The US Open used one of the first solutions available through IBM Watson Media- Cognitive Highlights. Developed at IBM Research with IBM iX, Cognitive Highlights can identify the match’ s most important moments by analysing the statistical tennis data, sounds from the crowd and the reactions of a player using both action and facial expression recognition. The system then ranks the shots from seven US Open courts and auto-curates the highlights, which simplifies the video production process and ultimately positions the USTA team to scale and accelerate the creation of cognitive highlight packages.

The finished highlight videos were available in four ways:

• Each day, the USTA posted a Highlight of the Day, as ranked by Watson, on its Facebook page.

• Fans who‘ favourite’ players on the US Open apps received real-time push notification alerts about those players’ highlights. Fans on iOS 10 can play the highlights within the lock screen.

• On the player bio page, video highlights were available across all of the USTA’ s digital platforms.

• Onsite in the player’ s lounge and in the fanfacing IBM Watson Experience on the plaza near Court 9.

“ The US Open is packed with so much action across so many courts that even the fastest video team is challenged to keep pace with what’ s happening,” said Noah Syken, IBM VP of sports & entertainment partnerships.“ To meet that challenge, Watson is now watching the matches alongside the USTA to help bring fans closer to the best moments across the courts shortly after they happen. We’ re seeing this technology come to life through tennis, but the entire IBM Watson Media portfolio has the potential to impact many industries.”

Leading up to the US Open, IBM’ s cognitive highlights technology was tested as a proof of concept at this year’ s Masters Tournament, and was also served as part of the content production system at Wimbledon. The successful results and positive reception at both events led to the technology being integrated into the new, soon-to-be commercially available, solutions from IBM Watson Media. Beyond the US Open, the solutions to be enabled include:

• Content Search & Discovery: Refined, detailed searches of content down to the scene level based on rich metadata identifying items and context.

• Recommendation Uplift: More informed suggestions of new content for viewers based on a deeper understanding of video content.

• Intelligent Closed Captioning: Speechto-text that can transcribe audio and improve by learning topic-specific terminology.

• Spotlighting: Identification of content – such as violence or adult language – that may require further screening and labelling.

“ An afternoon or evening at the US Open, especially for first time visitors, has really never been easier to enjoy,” said Kirsten Corio, USTA Managing Director, ticket sales, hospitality and digital strategy.“ Watson’ s capabilities within the US Open app will help our fans plan ahead, move around the grounds at their own pace, and always know where they are and where they want to go.”

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