9 broadcast innovations from the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL... with a future in football?

The Top 4 major U.S. sports competitions, the NFL (American football), MLB (Baseball), NBA (Basketball) and NHL (Ice Hockey) continue to innovate year after year to implement new audiovisual resources that help create broadcasts that are as spectacular as they are explanatory. Although each sport has its particularities, there are techniques that, with the right approach, could permeate the king of sports in Ibero-America: football.

At a time when audiovisual entertainment is transforming its Formats, durations and staging hegemonic, sport continues to be intrinsically bequeathed to its Foundational pillars. Football is an example of this situation. Directly, its 90 minutes long, with its respective intermission and injury time, contradicts the Main style manuals of generation Z.

In response to suggestions from part of the industry to modify the rules of the sport to make it more attractive to new industries, the private enterprise he has found himself with a dilemma. On the one hand, some agents have opted to play to the maximum with the rules of the game to transform it into the visual show that so many requested and build the Kings League with its derivatives: a football competition with a reduced reach, but with a significant investment in broadcast technology that combines Football and entertainmenthow transferred to Panorama Audiovisual Álex Miñana (director) and Raúl Alarcón (technical director of Highvideo).

The other alternative is the one that the main football competitions are betting on: playing with broadcast limits for the Engagement and immersion. The UHD with NGA elements it is already applied by the British BT Sport for the Premier League, betting on image fidelity, while the Serie A Adopt a Remote Production Model for several seasons. Meanwhile LaLiga, through Mediapro, is committed to multiple production alternatives that are largely influenced by the Video games (with motion picture cameras with steady on the field or camera shots from set pieces) and looks into the eyes of the new generations, who have the Streamers Like idols focusing on The Narrator the moment they sing a goal. These are just a few of dozens of other initiatives by augmented reality, statistics, cable cameras or Drones employed by the Catalan company.

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Innovation in football

In the face of a FIFA immovable As far as the rules of football are concerned in the near future, the path of audiovisual innovation will continue to be an important value for the federations to ensure audience tracking, which should Guarantee the millionaire contracts that move the king of sports throughout Europe. R+D teams and think tanks related to the sports world work tirelessly to search for New technological solutions that bring more possibilities to productions. Others will seek value outside our borders, either through international forums, bilateral meetings, Open Days competitions that share their latest technological advances or the democratization offered by Internet access to be able to appreciate the steps that other colleagues in the profession have taken.

The NFL (American football), MLB (Baseball), NBA (Basketball) and NHL (Ice Hockey) are four of the world's biggest references when it comes to ice hockey. Team Sports Broadcasts (excluding, in the process, motorsports). Every year, they invest million euros in creating world-class broadcast productions. Although these leagues have sometimes been inspired by formats and technologies in some of the processes implemented in football on the old continent, all of them are also applying interesting approaches that, with the right treatment, can become part of the Football broadcasts.

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1. Alternative Uses of Cable-Cam (NFL)

The NFL, the main league of what is known in Europe as American football, is usually credited with using the first Cable-cam in a sports broadcast. The anniversary takes us back 40 years, when a limited version of the system captured a preseason game between the San Diego Chargers and San Francisco 49ers. The system would be abandoned in favor of other resources to make its triumphant return in the Super Bowl LI (2017) with a great reception from the public, especially for the tactical nature of the shots.

The world of football has innovated in the use of Cable-cam for more than a decade, offering an unprecedented approach to plays. In this sense, the NFL does not discover any new technology, but it does Alternative Scans to these tools from an imaginative prism. One of the most frequent applications has been the deployment of Two systems Cable-cam in the same stadium, as used in Super Bowl LVII (2023). Specifically, a 4K camera and a camera Super slow-motion that would serve to Live shots, replays, and augmented reality apps. Both chambers coexist as located at different heights, ofreciendo una un análisis más táctico de la disposición de los jugadores; un uso que Mark Lazarus, responsable de la división de Broadcasting & Sports de NBC, atribuyó a la “influencia de videojuegos como Madden" in 2018 on the official NFL website. The CableCam Principal, on the other hand, is closer to the field of play to closely follow each athlete.

Other alternative applications used in dating such as Super Bowl LIV (2020) was the deployment of Cable-cam to take shots from the exterior to the interior of the stadium through the building structure, offering a new context of encounters in situations in which the Drone Systems may be limited.

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2. Individualized Player Tracking (NFL)

The tyranny of data has become a Essential variable for the strategic planning of the coaches, which in the face of conditioned sensations allows a detailed analysis of the performance of the players. There are dozens of specialized tools, either owned by the football leagues themselves or by third-party systems, such as the Italian one Wyscout, which benefits from data collection to provide specific data on each of the players, or the Mediacoach.

