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It’s one of the more puzzling IT acquisitions since eBay bought Skype. The Wisden Group announced today that they have bought the manufacturers of the Hawk-Eye ball-tracking technology.

What can be their motive? Unless they are shifting to that corporate category known as “diversified industrials”?

Here is the text of the press release issued by the Wisden Group a few hours ago:

Wisden Group acquisition of Hawk-Eye adds new dimension to presence in global sports markets

The Wisden Group today announced that it has acquired the business interests of Hawk-Eye Innovations Limited, the global pioneer in ball tracking technology for sports broadcasting and officiating.

The agreement reached with Tinopolis Plc adds Hawk-Eye to the Wisden Group’s market leading portfolio of sports brands which already includes Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, The Wisden Cricketer and Cricinfo.

Wisden Group director Mark Getty said that the acquisition of Hawk-Eye was a coup for the group which would strengthen its presence in the global cricket market and provide an entry into tennis and other major international sports.

“In a relatively short space of time, Hawk-Eye has achieved a major impact in the way cricket is presented and appreciated by fans around the world. It already has enormous recognition in the sport and is now making a similar impact in the world of tennis.

“Wisden is cricket’s most famous publisher and Cricinfo is the game’s largest global website, so the addition of Hawk-Eye as the most innovative technology provider in sports broadcasting is a development that will reinforce the group’s presence and influence,” said Mr Getty.

Under the terms of the agreement, Paul Hawkins, the originator and creative mind behind the development of Hawk-Eye, will remain as managing director of Hawk-Eye Innovations and join the senior management team at the Wisden Group.

“Wisden is perhaps the best-known name in cricket and I’m personally delighted that Hawk-Eye is now part of a business that is totally focussed on providing excellence, innovation and entertainment to its many millions of readers, surfers and viewers. There are enormous opportunities for ball tracking technology to revolutionise the way sport is televised and officiated and with the backing of the Wisden Group I am confident that Hawk-Eye can play a major role in making that happen,” commented Paul Hawkins.

Hawk-Eye’s global impact on international cricket is reinforced by the quality and status of the broadcasters who have used it to enhance their coverage. Broadcast partners include BSkyB and Channel 5 in the UK, Nimbus in India, Channel 9, Australia, SABC, South Africa, Taj TV in Pakistan and Sri Lanka, TWI in the West Indies and ICC events including the Champions Trophy.

While cricket was the first sport to take advantage of the ability to accurately track and predict the path of a ball, tennis has since followed. The technology has now been used by telecasters covering major tournaments including Wimbledon, the French Open, the Australian Open, the US Masters series, the Davis Cup and the Stella Artois.

With the recent announcement that it will also be used as an official umpiring aid in the US Open and US Open Series of tournaments, tennis has now moved ahead of cricket in placing its faith in line-calling technology.

Tom Gleeson, chief executive officer of the Wisden Group, believes that the successful use of Hawk-Eye in cricket and tennis will pave the way for its use by other major sports.

“Hawk-Eye has added a new dimension to sports broadcasting and created a demand for increased viewer information and entertainment. With an established track record in cricket and tennis, we will now be looking to develop into other televised sports.

“The increased pressure and scrutiny on sports officials in decision making is another area with great potential. Tennis has taken the initiative in the United States and other sports will be closely watching to see how that works out,” predicted Mr Gleeson.

About the Wisden Group
The Wisden Group is a privately owned company specialising in traditional and new media sports publishing. Its portfolio of leading brands includes the famous Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack, Cricinfo and The Wisden Cricketer magazine. Each business is a market leader in its sector. The group has an international presence throughout the cricketing world with operations in the UK, India, Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

About Hawk-Eye Innovations
Hawk-Eye is a revolutionary sports tracking device which has helped transform broadcast coverage of cricket and tennis since making its debut in Channel 4’s 2001coverage of English cricket. The technology, developed by Paul Hawkins, uses sophisticated image processing techniques to process the output of a series of cameras posted around a sports ground. Designed to follow the tracks of balls and competitors, it has applications in many sports for both visual entertainment and officiating assistance for umpires and referees.

