O'Brien said IBM models its relationship with sponsorship and commercial partners in the same wayTONY FLOREZ
When IBM Program Dir of Sports & Entertainment Partnerships Elizabeth O’Brien joined the company's sponsorship group back in '10, it was big deal if a partner had a mobile app. Today, she said, “It’s all about AI for us. The evolution of the technology has just accelerated. Even month to month, I’m seeing massive changes in the technology we’re talking about deploying.” During a featured interview on Day 1 of the ’18 Intersport Brand Engagement and Content Summit, she said IBM models its relationship with sponsorship partners and commercial partners in the same way. “Everyone has a business challenge or a business problem to solve,” she said. “And we have tools to help them solve that. So the difference between a commercial deal and a sponsorship is just how the exchange of value works. Our goal with the U.S. Open is to help them achieve their engagement goals, their traffic goals and their financial goals, and to use technology to do that. And that is sort of across the board with all of our partners.”
HIGHLIGHTS BY WATSON: O’Brien walked the conference crowd through the development of the “cognitive highlight,” which is a package of sports highlights created by artificial intelligence. “Two years ago there was no such thing as an AI highlight,” she said. “What we started doing was taking Watson, our flavor of AI, and saying, you know, Watson can see, Watson can hear, and Watson can read. So we started at the Master’s, behind the scenes, saying let’s look for gestures, let’s watch the leaderboard to see where the exciting things are happening, and let’s listen to the words that the commentators are saying and the tone of their voice. Let’s score each shot by every player according to the excitement level, and based off those scores, we can say, here are the highlights from the afternoon. And so this has great implications for the property, to be able to publish highlights very quickly, and it has great implications down the road for broadcasters. If you’re in the broadcast truck and you’re saying, 'Gosh, I’ve got to put out a highlights package,' you have thousands of potential highlights. This isn’t to say it’s doing your job, but wouldn’t you rather choose from 30 highlights than 2,000 highlights?”