The NFL began a journey in 2013 with the testing of these GPS, infrared, RFID tags and radio frequency-based solutions to be able to collect detailed information, delivering in real time that data under the name Next Gen Stats (NGS) to broadcasters in 2015 and expanding its possibilities in 2020 with machine-learning in 2020. In this way, from collecting individualized parameters of distance traveled or maximum speed, it was included Success probabilities or yardage prediction.

The essential tactical importance of American football, as well as the refinement of the NGS system, has caused the most recent version of this system, which benefits from the RFID and Photo Sensors (in Spain this data is captured through 16 optical tracking cameras and three tactical cameras), are used in depth in the broadcasts since the data is provided in real time with different representation options to the televisions. According to Keegan Abdoo, part of the NGS team, Prime Video includes in your broadcasts 95% of data delivered in real-time through a dedicated channel to see each encounter with the data offered in real time.

Apart from these applications, which have been explored to a greater or lesser extent within football, the NFL has favored the use of Second screens (in the style of motor racing broadcasts) through NGS Live. This system, accessible openly through its web portal, provides sports followers with the possibility of having Detailed and individualized statistics in real time of the match, including keys such as the movement and monitoring of each of the players in real time.

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3. Technologies slow motion via software (NFL)

The cameras of slow motion and Ultra Slow Motion They are a consolidated constant in the world of football. In LaLiga, have been used for more than a decade, having their maximum prominence in highly relevant matches such as the Real Madrid vs. Barcelona. In The Classic of March 20, 2022, in fact, Mediapro decided to deploy a total of 10 Super Slow Motion: 4 High speed and 6 Super slow motion.

The NFL continues to bet on the use of this type of camera in stadiums, but the improvement of camera sensors, the use of UHD resolutions with cameras up to 8K and progress in the processing via software of the signals produced are pushing the competition to a model of capture in which Any camera can become a slow motion. Specifically, the NFL benefits from technology Xtramotion by EVS, based on cloud-based processing services and algorithms evolved with artificial intelligence. However, the NFL used a pilot system hosted at the stadium facility for Super Bowl LVII (2023) to reduce processing times and scale up the 60 fps and 180 fps from their cameras to 180 fps and 540 fps, respectively.

The system, which opens the door to significant versatility and will presumably be applied in a similar way with more and more companies, has already taken its first steps in the world of football, with its inclusion in the Fan cam of Champions League matches offered by NVP for Sky Italia.

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4. Customized drones inside the stadium (MLB)

Just like the NFL, it has the Super Bowl, a game that gives world innovations year after year, the number one league dedicated to baseball in the United States has its own Special Encounters in which the effort of its teams of Engineering and realization. In the last match MLB All-Star Game, held on July 11 at T-Mobile Park in Seattle, an agreement was reached to include for the first time the Use of drones inside the stadiums during the development of the game. Of course, to guarantee the safety of fans, these customized systems that mount a camera with a stabilizer Gimbal are only used at times when there is no Risk of being hit by one of the balls: in the players' presentations or in the different Innings of the party.

In Spain, there is important legislation regarding the use of drones, as reported by este artículo ofrecido por Bardaji & Honrado en Panorama Audiovisual. However, it would be easy to imagine the use of these devices in the Player Introduction, in the moments of tension during the review of a play in the VAR or at the time of the Changes under the expertise of a professional operator.

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5. Dirtcam: Ground Flush (MLB)

In football, the pitch is sacred. Except for the incursion of cameras at the foot of the pitch in celebration of goals or at the end of matches, FIFA is completely reluctant to Include cameras that, in some way, may interfere in the development of the action under arguments such as the protection of the integrity of the players. A special mention is the Approval Odyssey of new solutions, which is usually accompanied by extensive procedures and long testing processes.

The MLB has been using the calls to regulate the calls since 2015 Dirtcam, a microscopic camera wireless based on RF which protrudes only 4 millimeters and which is located in Various locations of the pitch. From this system excavated underground emerges a tiny prism, which has protection against water, bumps and footsteps, has Pan-Tilt Control and allows it to offer a Privileged view of some of the most spectacular moments of the action.

In the absence of studying a possible location given the Length of grass in stadiums (20-30 mm), the possibility of seeing the strike of a Ball at ground level or watch as a ball grazes the post in a goal he could bring unprecedented immersion on the pitch.

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6. Sensors in sports equipment (NBA)

The biometrics, whether it comes from internal or external capture systems, is an important addition that provides context on some of the most decisive events in sporting events. They have already been tested in Olympic Trials, events in which the cameras have managed to capture the pulsation of the different athletes at key moments, something that could be applied in the same way between the thrower and goalkeeper at the moment of the decisive penalty of the shootout.

