Many stadia managers and clubs are investigating smart technologies such as multi-application smartcards, cashless payment, near field communications (NFC), and short message service (SMS) to provide a better customer experience, generate additional revenue and deliver cost efficiencies.

South African Tourism scales up call center, integrates Facebook and Twitter social-network analysis. The 2010 FIFA World Cup gets underway on Friday, and it will bring hundreds of thousands soccer fans to South Africa over the next month. To cope with an anticipated ten-fold increase in visitor calls and online contacts, South African Tourism has turned to Salesforce.com for a rapidly scalable and social-network-connected CRM environment.

Adidas kicked of its World Cup activity with an advertising campaign for its F5O adiZero football boots, featuring the likes of Lionel Messi and David Villa.

Media analysts may be calling it the first digital World Cup, but research by Nielsen suggests that live TV broadcasts will be the weapon of choice for football fans hunting the big game in South Africa this summer.

Nike introduces World Cup national team kits made from 100% recycled plastic bottles. Many of the World Cup footballers, including Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka will enter the game wearing the more environmentally-friendly and technology-advanced kit in football’s history.