Tata Communications, European Tour to leverage IoT and VR in Golf

Tata Telecommunications and Professional Golfers Association (PGA) European Tour are launching a competition for startups to spur technological innovations in golf.

The competition, European Tour Innovation hub with the Tata Communications, is aimed at finding ideas that can be developed with support from the golfing association business development team and venture capital firms, the announcement notes.

Tata Communications offers digital infrastructure services such as mobility, network, and security solutions to more than 7000 customers from 200 countries.

The company has also partnered with some other sports association such as motor racing giant Formula 1 and bike racing association Moto GP to offer technological and allied support services.

Executive Opinion

Chief Technology Officer, European Tour, Michael Cole, said “Ubiquitous connectivity opens up immense opportunities in golf. We are looking for an innovative concept that can utilize new technologies and make a real difference to the fan experience, both on site at events and for those following digitally.”

Global Head of Marketing, Tata Communications, Mehul Kapadia, said, “We’ve seen many sports adopt different digital platforms, but few have been able to maximise their business potential – and that’s what this competition is all about. We’re looking for ideas for solutions that would be truly transformative for golf, not just technologically, but also commercially or operationally, so making a real difference to the bottom line. The winning idea will be one that benefits not just the fans and the European Tour, but the sport’s entire ecosystem. For the winning start-up, the global exposure and more importantly the potential to scale to all European Tour tournaments can be invaluable as well.”

Tata Telecommunications and PGA European Tour 

Tata Communications has been the official global connectivity supplier of the European Tour. The Telecom company brings videos feeds from the 46 European Tour Tournaments from 31 countries. It offers the feed to 43 broadcasters.

Professional Golfers Association (PGA), European Tours operates the leading men’s professional golfing tournaments across the continent.

The Competition organizers are looking for the solutions that use technologies such as Virtual Reality and Internet of Things to make the game of golf more interactive, heighten fan engagement and even improve viewers the experience of golfing tournaments broadcasts.

A solution leveraging IoT or 360-degree camera would allow the fans at golf courses to follow players progress from across the course while also simultaneously enabling them to take part in promotional events, the announcement notes.

Previously, Cisco and Tata Communications partnered to offer a cloud-based Cisco WebEx Contact Center solution to the enterprises.
Tata Communications also joined the Hedera governing council which governs the usage of enterprise-ready distributed ledger platform Hedera Hashgraph.