FEATURE : DP WORLD TOUR CHAMPIONSHIP
Michael Cole , Chief Technology Officer , DP World Tour
Generating technological intelligence is at the heart of our strategy – Michael Cole
How do you sync technology investment with growth of the tournament ?
Golf is a technically complicated sport , and it is not surprising that technology for golf is therefore complicated too . Its role is to enhance the field of play for players , create compelling content to engage our fans , and also to help simplify our business through greater automation and integration in the way we work . Generating technological intelligence is at the heart of our strategy .
The business processes to support these incredible operations and complexities are immense .
I think it is fair to say that golf was widely seen by some as a technology laggard in the industry . However , in the past few years , the European Tour group has stepped up and accelerated this digital transformation and we are now widely seen as a leading advocate on the adoption of technology , not only in golf , but in sport too .
Please describe the challenges in meeting expectations and the strategic vision ?
Golf needs to change from being just about sport for loyal fan experiences to becoming a true spectator experience for new audiences , and particularly in the Middle East . Golf needs to develop with different formats , targeting different audiences , and technology is a key enabler in achieving that .
As such , we at the DP World Tour are focused on changing the conversation in golf , reflecting that we are an entertainment company , and golf simply provides the product and the platform .
Golf is certainly at an inflection point and must weigh up the value of reach versus quality of engagement . Just trying to maximise reach is not a viable long-term strategy . Attracting younger audiences can be a challenge due to the constraints of traditional formats in terms of the time and duration of events .
So , we invest heavily in fun and engaging short form social media content , and we have pioneered the experimentation of shorter tournament formats .
Is technology or business leading the current positioning of the tournament ?
Technology and the business of sport are new bed-fellows , with technology driving fan engagement and new consumer-based sources of income , helping to fuel continued media interest and broadcast rights , whilst also providing technological innovation opportunities for technology partnerships .
Ultimately , our strategy is three-fold , and it is a vision that can apply to any sport . It is to roll-out a converged and extended infrastructure , to ensure a truly connected course , with a layer of insight to create the intelligent course , because through technology we can change the conversation in golf .
Then finally , to industrialise the solution to ensure it can be deployable across our full schedule of tournaments , which can only be achieved by delivering more cloud-based services , what I call TAAS – delivering Tournaments-as-a-Service across the Middle East and all our events globally .
HPE Aruba ClearPass provides a policy management platform , enabling the on-boarding of devices onto the network , application of security policies and ensuring devices are compliant . Fortinet provides a security wrap , with a robust integration of Fortinet security fabric devices , including cloud-based Fortinet Firewall gateways , FortiClient VPNs and a range of Fortinet management tools .
Over the course of the competition , we had 10,000 unique clients connected to the infrastructure , generating a total throughput of nearly 14TB of data . This is an equivalence of 15.5 years connection time across all devices , and one of the largest BYOD deployments for a sporting event in Dubai .
Social media made up the majority of accessed applications . However , based on mobile-first philosophy , access was also recorded for our Referee App , for pace of play , Marshall App , for your volunteer , Player Portal and the evolutionary spectator App with continuous new features being released . p
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