The Grand Slam tennis championship, which opens on June 30, will fully adopt electronic line calling courtesy of Sony Group Corp’s subsidiary Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. — Photo: Sony Group
Human line judges dressed in crisp striped shirts and white bottoms will be absent from Wimbledon this year. Instead, 12 cameras will stand courtside to call whether the ball lands in or out.
The Grand Slam tennis championship, which opens on June 30, will fully adopt electronic line calling courtesy of Sony Group Corp’s subsidiary Hawk-Eye Innovations Ltd. The Basingstoke, England-based company uses artificial intelligence to pinpoint a ball’s trajectory to supply gameplay analysis and refereeing across 25 sports including baseball and soccer.
Demand is strong due in part to growing pressure to shorten matches and keep spectators engaged, according to Sony’s Sports Entertainment Business head Fumiatsu Hirai. Another factor is a shortage in referees since the pandemic, which spurred a flurry of resignations, he said. Human referees also now face far more ire – even death threats – as online bullying and sports gambling become commonplace.
"Calls for automation are only growing stronger,” Hirai said.
The Wimbledon contract is a win for Sony’s yearslong push to beef up its entertainment offerings with acquisitions of sports technology companies. The Tokyo-based company is eager for further deals to expand its portfolio in sports-related tech, Hirai said.
"If there is anything attractive, we’d want to do it,” he said on the possibility of further acquisitions, without elaborating.
In 2011, Sony bought Hawk-Eye, a company that was founded in 2001 by scientists researching rocket trajectories. Its line calling system – which draws from camera data to instantly determine where the ball lands and the position of a player’s feet during serves – is already used at the Australian Open and the US Open, and Wimbledon has previously used the company’s tech to support judges and umpires. Hawk-Eye’s system is also expected to supply virtual measurements of offensive line advances to the National Football League this year.
Sony’s sports division – which had sales of under 20bil yen (RM585.68mil) in the business year ended March 2022 – is a tiny part of Sony’s business portfolio, which generates annual sales around 13 trillion yen (RM380.69bil) from operations ranging from gaming and music to films and semiconductors. But business is growing steadily, surpassing the division’s targeted annual growth rate of 17% in the five years through March 2027, according to Hirai, who declined to elaborate further.
Following the Hawk-Eye acquisition, Sony bought data analysis company Beyond Sports in 2022 to offer more immersive sports entertainment. In 2024, it acquired KinaTrax Inc, which uses motion capture technology to provide biomechanical performance data to athletes.
The global sports market is projected to grow to around US$651bil (RM2.75 trillion) by 2028, up more than 30% compared with 2023, according to Dublin-based industry forecast company Research and Markets. Teams are tapping biometric data to improve athletes’ physical and mental conditions.
Hawk-Eye, which also provides interactive sports broadcasting through its Pulselive unit, now leads in the sports technology field, according to Mitsuru Tanaka, an associate professor at Shobi University. That leadership was demonstrated with Major League Baseball’s decision a few years ago to switch from Danish company TrackMan’s radar-based system to Hawk-Eye’s for ball and player tracking, he said.
But the pace of innovation and the low barriers to entry pose risks, Tanaka said. "The risk remains of Hawk-Eye losing its edge in the market with the emergence of superior technology,” he said. – Bloomberg
