sports event management - FIFA/CIES International University Network

developments are thought to be the firstat an MLS stadium, many NFL stadia arealready running the system.Surprisingly perhaps, the driversof technology are generally not the ITcompanies themselves but consumersand sports governing bodies andfederations.Organisers of the first Youth OlympicGames last year in Singapore took theview that social networking and not TVwas their preferred method of broadcast,and as a result young journalists theremainly reported through blogs.In Europe, the 2012 Olympic andParalympic Games will rely on a complexmix of technology over a number ofsites and systems. With the eyes of theworld watching, it is an extraordinarilyhigh-pressure environment. But it is anenvironment where technology is able tohelp like never before.At the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, USswimmer Michael Phelps may not havereceived his seventh of eight gold medals(for the 100m butterfly) without TVreplays and timing system technology.The result was so close (one hundredthof a second) that it was impossible tojudge using only the naked eye.Responsibility for Olympic Games’ ITinfrastructure falls to Atos. The companyhas worked at every Games since 1992and became the official Worldwide ITPartner for the IOC in 2002 and of theIPC in 2008.The challenge for Atos is to createan IT solution that allows the captureand reporting of every moment of theaction and supports in bringing it to theworld through television and the internet.This requires an understanding of whatorganisers, broadcasters, competitorsand the audience demand.Atos spends four years building theIT and another year testing before theGames. Disasters are simulated andscenarios are run to see how its peoplereact in certain situations, in order toachieve full readiness.Atos Executive Vice President PatrickAdiba, tells SportBusiness International:“It is certainly not possible to organisean event and capture all the data andresults in a manual way any more. TheOlympics is vast, some days there are 17competitions going, it is like running 17SPORTS EVENT MANAGEMENT 37