Digital Technology is Driving Tennis Experience Beyond the 'Golden Era' - Seite 2

The age of experiences

The report found that like all consumer products, tennis is no longer a discrete activity, it's an experience — consisting of dispersed, shareable micro-moments both on and off the court.

Recent research by Tennis Australia found the 'fun' aspect of the Australian Open atmosphere as the second-most important factor for attendance for people under 50. "At the Australian Open we are crystal clear what has led to us trebling our business in 5 years. Taking a Grand Slam tennis tournament and adding to it has expanded our audience into new segments and geographies. But you have to commit. We take our 'families' business, our music festival and our food vertical as seriously as we do our tennis. If you don't, it doesn't succeed," said Richard Heaselgrave, Chief Revenue and Experiential Officer.

Technology driving growth of Tennis

While tennis in recent years has seen multiple formats and innovations trialed at different levels of the sport, fans across all age groups, including GenZ (84 percent) and millennials (85 percent), said match length is not a primary barrier to engagement with the sport. The report identified opportunities to introduce new fans to the sport globally with analytics-based and virtual and augmented reality technologies.

Analytics-based experiences improve enjoyment for 83 percent of fans surveyed according to the Tennis Radar research. For example, fans at the Australian Open can play against the greatest tennis players in the world using VR and AR technology — in a simulated Rod Laver arena, the Australian Open's centre court. More than 125,000 fans have engaged with Infosys VR at the Australian Open, Roland-Garros, and Nitto ATP Finals and other ATP events. Similarly, Roland-Garros plans to involve pros from the Esports area within the Roland-Garros eSeries, to tighten the link between real-world and virtual-world tennis fans.

Experience Index

To understand how data and analytics impact fan enjoyment of the game, the Infosys Knowledge Institute created the Analytics Experience Index, synthesizing fan response to multidimensional questions about match technologies, player statistics and game data.

The Index found that analytics improves fan enjoyment, particularly among younger and more tech savvy audiences. Over a third (38 percent) of 18-22 year olds were identified as the highest category of tennis technology and analytics 'Enthusiasts', compared to just 13 percent of those 55 and older.