Use Case Intelligence RSS Search use cases Search
IBM Media and Entertainment United States

United States Tennis Association

Real-time Analytics

The USTA needed to turn massive volumes of match, player and fan data into engaging digital experiences for a global audience while keeping the US Open’s app and web platforms resilient under extreme traffic spikes.

Read the original story Explore all use cases
99.999% uptime during tournament play
more than 1.2 billion data points
more than 14 million fans around the globe
traffic spikes in excess of 5,000%

Reported impact

Business outcome

The USTA delivered richer fan engagement features at scale, sustained extremely high availability during tournament play and created a technical foundation that can continue evolving year over year.

  • Customer Experience
  • Productivity Improvement
  • Scalability

Solution

IBM and the United States Tennis Association built the US Open digital platform on a hybrid multicloud and AI architecture. Match and player telemetry—more than 800 data points per point, sampled 50 times per second—streams through IBM Confluent into automated workflows that feed IBM watsonx.data, the event’s lakehouse for structured and unstructured sources. On top of that data foundation, IBM watsonx.ai, IBM watsonx Orchestrate and IBM Granite models help the editorial team generate AI-powered features such as Live Updates, Match Chat and Key Moments with human oversight. Red Hat OpenShift provides portability across clouds, while IBM Instana, IBM Terraform and IBM Apptio keep the experience observable, automated and cost-aware. The end-to-end design lets the USTA convert live match signals into real-time fan content and resilient digital operations.

Data flow

Live event telemetry streams through IBM Confluent into watsonx.data, where curated structured and unstructured tournament data is used by watsonx.ai, Granite and orchestrated AI workflows to generate fan content and power app and web experiences in real time.

Solution architecture

5 components · 3 layers
  1. Compute
    • IBM watsonx.ai Drives AI-powered editorial features and helps transform live match data into fan-facing insights.
    • IBM Granite Provides generative models used in AI-powered fan features with editorial oversight.
    • Red Hat OpenShift Runs applications and workloads consistently across the US Open’s hybrid multicloud environments.
  2. Storage
    • IBM watsonx.data Centralizes structured and unstructured tournament data to support AI features and real-time insight generation.
  3. Orchestration
    • IBM watsonx Orchestrate Coordinates agentic AI workflows that scale content production and digital experiences.

Architecture clues

  • AI features are produced with editorial oversight
  • Each point generates more than 800 data points captured 50 times per second
  • Hybrid multicloud architecture supports app and website experiences

Evidence from the source

Each point played at the US Open generates more than 800 data points ... contributing to more than 1.2 billion data points collected and analyzed over the course of the tournament.
The USTA uses the IBM® watsonx.data® data store, a hybrid, open data lakehouse built to support AI workloads.
Using IBM watsonx.ai® AI studio, the agentic AI of the IBM watsonx Orchestrate® platform, and the generative AI capabilities of IBM Granite® models, the USTA editorial team now produces AI-powered features at scale.
Transparency Evidence & methodology 96/100 reference value · 84% confidence · 1 source

Review how this reference was scored and trace each normalized claim back to its documented source.

01

Scoring methodology

How scores are calculated

Customer Reference Value measures usefulness as a customer reference. Evidence Confidence measures the quality and traceability of available evidence, not independent verification.

Customer reference value96/100
  • Problem clarity20/20
    Measures whether the customer's operational problem is specific enough to compare.
  • Implementation depth25/25
    Rewards named components, data flow, integrations, and architecture detail.
  • Outcome specificity16/20
    Measures whether the reported benefit is concrete rather than a generic claim.
  • Quantified impact25/25
    2 metrics describe measurable impact.
  • Deployment scale10/10
    Rewards evidence of a live or scaled deployment and meaningful integration scope.
Evidence confidence84%
  • Source authority20/25
    The main evidence is an official vendor-published customer story.
  • Claim traceability21/25
    10 of 12 key fields link to a named source.
  • Direct evidence15/20
    3 direct source quotes retained.
  • Date provenance10/10
    The publication date comes from the source page or publisher.
  • Source transparency8/10
    1 source reference document publisher, URL, authority, retrieval, and supported fields.
  • Implementation specificity10/10
    Rewards source-backed components, data flow, quantified impact, and a specific outcome.
02

Traceability

Sources & provenance

Field coverage shows which facts each source supports. Dates are shown only when documented by the source.

  1. IBM

    United States Tennis Association customer story

    First-party
    https://www.ibm.com/case-studies/us-open
    Source type
    Vendor-published customer story
    Published
    Aug 2, 2024
    Supports
    • Customer
    • Business problem
    • Solution
    • Products
    • Solution components
    • Data flow
    • Integrations
    • technical area
    • use case category
    • Business outcome
    • outcome category
    • Metrics
    • Architecture
    • evidence quotes
    • Publication date

Date evidence

Not separately sourced Industry, Region, Company size. Treat these normalized attributes as lower-confidence until a dedicated source is added.

Related

Similar use cases

See all like this
IBM Sep 14, 2026 UFC Media and Entertainment Global UFC needed a faster way to turn large volumes of performance data, historical matchups and fighter statistics into live, broadcast-ready storytelling because manual analytics workflows could not keep pace with real-time… 210+ countries airing UFC content Real-time Analytics UFC Insights Engine IBM Sep 9, 2026 Augusta National Golf Club Media and Entertainment United States Augusta National Golf Club needed to keep the Masters digital experience engaging in real time because millions of patrons expect live context and storytelling from decades of tournament and shot data without any lag or… 17M patrons engaged on the digital platform around the world Real-time Analytics 49 specialized AI agents · 9 digital workers · Masters app IBM Jul 8, 2025 UFC Media and Entertainment United States UFC needed to scale fight insight generation across more than 40 live events a year without depending solely on manual research and domain experts to analyze fast-changing performance data. 3x estimated increase in insight volume Real-time Analytics IBM Granite · IBM watsonx Orchestrate · IBM watsonx.ai