2025 PGA Championship Signals What's Ahead For Tech Sports Partnerships

Forbes

4 days ago

As the summer sports season heats up, technology companies are going beyond traditional sponsorships and leveraging high-profile sporting events to demonstrate their technical capabilities. Rather than merely paying a sponsorship fee and splashing the corporate logo around the venue, more tech providers are actually putting their know-how to work to help sporting events run better.
It's a topic my colleagues and I have been covering for a while, and I got to observe it up close again this month with T-Mobile's involvement at the PGA Championship at the Quail Hollow course in North Carolina. The company deployed some of its most advanced 5G network technology to support both broadcast operations and fan experiences, which suggests how these partnerships can help tech companies position themselves with both businesses and consumers. Using T-Mobile and other companies I've studied as examples, let's dig into the implementation and impacts of these tech sports partnerships.
(Note: T-Mobile is an advisory client of my firm, Moor Insights & Strategy.)
To demonstrate the capabilities of its 5G solutions, T-Mobile has adopted a strategy in recent years of intentionally targeting challenging environments, and a major golf tournament like the PGA Championship definitely fits the bill. The business logic is clear: Live sporting events of this scale involve both complex behind-the-scenes functions, which are great for demonstrating technical chops, and prominent public-facing experiences, which are great for branding. In the case of an internationally televised live event that also welcomes tens of thousands of fans, a carrier like T-Mobile must coordinate connectivity for everything from back-office systems to broadcast infrastructure to ticketing operations to point-of-sale transactions. In the past, cellular networks were often considered insufficiently reliable or secure for these essential functions, but T-Mobile has a vested interest in changing that perception.
Events that happen outdoors across a large area — golf tournaments, tennis majors, road races, and so on — present particular challenges. To appreciate the logistical impact of 5G at Quail Hollow, it's important to remember that a traditional (wired, not wireless) golf broadcast often requires laying miles of cable across 200-plus acres of terrain, including water hazards, bunkers and bridges, to enable the best camera shots. T-Mobile used its portable private 5G on Demand network and Standalone 5G architecture to help the tournament avoid such elaborate physical cabling; the high bandwidth and low latency of 5G enabled wireless cameras to transmit 4K video footage from all over the golf course and grounds. All of this gave the broadcast directors for CBS and ESPN more flexibility with the shots they used in their coverage. As with the AI-driven analytics that IBM supplies at The Masters and major tennis tournaments — more on that later — this is an instance where a partner can apply technology that transcends marketing and genuinely changes the way an event operates.
Besides the benefits for broadcasters, photojournalists were able to use the private 5G network to upload high-resolution still images and video to newsrooms and digital platforms almost instantly. T-Mobile is positioning this latter capability as a potential future commercial offering for media and enterprise clients.
Beyond these broadcast capabilities — and getting into the realm of experiential marketing — the more robust connectivity also enhanced the fan experience. On the course, T-Mobile customers received access to Club Magenta, an on-site lounge with amenities and special guests. Both on-site attendees and remote viewers benefited from features including 'T5G on 14,' which used augmented reality and AI-generated data to create real-time visualizations on the 14th hole. The PGA Championship app provided real-time shot analysis and highlight notifications, again making the most of T-Mobile's network infrastructure. All of this fits with T-Mobile's longer-term goal — and a broader industry trend — of providing richer fan experiences, as I pointed out in my coverage of the 2024 MLB All-Star Game. Given the focus on connectivity, it also reminds me in some ways of Qualcomm's ongoing partnership with Manchester United.
For athletes and coaches, the T5G Range, also powered by the private 5G network, enabled the delivery of advanced analytics and live content. Multiple mobile cameras on the driving range provided up-close looks at warm-up routines, while coaches and expert commentators could access real-time data on ball speed, apex, curve and distance. This immediate feedback helps players adjust their performance and gives fans more insight into player technique. These features are integrated into the PGA Championship app and digital platforms, enabling fans to access live coaching insights, walk-and-talk interviews and live views from the T5G Range, whether they were on-site or watching remotely.
