My colleague Austin Karp broke down the NBA’s increased viewership in the latest SBJ Media newsletter: an 18% boost so far during Year 1 of the league’s latest media deal.
Dive into his full breakdown here. — Ethan Joyce
In today’s edition of Power Up:
- Andrew Macaulay, CTO for TMRW Sports, is the visionary behind TGL
- ATP Tour, Infosys renew digital innovation partnership
- On My Mind: Playfly Sports CEO Craig Sloan
Andrew Macaulay, CTO for TMRW Sports, is the visionary behind TGL
Andrew Macaulay was made for this job. A golf-crazed Englishman who’s also deep in the weeds on technology, he took a few turns — or maybe doglegs, in this case — to get here.
Macaulay is the chief technology officer for TMRW Sports and the brains behind its tech-focused golf league, TGL. But there was a point in his career when he never thought he would be working in golf.
A graduate of Leeds University in the United Kingdom, he moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area as he pursued his MBA from Baylor University. He later landed a job with Sprint and was satisfied with the role. However, the golf itch was always there.
Macaulay’s wife, Leah, worked at ClubCorp, and he even helped run the employee golf tournaments for Sprint.
“I used to joke ... ‘Look, hey, if I could get a job in golf and technology, wouldn’t that be amazing? But that’s never going to happen,’” Macaulay said.
His golf calling came in late 2014, when a recruiter contacted him. Topgolf was looking for a chief information officer, and Macaulay’s background fit the bill. He jumped at the chance, and not long into his tenure, Macaulay was in Seattle for meetings with Topgolf’s chairman, Erik Anderson.
The two found time to connect while between meetings on an uncharacteristically nice Pacific Northwest day.
“And so we just decided to walk, for like 45 minutes to an hour, and we just walked and talked. And that sort of changed everything for me,” Macaulay said. “He explained his vision of much more beyond the Topgolf venues and how there was a lot of technology involved in what the other ideas were.”
“We started just to imagine the venue, and particularly the hitting bays and the like, which are at somewhat of the core of the customer experience, just as a big technology pod,” Anderson said. “Where it wasn’t just, oh, there was just a golf ball that would be hit with a chip in it and you’d get a simple score. But you could imagine sensors, camera capabilities, all of the things, collecting data, AI.”
Macaulay rose to chief technology officer at Topgolf, and the company boomed, growing from 11 worldwide locations when he started to more than 80 by the time he exited.
In the summer of 2022, Macaulay got a call from some connections who were working on a new golf project by former Golf Channel President Mike McCarley. They wanted Macaulay’s help — “some off-the-record thoughts” — about how to turn their ideas into real life. He had already been doing some R&D on what a different version of Topgolf might look like along with its tech partner, Toptracer, so he decided to lend his ear.
A few months later, Macaulay rented an indoor driving range in Stockholm, where Toptracer is based.
“We hung a sheet basically at the end of their building and rented a movie projector from somewhere for a week and pointed it at the other end of the range,” Macaulay recalled.
Macaulay went to every length to emulate McCarley’s vision. He even bought “a kiddie pool from the Swedish version of Home Depot,” filled it with sand and placed it 35 yards or so from the screen to replicate bunker shots.
Macaulay hosted a December video conference with a number of executives — including McCarley — to demo the technology. A few days later, McCarley’s phone rang.
“[Andrew] called me and he said, ‘Hey, I just think you need to get here and you need to see this in person,’” McCarley said. “I’ve been very comfortable with the Florida winters. And so asking me to go to Sweden in December was a big ask, but I’m glad we did because we went and we saw it. … It was something that really made what was my original vision a lot bigger.”
‘A good human being’
Macaulay is in the thick of TGL’s second season. The most stressful aspect to his job might surprise some.
Most public criticism during TGL’s inaugural year centered on the simulator technology. Some players would appear perplexed when their planned cut shot (a left-to-right ball flight) would draw (right to left) on the simulator.
The biggest critique came when a Tommy Fleetwood iron shot didn’t register on the simulator. The problem? Fleetwood’s “beautiful” grass divot, as Macaulay described it, which traveled 22 yards and was picked up by the technology instead of the golf ball. It was the one occurrence — among 960 shots hit into the screen during Season 1 — when a ball wasn’t picked up.
