The Wimbledon
tennis championships, currently in full
flow, are proving to be a showcase for the latest Internet
video technologies, with searchable behind-the-scenes video
highlights, net-cams and live feeds to entertain fans worldwide.
The All England Lawn Tennis & Croquet Club announced this
week that it had joined forces with
FasTV.com to offer
fans “unprecedented access” to searchable video highlights.
In another announcement Wednesday it said it had appointed
streaming video specialist Intervu
to the task of providing live feeds from the championships.
“We expect Wimbledon to be the most heavily trafficked Internet
streaming event this year due to the duration of the event,
its worldwide appeal and because there were over seven million
visitors last year,” said Ed Huguez, Intervu’s chief operating officer.
“We expect interest to be enormous during work hours when
people have access to high-speed connections,” added Huguez.
Meanwhile, over at FasTV.com, more than 200 hours of video
from The Wimbledon Channel’s archive are being made
available for viewing. Most of this special programming
is not being shown on broadcast television — giving the
Internet a distinctive edge in this instance.
“FasTV was chosen for its ability to log, digitize and host
this extensive ‘digital history’ and make it available to
tennis fans around the world to access via the Internet,”
said Jeff Lucas, The All England Lawn
Tennis & Croquet Club’s IT director.
Around 400,000 people will attend this year’s tennis championships
in person, while massive media coverage extends the
event to hundreds of millions of people around the world.
However, there are no plans to stream live croquet matches,
despite the club’s name.