When watching your favourite sport on TV or at the stadium, it’s not uncommon to see signage from technology vendors. Today though, sponsorships are going beyond the signage, as IT vendors use their tech to improve the game and the fan experience.

1. IT sports sponsorship
goes beyond the signage
When watching your favourite
sport on TV or at the stadium,
it’s not uncommon to see
signage from technology
vendors.
Today though, sponsorships
are going beyond the signage,
as IT vendors use their tech to
improve the game and the fan
experience.
Image courtesy of Carlos Porto / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
By Jeff Jedras

2. HP and Renault F1
As part of Hewlett Packard
Co.’s sponsorship of the
Renault F1 racing team in
2010 and 2011, HP supplied
the team with its latest
workstation computers and
worked to tweak them to their
needs, from car design and simulation at the office to real-
time performance monitoring at the track. Team officials
say faster processing of data and results can give the team
an real edge on the track on race day.

3. IBM and The Masters
IBM Corp.’s sponsorship of the
2012 Masters Golf
Tournament included an
interactive web site with live
video and audio, up-to-date
leader boards, and analytical
integration on desktops,
mobile phones, tablets and apps. But this year the
spotlight was on new IBM CEO Virginia Rometty. As a title
sponsor, past IBM CEOs have been made members of the
Augusta National Golf Club. But the club doesn’t admit
female members, so Rometty’s ascension to IBM’s top job
put this policy in the national spotlight.

4. Cisco Systems and London 2012
After Nortel Networks dropped-
out, Cisco Systems Inc. stepped-
up as official network
infrastructure supporter of the
Olympic Games in London. It
supplied a network that
transmitted 40 GB of data every
second. It included 30,000 connections across 94 locations,
2,200 switches and 1,800 wireless access points. One thing
they couldn’t account for? Twitter. During a bicycle race,
tweeting spectators overloaded the network transmitting
GPS updates to the broadcaster. The official timing system
was never compromised though, so it wasn’t a #fail.

5. RIM and the NHL
As a Canadian company, it’s not
surprising to see Research in
Motion turn to hockey. RIM was
a title sponsor of the 2012 NHL
All Star Game in Ottawa, and
also provided BlackBerry
Playbooks to select players as
part of a promotional campaign with the NHLPA. Players
such as Maple Leaf Joffrey Lupul used PlayBooks to record
and edit videos of their off-ice adventures, from train rides
and family life to trips to the tattoo parlour. Don’t blame the
sometimes shaky video on the PlayBooks, though. The
players are used to being on skates.

6. IBM and the US Open
As a sponsor of the 2012 US
Open, IBM Corp. brought
predictive analytics, cloud
computing and mobile
technology to fans watching the
prestigious tennis tournament.
The IBM Social Sentiment Index analyzed buzz around the
tournament, and every volley and serve on the court was
captured for fans to analyze in the SlamTracker tool, a real-
time stats and analytics visualization platform. A new iPad
app also fed real-time facts and statistics to tennis fans, as
well as streaming video coverage.