Allow me to reprise one of the quotes from Hawk-Eye Innovations MD Paul Hawkins from that release:

“There are enormous opportunities for ball tracking technology to revolutionise the way sport is televised and officiated and with the backing of the Wisden Group I am confident that Hawk-Eye can play a major role in making that happen.”

And officiated. Could Wisden be buying their way into the administration of the game? Perhaps the correct comparison here is not to eBay’s takeover of Skype, but News Limited’s 50% stake in the National Rugby League…

At least I’m not flying the flag solo for cricket podcasting any more!

Robert Harvey (who is a great supporter of The Net Sessions) has started The Cover Drive Podcast. One edition so far, an interview with Rediff’s (and Sight Screen’s) Prem Panicker, recorded during the Third Test between Pakistan and India. An interesting interview, even if some of the current events are now dated. I trust there will be more of The Cover Drive. The website is www.coverdrivepodcast.blogspot.com.

Two cricket podcasts to report from professional media outlets. As previously noted, Sunil Gavaskar is podcasting end-of-day summaries of India’s international matches through Yahoo! India. Currently, he’s covering the First Test against England at Nagpur.

In England, the Telegraph has sent former Middlesex pie-wrangler Simon Hughes to India to give daily “analysis” of the Test series via MP3. I haven’t reviewed his first two despatches (preview and day one summary) yet, but the podcast feed can be found here.

Interesting report in yesterday’s Australian about a discussion paper on wireless internet options released by the Australian Communications and Media Authority this week.

One of the options being considered by the ACMA in increasing wireless internet availability is to reallocate the bandwidth spectrum used by television networks for transmitting some outside broadcast data back to base. Among the many items that would be affected are remote control cameras such as the stump vision used by channel 9 at the cricket.

The press release on the ACMA website gives more details, including a link to the full discussion paper. Submissions to the ACMA are being accepted up to April 3.

Does a minimum number of overs have to be bowled before Sunny Gavaskar does his daily podcast in this series? Podcasts for days two and four of the Lahore Test are now out, following from his debut on Day One, but it seems the fifteen overs of play produced on Monday was insufficient.

I suppose it was pointless having high hopes for this latest platform for Gavaskar’s bland platitudes. Not a word of criticism for the Pakistani bowlers, even the pitch is called a “beauty” after Sunny invites the curator to fix up all the potholes on Indian roads, so immaculate is the roadway he has constructed at the Gaddafi Stadium.

But Gav the Gab really should learn the meaning of some of the cliches he makes use of. He says that the final day’s play will not merely be of academic interest - there’s the record for the opening partnership to be broken, Sehwag going for his triple century and maybe Lara’s world record, there’s the question of how far Dravid can go, how many India can score before stumps… Sorry mate, but that all fits neatly under the banner of “academic interest” in a match which, as a contest, will die the moment India notches up 480.

Ravi Shastri is also doing voice reports on this Test, which can be called up by mobile phone users in India. Save your dough and listen to them on CricInfo (when it’s not overloaded) like the rest of us. The Ravicasts are, however, not technically podcasts as they can only be streamed, and not downloaded for future reference.

Not that the Ravicasts are rivetting listening either, and his voice gets drowned out by that bloody background muzak. At least he acknowledged the existence of the Pakistani bowlers. A legendary ex-cricketer does not necessarily an interesting commentator make. Where’s Navjot Sidhu when you need him?

The first edition of Sunil Gavaskar’s podcast “My Own Pitch” is up on Yahoo! India. It’s a fairly dry summary of the first day’s play of the Lahore Test. The podcast’s web page is here if you want to download or subscribe. (If you’re a Juice or Ipodder user, then this link should handle the subscription for you.)

The first edition runs for 2 minutes 43 seconds, but beware, it contains a loud background hum and seems to end abruptly.

