Tech firms vie for aces on Wimbledon's center court

Bernhard Warner

LONDON: Some troubled technology and media companies are using the Wimbledon
tennis championships to see if services like texting results and webcasts of
matches can bring the revenue they desperately lack.

A Wimbledon victory off-court, the companies say, will offer a vital glimpse
about the future of their high-tech gambits. "Wimbledon is an opportunity
we saw whereby we could create a premium version of content on the Internet for
those tennis fans who really care," said Larry Jacobson, president and
chief operating officer for Seattle-based Real Networks.

Real Networks earlier this week launched SuperPass, its first subscription
Internet media player for European consumers, using Wimbledon match highlights
as a draw to attract paying subscribers.

Geek-speak courtside

The Wimbledon championship has become a showcase for new broadcast
technologies over the past five years but the biggest contingent of tech and
media firms yet will be part of this year's action.

They include Wimbledon's IT sponsor International Business Machines, AOL Time
Warner's eponymous Internet unit and its Turner Sports broadcasting group, Real
Networks, and privately held US sports rights management group IMG and its
interactive unit TWIi Interactive.

In the weeks before Monday's opening-day matches, engineers and technical
staff have spent countless hours wiring the courts, ready to broadcast every
ace, backhand volley and fault to nearly any gadget with a screen: interactive
television, the Internet, mobile phones and other personal digital assistants.

And their presence around the grounds stood out. There was more geek-speak
than talk about the chances of Tim Henman, Britain's best player, or the
Williams sisters.

Bandwidth considerations, SMS and WAP text alerts to mobile phones,
video-on-demand for digital TV watchers, all dominate the conversation.

Geeky iconoclasts

The embrace of technology runs at odds with the purist image of Wimbledon.
Tracing its history back to the mid-19th century, it eschews the over-the-top
marketing glitz that pervades big-time sports events. It is not nearly the
commercial powerhouse of its American cousin, the US Open.

"Wimbledon is perceived to be a very traditional brand," said
Patrick McNerney, international vice president, commercial and operations
manager for TWIi Interactive. "It's interesting to see what they've done
over the past four or five years, particularly with their syndication of data.
They are at the forefront of rights management."

Because of the global appeal of Wimbledon, the club feels as if it owes its
fans as much access to the event as possible. "The club has always embraced
new technology where it is of real benefit. Our aim is to enhance the quality of
the Wimbledon experience for those who cannot attend," the club's
information technology director told Reuters via email.

To that end, live match scoring will be broadcast to www.Wimbledon.org,
courtesy of IBM. And Real Networks will patch into Wimbledon.org feeds to
broadcast a daily highlights reel, plus player interviews and news conferences.

Last year, the Website attracted 3.2 million users, more than double that of
the French Open site. For IBM, maintaining the site, now in its seventh year,
has become one of Big Blue's biggest technology challenges and a big IT
investment.

"Whatever traffic you plan on, it still breaks your expectations,"
said Mark McMurrugh, project director of IBM at Wimbledon. "We have to put
the infrastructure in place to support those broken expectations."

Outside London

In the US, Turner Sports, an American broadcaster of the event through its
cable channel TNT, is teaming with Cablevision Systems Corp., and pay-per-view
cable television outfits iN DEMAND and TVN to offer video-on-demand broadcasts
of classic Wimbledon matches like the 1981 John McEnroe-Bjorn Borg final.

AOL members will be able to sign up on the AOL service to get match updates
beamed to their mobile phones. Testing the latest technologies on tennis fans is
a logical fit. The typical tennis fan is considered to be among the most
tech-savvy among sports fans, and the fan base is nearly 50-50 male to female,
tennis enthusiasts say.

If technology and media firms are ever going to learn whether there is strong
demand for their new technology gambits, then Wimbledon is the venue. "The
biggest thing with all this new technology is that if it comes out too soon, you
can fall flat on your face," said McMurragh. "We're not about to do
that."

(C)Reuters Limited.