Wimbledon Web Site Powered by IBM Becomes Largest Official Grand Slam Web Site Ever Built
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WHITE PLAINS, NY (July 07, 1998) – The 1998 Championships at Wimbledon produced many dynamic and compelling moments on the court and on the ‘Net. The official Wimbledon Web site ( http://www.wimbledon.org), powered by IBM, recorded over 106 million page views and over 224 million server hits during the tournament, far surpassing the marks set by the official French Open site last month as the most highly trafficked official Grand Slam Web site to date.
According to a noticeable trend in event Web sites, the official Wimbledon site experienced its heaviest usage during high-profile matches. The peak daily traffic total was 35.2 million hits, registered on Friday, July 3, the day of the men’s singles semifinals. Throughout the Ivanisevic/Krajicek match, traffic on the official site experienced massive, rapid momentum, peaking at 145,478 hits per minute. This is a new record for a sports event Web site powered by IBM, eclipsing the previous record of 110,414 hits per minute on the official Nagano Games Web site earlier this year.
“With the tremendous success of the official Web site for this year’s Championships, IBM and the All England Club have demonstrated the power of e-business for one of the world’s most visible events,” said Tom Burke, manager of sports marketing, IBM. “The Web site allowed more fans to experience Wimbledon, using Internet applications and technology to connect a worldwide audience to the excitement of the tournament in real-time.”
Web surfers were clearly interested in the timely information the site offered, as they visited the results pages most frequently. Very popular among fans seeking live results was the site’s Java scoreboard, a downloadable console with court-by-court real-time scoring delivered to viewers’ desktops. Users also shopped on-line at the Wimbledon store, purchasing a variety of tournament shirts, hats, towels and other Wimbledon merchandise.
Other features of the site which added to Internet users’ virtual tournament experience included Radio Wimbledon, which featured live audio broadcasts, and iCam, an interactive application which allowed fans to remotely position interactive cameras to capture live images from the grounds. During the tournament, the iCam served over 300,000 discreet images from Wimbledon to tennis fans on the Web.
The official 1998 Wimbledon Web site was designed, hosted and powered by IBM for the All England Lawn Tennis Club. Teams from IBM’s interactive media centers in Atlanta, Georgia and Hursley, England designed and developed the site. Hosted on the IBM Global Network, the site ran on IBM RS/6000 SPs using Lotus Notes client and Lotus Domino server software, the same winning combination that powered the official Web site of the 1998 Olympic Winter Games to world records for a sporting event on the Internet.
Up Next: The official Web site of the 1998 US Open (August 31 – September 13) will be live next month at http://www.usopen.org, produced by IBM for the United States Tennis Association.
Source: IBM