For the first time in India, and perhaps in the cricketing world, podcasts will be available to cricket aficionados to download and listen to at their convenience.
- Yahoo! India teams up with Gavaskar for podcasting and more, sourced from Indiantelevision.com, 10.1.06

Well no, Sunny won’t be featuring in the cricketing world’s first podcast, though he may well be the first leading player to appear in one.

www.thenetsessions.net is now almost six months old and hanging in there on a shoestring budget.

If you know of any other cricket podcasts in existence at the moment, please drop me a comment here.

If you’re following the Pakistan v India series beginning this Friday and you’d like to do a report, daily or otherwise, for inclusion in The Net Sessions, please drop me a message and we’ll see what we can organise.

Aha….. http://blogs.cricinfo.com/tourdiaries/

I’ve critiqued CricInfo’s entry into the blogosphere a bit more than I wanted to or indeed should have, but I’ll wrap it today by commending the two latest additions to their stable.

The title Different Strokes conjures up images of Ian Botham doing his best Gary Coleman impression in the Sky Sports booth to say “Whatchoo talkin about Willis?” once per session to the sounds of rapturous applause from the studio audience. It is, in fact, a “group blog” in which a number of punters around the world are the regular contributors. Sort of like The Googler’s Gazette, nine years on. I recognise a couple of names from the comments sections of this blog among the contributors.

Beyond The Test World is a particularly impressive innovation. It’s sort of like another version of The Surfer, but specialising in reportage of cricket’s “third world” - the ICC associates and affiliates. Contributions are totally in-house and without comments, but that’s ok, blogs are Content Management Systems rather than a writing style. I’m confused, however, as to whether it is meant to replace or duplicate the column of the same name. (Still, it brings a smile to my face to see CricInfo still using the title that I dreamt up for them six years ago.)

Because of the BTTW blog’s newsy nature, I have included its RSS feed into my news aggregator, and its items will appear under the “Wisden CricInfo” heading on my homepage. The Surfer, Wicket to Wicket, and Different Strokes are combined under the heading “CricInfo Blogs” in the sidebar on my blog pages.

I believe that Wisden CricInfo has come along in leaps and bounds in terms of its editorial content in the past year, and is a far cry from the, frankly, quite appalling Wisden.com of 2001-2002.

My biggest ongoing disappointment is the way that CricInfo’s ground-breaking volunteer roots have been airbrushed from history - though, to be fair, this outrage began well before Wisden bought the company. If I often sound like I spend too much time trumpeting my own past achievements then this is the reason why.

The launch in September of The Surfer, CricInfo’s first genuine incursion into modern blogging technology, caused quite a buzz in our part of the blogosphere. That was followed in October by Wicket to Wicket, touted as a platform for CricInfo’s columnists to discuss topical matters. All very promising, even though they were yet to open the floodgates to public comments.

But why, then, do we still have the cumbersome “diaries” to wade through? Point in question, Andrew Miller’s current Pakistan Tour Diary. I can’t give you a permalink to the diary home page because there is none. I can link to the “November 7 to November 13” page, which currently has items for the days Nov.7 to 11. Presumably on the 14th they’ll start a new page, and so forth. I just hope the links are kept (manually) up to date, as didn’t always happen with Gideon Haigh’s diary on CricInfo during the Ashes.

Miller’s diary is quite interesting, but where is Wisden CricInfo’s committment to the blogging technology that would undoubtedly increase it exposure?

Breathless excitement as the ICC announced on Friday that the Johnnie Walker Super Series telecasts will be seen live on 3G mobile phones.

Well, not all 3G mobile phones. It helps if the major sponsor of the home team has exclusive rights to the 3G telecast in its territory of coverage. Here’s the ICC press release and the Sydney Morning Herald’s report, the only one I have seen to date which is not a blatant rehash of the ICC copy.

No indication yet of how out of pocket this latest cash cow will leave the punters. Let the Digital Divide rock!

(NB: I do not own a 3G mobile phone and have no plans to get one, even following this announcement.)