As touched on above, T-Mobile's strategy is to use challenging, high-profile events to showcase its connectivity capabilities. In part this is because the company — despite having the largest 5G network in the United States — recognizes that it hasn't always been known for having cutting-edge solutions, and it wants to counteract any public perception that it isn't up to the task. As Grant Castle, senior vice president of systems realization at T-Mobile, told me, 'Before these events, we consult with our partners. We ask them what major problems we can solve on a large scale that will enhance the overall experience.'
T-Mobile is moving forward with the clear idea that 5G should become the standard, not the exception, for powering everything from broadcast to back-office operations at major events and, by extension, across industries. The same 5G solutions used in major sports championships also support automation and real-time monitoring in manufacturing, continuous asset tracking in logistics and new checkout systems with real-time analytics in retail, to name just a few of the industry-specific applications.
There are lots of other applications within sports as well. In high-speed racing, 5G's low latency isn't just about entertainment — it's a safety consideration. For example, at the Las Vegas Grand Prix, T-Mobile network slicing supported real-time telemetry for both pit crews and instant replay systems, allowing split-second decisions about cars traveling over 200 mph. At the United States Grand Prix scheduled for October in Austin, the Aston Martin Aramco Formula One Team will lean on its partnership with ServiceNow to help log, track and address incidents and service requests from anywhere on the track, with the aim of helping staff respond quickly to issues that could affect safety or operations.
Technology companies recognize the value of live sports as a proving ground for their solutions. Both tech companies and sports organizations are now treating stadiums and event venues as high-tech hubs, integrating 5G, cloud and edge computing to support broadcast production, better connectivity, immersive fan experiences and more.
For instance, Teradata has partnered with the L.A. Clippers to showcase its cloud analytics platform at the Intuit Dome, focusing on enhancing fan engagement and operations. Meanwhile, SAP has partnered with the 2025 Ryder Cup worldwide. This collaboration will use SAP's cloud-based software, including the SAP Customer Data Platform, SAP Emarsys Customer Engagement, SAP Datasphere and SAP Analytics Cloud, to unify fan data from multiple sources, personalize marketing content and provide AI-driven insights aimed at enhancing the fan experience both on-site and remotely.
In some ways, these companies are following a path blazed by IBM, which has spent decades supporting marquee events including The Masters, Wimbledon and the US Open Tennis Championship. Sixty years ago, IBM was helping with timekeeping and recordkeeping at the Olympics. These days, it uses signature events to highlight its AI and data analytics capabilities, for example with its Slamtracker feature in the Wimbledon app, which I used last year to navigate the grounds of the All England Club and keep up with multiple matches at once.
The investment must be worth it for IBM, considering how long it has been providing technology for high-level sporting events. So how's it going for T-Mobile? From my perspective, the 2025 PGA Championship effectively showcased 5G's performance in a demanding, large-scale public setting. I think that T-Mobile's willingness to take on a challenge like this under the scrutiny of a global audience is a good sign for both the company and the performance of 5G as a technology. These examples could also build confidence among enterprises in its B2B offerings.
However, although such demonstrations are valuable for illustrating technological capabilities, the subsequent step requires T-Mobile — or any technology vendor — to build on event-specific successes. The longer-term challenge lies in translating public and more consumer-facing demonstrations into enterprise solutions that meet diverse operational needs across various sectors.
For example, while I believe the advantages of 5G deployment at major events are evident, it's essential to consider the significant costs associated with deploying private 5G networks and to question whether this model is scalable or financially viable for smaller venues or less prominent events — or a given enterprise use. For stakeholders at customer companies, understanding the return on investment and the potential for adoption is critical to evaluating the long-term value of these solutions. And long-term uptake by these customers is in turn critical for tech companies evaluating the effectiveness of their investments in sports.
I'll be keeping my eye on T-Mobile, IBM, Teradata, and the rest of these tech providers to see how effectively they perform in sports setting this year. And with upcoming events including Wimbledon, the US Open, The Ryder Cup and the United States Grand Prix, the summer of 2025 is shaping up as a real proving ground for enterprise technology.