Serving up data-driven experiences at the Australian Open
19 February 2019, 01:00 PM
2019 was a record year for Tennis Australia and the Australian Open.
The Grand Slam tennis tournament welcomed an unprecedented 796,435 visitors to Melbourne Park across two weeks of action, which was over 50,000 more than 12 months previously.
Alongside this, the cumulative reach of the TV audience for Nine’s Summer of Tennis in Australia was an impressive 14.482 million. The overseas broadcast took that to the next level, reaching more than 900 million homes.
It’s fair to say that pleasing fans of the Australian Open goes far beyond just those visiting Melbourne Park.
Delivering a superior fan experience at the Australian Open is a monumental task. And one which Tennis Australia – the organisers of the year’s first Grand Slam tennis tournament – consistently accomplish year after year.
The recent record-breaking achievements aren’t a surprise with the planning and analysis of such data. The team focused its attention on analysing data captured at and around 2018’s tournament – which includes 30.4 terabytes of internet traffic – to optimise the fan experience and make the 2019 Australian Open the biggest and best yet.
“One of our biggest focuses this year was to create new experiences across all our sites to drive a wider audience,” said Primoz Trcek, CIO, Tennis Australia. “This ladders up to one of the key organisational priorities of Tennis Australia, which is to harness the power of data and innovation to increase tennis participation in the country.”
Making the AO bigger and better
To develop the fan strategy for this year’s Grand Slam, Tennis Australia brought together multiple data sources to make smarter decisions designed to have maximum impact.
“We’ve supplemented basic ticketing data with spot surveys conducted during last year’s tournament, post-event surveys, and behavioural analytics enabled by visitors who connected to the onsite AO Wi-Fi network, which is powered by Optus,” explained Trcek.
From these insights Tennis Australia has been able to review crowd flow across Melbourne Park during the tournament, identify the on-site attractions visitors most engaged with, and pinpoint the best performing social channels and content. The result is a fan strategy specifically designed to entertain a large audience, and a venue that is adequately resourced and laid out to meet demand.
The positive impact of this data-driven approach to optimising the fan experience is best seen in the family entertainment program at the 2019 Australian Open.
“When reviewing last year’s data we noticed a gap in the number of families engaging with the activities targeted at them. This trend was largely down to the space afforded for the installations,” explained Richard Heaselgrave, Chief Revenue Officer, Tennis Australia.
“In response we made the space – known as the AO Ballpark – three times bigger in 2019, and moved it to a brand-new location. It included a host of new features aimed at making the 2019 Australian Open the most family-friendly event ever,” said Heaselgrave.
Using data captured by Optus partner Skyfii, Tennis Australia also recognised visitors were more likely to return to installations where content and experiences changed during the day, such as live performers and videos. These insights have helped organisers tailor schedules to increase footfall to specific areas, boost overall attendance numbers, and better manage traffic across the precinct.
Giving fans what they want
Tennis Australia is supplementing its own data with new and emerging consumer trends to increase the appeal of this year’s tournament.
Engagement through social media channels is an area of specific success, with ongoing year on year increases of online following across the Australian Open platforms. This growing engagement provides Tennis Australia with a growing volume of insights into who its fans are and what type of content and experiences they value most. This is helping organisers drive meaningful experiences with visitors to Melbourne Park and bring those following via TV and online closer to the action.
Social content is also being tailored for specific channels based on the types of posts that performed best last year, such as videos of highlight moments, and to communicate general tournament and program updates.
The 2019 Australian Open is also capitalising on the rise of e-sports and online gaming, with the Grand Slam hosting the largest gaming event in Australian history. It’s testament to Tennis Australia’s commitment to delivering a fantastic all-round experience that goes beyond tennis.
Building a data driven Grand Slam
The data-driven model being used to design the fan experience at this year’s Australian Open is guided by four principles: security, analysis, collaboration, and scalability.
“Data security is critical to Tennis Australia and the starting point for every new process, policy, or system. We are vigilant around the clock, with a dedicated team responsible for implementing the security framework,” said Trcek.
When it comes to analysing data, Trcek looks to correlate quantitative and qualitative data to influence and support the decisions being made.
“Cross-analysing data, such as on-site data from Skyfii and results from our post-event survey, justifies the changes being made. It’s an added level of reasoning helping us make intelligent decisions with a big positive impact,” said Trcek.
Tennis Australia is committed to sharing insights across the organisation to deliver the best event possible. The increased collaboration between departments has facilitated a learning-based culture, with teams constantly looking at how they can add to the services being delivered.
The simplicity of the data analysis tools being used at Tennis Australia has helped accelerate adoption and enabled faster and smarter decisions.
“Data literacy is an important aspect of making data-driven decisions, such as knowing what trends to look out for and what insights are most valuable. Our framework is designed to be cost-effective, easy to use and scalable so that as many people as possible can use it to optimise the experiences they deliver,” continued Trcek.
Having set new records last year, Tennis Australia is well placed to raise the bar again in 2020.
“It’s a priority for us to make the Australian Open a fantastic all-round experience. Every year we grow the activities and experiences on offer to ensure everyone has the best time possible,” said Trcek.
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