“I’m super happy with the tracking tech,” Macaulay said. “I just don’t see any other way of doing what we want to achieve, which is drop the ball anywhere, drop it in the rough, drop it in the sand and be able to track the ball.”
While most of the public criticism centered around the simulator tech, Macaulay is more focused on TGL’s GreenZone, in which players pitch, chip and putt. The area expanded from 3,800 square feet to 5,300 for Season 2. The green can rotate 360 degrees and is powered by 608 actuators under the surface. Because of the expansion, nearly the entire surface was rebuilt.
LPGA Commissioner Craig Kessler and Macaulay overlapped for nearly six years at Topgolf. As chief operating officer, Kessler oversaw Topgolf’s venue business and worked “constantly” with Macaulay as Toptracer was integrated into the company’s facilities.
“He strikes the right balance between execution and innovation,” Kessler recently said of Macaulay. “He was always willing to focus on some of the more mundane but critically important things, like point of sale in our venues. He had a real strength in pushing the ball forward on innovation.”
Kessler saw another important trait in Macaulay. “I’ve never come across a technology leader who cared so much about people and culture,” Kessler said. “He, in many ways, was one of the champions of people and culture across our entire organization. He’s just a good human being.”
Three questions with Andrew Macaulay
Who fills out your dream golf foursome? And why?
I would choose people whose work has made a great impression on me. And since this is a dream scenario, I’m including some people no longer with us.
• Douglas Adams, author of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” was an avid golfer, and I’ve been a huge fan of his works since I was a teenager. Spending a few hours with him on a golf course would have been priceless.
• Dan Pink wrote the book “Drive” on human motivation, among many others. That helped me become a better leader earlier in my career. I don’t know if he even plays golf, but I would love to get his perspective on life for a few hours.
• Arsene Wenger, the most successful manager of the mighty Arsenal FC, was a master tactician, leader and developer of young talent. It would be amazing to talk to him about how he achieved such success for so long.
What’s another sports league you look to for technology-related ideas?
Hard to pick one league. The increased level of technology use in and around nearly all sports leagues in recent years is great to see, and I try to pay attention to all of it. Cricket, and the Indian Premier League in particular, have been at the forefront of tech use for a good while now, so I always like to see what they are innovating.
What’s one piece of technology/advancement outside of TGL that has your eye?
The advancements in robotics are fascinating. It’s been 20 years since the first version of that Boston Dynamics dog-looking robot was built. The rapid acceleration in the last few years, though, across all forms of autonomous robots and human augmentation, is incredible. I’d say it is the next big wave to dramatically impact our society — for better or worse.
ATP Tour, Infosys renew digital innovation partnership
The ATP Tour has renewed its technology partnership with Infosys through 2028. The deal extends for three years a relationship that began in 2015 and continues Infosys’ designation as the ATP’s “digital innovation partner.” Infosys will also remain an ATP Gold Partner -- the organization’s third tier of sponsorship below Premier (Emirates) and Platinum (PIF, Lexus) -- alongside Rolex, Nitto, Stella Artois, Haier and Waterdrop.
With the deal:
- The ATP and Infosys will collaborate on a new content series that spotlights unique tennis data.
- Infosys will activate with ATP athletes at tour events (via, for example, digital promotions and VIP hospitality).
- The ATP will roll out a new artificial intelligence chatbot (powered by the Infosys Topaz suite of AI tools) called Ally in its “Stats Centre” hub that answers analytical and historical queries.
Past fruits of the ATP-Infosys partnership include the development of ATP digital platforms (e.g., the ATP’s PlayerZone, Stats Centre and mobile app) and a carbon tracking program for players.
The deal also further entrenches Infosys’ presence in pro tennis, where it has additional tech-focused partnerships with the Australian Open, French Open and International Tennis HOF.
On My Mind: Playfly Sports’ Craig Sloan
What’s on Craig Sloan’s mind? The CEO of Playfly Sports explains how the understanding of content consumption is a major opportunity in the sports industry.
More headlines from SBJ
- Brooks Koepka to return to PGA Tour in January under new program
- NASCAR confirms return to ‘Chase’-style championship format, keeping playoff element
- Miami-Ole Miss among least-watched CFP semifinals yet
- Excel Sports hires Danny Paiser as VP and Managing Director of International Properties
- Report: Dolphins to keep Aikman in advisory role for coaching search
- AFCA’s Craig Bohl breaks down changes needed around NIL