring than the WWE to me. It at least represents real competition. But I wouldn't say either is objectively more boring than the ot
Downlevel buzzword (Score:2)
"Big data" was the hip buzzword 5 years ago.
Also, this strikes me as pretty 'small' data anyway.
Sure, big data (Score:2)
Are they going to whore it up like NHL and MLB? (Score:4, Insightful)
Both leagues have gone all in on advertising for the gambling industry. It seems every game has betting odds at the top or bottom. It's whorish.
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Tell me you live in Ontario without telling me you live in Ontario.
They just changed the laws here and gambling advertisements have really taken off. Or so I hear. I don't watch broadcast TV or live sports in the past 10 years.
When a marketing director says "big data" (Score:4, Insightful)
She almost certainly primarily means they'll attempt to track and monetize the fans as much as possible.
relevance (Score:3)
We really want to be relevant, Big Data and AI will save us!
Yeah, right.
Are you kidding? Data ruins the fun in sports. (Score:3)
Baseball turned into a home run derby. It's not on OTA TV anymore. Basketball I was never into, it's not on OTA TV anymore. and Ice hockey isn't on OTA TV anymore and I am cheap.
Plus there are now more commercials than playing time.
If someone gets a papercut we have to yank them from the game - or they aren't in the game because they might get a papercut if they play every day (Baseball) I guess we have big data to thank for that one. In Basketball they may play every game if all goes right, but if it's not a statistical help to get to the playoffs we don't have to try hard every game.
-that moment you realize you sound like an old grumpy man - oh well.
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What happened to sports?
"Analytics"
Moneyball
Nerds
Better to Watch on TV (Score:3)
Just admit that watching almost any sport on TV is a better experience than watching in person, what with multiple cameras, close-ups, player info, and analysis.
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