For most sports fans, the first full week in April will always be synonymous with one of the most iconic annual sporting events - The Masters. While golf, and perhaps the Masters tournament itself, may be stereotyped as having ‘old-fashioned' traditions at their core, this is definitely not the case in 2024. From a closer look at the Masters and Augusta National in particular, we see a great example of how a progressive attitude to technology adoption has helped maintain and grow the status of the Masters as one of the most iconic events in sport.
Augusta National's innovation journey
While not the first major adoption of technology for The Masters tournament, creation of themasters.org by Augusta National in 1996 remains a major milestone (pardon the pun) in Augusta National's technological and innovation journey. While by today's standards having an accompanying website for any business is a basic necessity, in 1996 this was a sign of Augusta National's attitude to embrace emerging technologies to ensure they could bring the Masters experience closer to the fans. While the design would be seen as extremely primitive to modern sensibilities, the mission of replicating the look and feel of the tournament for the fans with a digital presence was obvious.
As internet adoption increased and web technology became more advanced, Augusta National ensured they stayed ahead of the curve by adding new features to their website, including course cams and live video from selected holes. By the mid-2000s when the internet was ubiquitous, Augusta National and the Masters tournament were perfectly placed to offer the perfect channel for engaging with current fans, and reaching millions of new ones.
Moving to 2009, Augusta National launched the first Masters Smartphone app with live streaming capabilities, later expanding to tablet platforms, and adding even more live coverage and video content for fans. Again, while an app again may seem technological primitive by today's standards, this was significant for the time, with most sporting events or organisations yet to embrace the technology; and another brilliant example of Augusta National's technological and commercial foresight.
Today, the modern Masters application has progressed to include live streaming, fantasy games, live scores and player tracking, as well as a range of personalisation features, such as custom feeds and automated video highlights.
Further, at the heart of all this innovation driving the ever increasing fan engagement Augusta National uses a data platform that utilises state-of-the-art cameras, microphones and laser-tracking technology to capture video, audio and accurate coordinates for every single one of the 20,000 shots played each year.
Understandably, the most recent focus for Augusta National has been on artificial intelligence (AI), with a particular focus on generative AI. Looking back at the 2023, the tournament made use of trained large language models (LLMs) in the language of golf and the Masters terminology to transform the tournament's vast data holdings into spoken word commentary for every single shot, further improving the fan experience of the tournament.
Other AI capabilities for the tournament include hole-by-hole player predictions based on detailed analysis of six years' worth of Masters data, as well as integration with the official fantasy game.
Therefore, we see Augusta National very much understand that you cannot rest on your laurels when it comes to fan engagement, and continue to work on a technological roadmap for new digital features and capabilities for engaging fan bases all over the globe – as well as the migration of Augusta's underlying technological infrastructure to cloud-based platforms.
Augusta National also show a keen understanding of the growth of online gaming over the last decade, and its widespread popularity in 2024. By licensing various rights to video game partners, Augusta National have been able to reach a new audience of fans, increasing engagement with the tournament, and further enhance its iconic status.
What technology to look out for at this year's tournament
Generative AI is once again a large focus for Augusta National in 2024. For the first time ever, the Masters is offering real-time analysis on individual shots with ‘Hole Insights', a new feature for the official mobile app and website.
Hole Insights crunches current and historical data to offer detailed projections and insight for every hole, using natural language processing (NLP) to convert statistics and other observations into easily understandable text. This should make it easier for fans of any golfing knowledge to gain an idea of how the course is playing on any given day, or when compared to previous years.
For example, Hole Insights might say ‘shots historically hit in this location have an 82 per cent chance of resulting in a birdie' after a player's tee shot, or might serve up analysis like ‘the 14th hole has played difficult today, with 25 per cent of shots resulting in bogies'.
The Masters is also expanding its generative AI-powered spoken word audio capabilities to include the Spanish language. This means every single one of the more than 20,000 shots expected to be made at the tournament will have commentary in English and Spanish, as well as subtitles.
Augusta National and the Masters tournament remain a brilliant example of how embracing technology and innovation does not mean stepping away from the traditions and values that set you apart from the rest; and can in fact be used to enhance such traditions and values. It is this progressive attitude from Augusta National that will ensure the first full week in April will always be synonymous with The Masters for sports fans all over the world for many years to come.
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