By David Rumsey
Feb. 2
Today, Sportradar is giving its sportsbook clients a new tool to optimize performance with artificial intelligence.
Also:
Sportradar will now offer sportsbook operators access to its managed trading tools, such as odds models driven by artificial intelligence, for use on their own platforms through a newly launched Insight Tech Services product, according to SBJ’s Bill King.
The tools, previously offered as an outsourced managed trading package, can be integrated into any platform already accessing Sportradar’s widely-used data feed, the company said. Along with recommended odds that sportsbooks can easily adjust, the tools include automated acceptance, rejection or delay of bets and the creation of marketing offers tailored to individual bettors.
Engineers at Wilson’s W Labs innovation and development platform have spent upwards of four years researching and crowdsourcing what a bending profile can do to a carbon fiber tennis racket, and the result is a racket called SHIFT that may take ball speeds and spin rates to unprecedented levels, my colleague Tom Friend writes.
The Wilson SHIFT is being released to the public on a limited basis tomorrow, with the hope that the greater tennis community will lay down the other high-achieving Wilson rackets, the Blade and the Clash, and trial a product that has worn out the TrackMan machine in the company’s innovation studio.
The company doesn’t suspect top players like Australian Open semifinalists Stefanos Tsitsipas and Karen Khachanov to immediately switch to a SHIFT. Instead, Wilson’s target audience appears to be the younger elite players who aren’t beholden to a single racket.
W Labs distributed the racket to its player ambassadors, top juniors and others. They adhered a QR code to the frame, which allowed players to trial the racket, aim their smartphones at the code and deliver instant feedback. The QR codes will also stay stamped on all models for the general public indefinitely, as W Labs continues to explore new possibilities.
Chargers running back Austin Ekeler is capitalizing on the success he has found connecting with fans through streaming video games on Twitch with the formal launch of his new engagement platform that gives users special access to athletes, influencers and content creators.
Eksperience, playing off the running back’s name, is as an evolution of Gridiron Gaming Group (GGG), the collective Ekeler and his agency, Dynamic Sports Group, put together to give retired football and esports players a platform to stream video games. GGG is effectively sunset with the creation of Eksperience, which has been in a soft-launch phase for the last month.
“I really got burnt out,” Ekeler says of the time commitment necessary to build a brand as a streamer. “I was like, ‘There’s got to be a better way where you can still monetize, engage with community but be able to more so turn it off, turn it on and have it more catered toward what you wanted to do as a person with a community.’”
Read more about Ekeler’s new platform, and the technology behind it, in this week’s SBJ Tech newsletter.
Tech and media veteran Nick Bell has joined Fanatics as CEO of Fanatics Live, a new business division under the Fanatics umbrella that will focus on live content-based commerce, starting with the Fanatics Collectibles business.
In this role, Bell’s team will be tasked with transforming the digital customer shopping experience for collectors, building commerce capabilities focused around content and personalities and further expanding Fanatics’ portfolio of technology products.
Chiefs–Eagles next Sunday will be the first Super Bowl to be livestreamed in the 4K Dolby Vision HDR video quality format, via Comcast‘s Xfinity X1 platform, SBJ’s Andrew Cohen reports. To watch Fox’s Super Bowl LVII broadcast in Dolby Vision, Xfinity customers can say “4K” into their voice command enabled remote.
Xfinity’s U.S. customers must have an X1 cable box and Dolby Vision capable TV to see Fox’s 4K HDR broadcast, which Dolby says will bring lifelike colors, sharp contrast, and rich details for fans watching the game. Dolby Laboratories’ Dolby Vision HDR was previously available to Xfinity X1 customers that watched Fox’s 4K broadcast of the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
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Send your feedback: I can be reached at drumsey@sportsbusinessjournal.com
Image credits: Courtesy of Wilson (tennis racket)
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