Wimbledon, World Cup and more: How sports technology can benefit businesses

Technology used in high profile events such as the Commonwealth Games and the World Cup is having a big impact on business

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With the World Cup and Wimbledon drawing to a close and the Commonwealth Games beginning, it's no wonder sport is on our minds.

Technology is playing a massive part in sport, whether it's the infrastructure behind running the multi-venue Commonwealth Games, radar guns measuring the speed and accuracy of a serve at Wimbledon, RFID trackers to follow London Marathon runners round the route or camera tech to watch the goal line in the World Cup.

It is a logistics challenge which requires significant coordination and organisation to get the right everything to happen in the right sequence across all of the venues.

Much of this innovation can be applied to the business world and that's why, even if you're not a sports fan, you should be sitting up and taking notice.

Technology infrastructure

Glasgow's Commonwealth Games is the biggest sports event in the UK this year. It will include 17 sports, host 4,500 athletes, welcome 1,000,000 spectators from around the world and be watched by a global audience of 1.5 billion across TV and the internet.

A number of partners are involved to bring it all together. Atos will provide a Games Information System that will instantly monitor and then relay results, athlete information, competition schedules, medal tables and sports records to media, sports officials and the Glasgow 2014 website.

The company was also responsible building the Commonwealth Games' website and the bespoke online portal that handled more than 50,000 applications for the volunteer roles at the Games.

As the Official IT Hardware and Data Centre Supporter for the Commonwealth Games, Dell has delivered more than 1,500 desktops and 200 laptops, approximately 60 servers and storage solutions across 40 competition and non-competition venues.

Clare Hopping
Clare Hopping
Freelance writer

Clare is the founder of Blue Cactus Digital, a digital marketing company that helps ethical and sustainability-focused businesses grow their customer base.

Prior to becoming a marketer, Clare was a journalist, working at a range of mobile device-focused outlets including Know Your Mobile before moving into freelance life.

As a freelance writer, she drew on her expertise in mobility to write features and guides for ITPro, as well as regularly writing news stories on a wide range of topics.

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