Apart from these resources (we remember that the main sports leagues have their main statistics systems provided by collection systems), there is a significant interest in continuing to capture data with different methods. Among them, comes the latest NBA agreement signed with the Canadian company Plantiga, a company that integrates sensor systems into Players' shoes to understand keys such as the mechanisms of injury, performance demands, loads and asymmetries of athletes. In the case of football, the ability to capture parameters such as speed, cadence, ground contact, acceleration, running duration, or the height of the saints would offer new parameters to integrate into broadcasts, especially in defensive disputes with Peak Speed or in the Jumps when it comes to finishing a ball in the corners.

Another company that reached an agreement with the NBA was Nextiles, which joins fabrics with Semiconductor for them to promote metrics such as time in the air, jump momentum, symmetry between legs (especially important for injury prevention) and forces applied at different times of the game. The Portuguese Football League has been working in this regard for several years now, including sensors in the different garments of its players.

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7. AR applied to handheld/shouldered cameras (NBA)

The augmented reality has become a constant in sports broadcasting, either by providing data associated with a play (such as the positioning of players on the pitch), or by benefiting from the Image Processing and Mixed Reality to replace the advertisements surrounding the pitch with Personalized advertising by markets.

Not so frequent is the application of augmented reality Unfalsified on the pitch using cameras Handhell, a process for which the Trail Blazers has created a custom workflow based on Disguise and Stype. The team's production team installed a Tracking Hardware at the stage that used the tracking system RedSpy with a Infr CameraHurried that pointed to the markers on the roof of the pavilion. A Media Server which enabled the use of real-time augmented reality graphics with data integration.

In the absence of roofs in the vast majority of football stadiums, and without the possibility of applying these references on the pitch, the installation of Beacons arranged in Key points of the stadium environment, similar to the proposals of museum and retail environments, could be a proposal for the integration of this type of alternatives, although the industry needs to Much more accurate solutions to add this type of elements that would help to continue deepening the Immersion in sports broadcasts.

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8. Sensors integrated into soccer balls (NHL)

The Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup ball included a small sensor created by Kinexon. Integrated into the heart of each ball and weighing just 14 grams, this system included a Ultra-wideband sensor (UWB) to position the location of the ball in real time, and a Inertial measurement (IMU) to detect the subtle movements of the object in space. Through these solutions, sent in real time, processed with AI and coordinated with the tracking solutions of Hawk-Eye, work was done on the "semi-automatic offside", a new system that is expected to become a standard of the FIFA.

The collection of data through the game ball is just the tip of the iceberg for a myriad of statistics that can be extracted in real time through these sensors. The NHL, the favorite ice hockey competition in the United States, is several years ahead of FIFA and the vast majority of professional soccer leagues, since 2021, each of the disks is dedicated to providing data. The big difference is that this sensorization does not come from inside the ball, but from a series of sensors arranged on the surface of the disc and tracked by between 16 and 28 cameras.

This system of recruitment, trained and evolved day by day with solutions based on AI and the processing of AWS, ended up forming the proposal NHL Edge, a system that offers metrics such as Shot quality, stop quality, distance traveled, shot heatmaps or speed. The combination of the sensor systems included inside the ball, along with the arrangement of sensors external to the ball, could offer a myriad of alternatives to continue delving into the world of statistics and their inclusion in broadcasts.

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9. Creating Alternate Realities (NHL)

At the beginning of 2023, the NHL, ESPN and Disney Channel teamed up to transform the encounter between the New York Rangers and the Washington Capitals into an animated encounter with the favorite characters of the animated series Big City Greens. Using the Tracking Data NHL Edge, which collect data from each player (up to 29 different points on the player and 5 on the stick) and the puck, the production team of the match was able to Overlay a layer to transform players into virtual avatars. Additionally, two of the voice actors of the series did a real-time job with Facial Capture to bring greater realism to the Reactions of each of the protagonists.

This initiative, as he stated to SVG Michael "Spike" Szykowny, Senior Director of motion graphics and ESPN Creative Studio production planning, sought to expand the competition's audience to bring the youngest members of the house closer to the world of the NHL. It even allowed the expansion of the Possibilities of realization: by bringing the parametric data to a virtual environment, the production company's team was able to include up to 49 virtual camera angles.

The parametric data of the players would require many more reference points, as well as a solution would be needed to make realistic the movement of the players on the field in front of the Hockey Slip. However, it would be an original alternative to, at least once a year, bring sport closer to the New audiences with Animated characters or through representations Cartoon of each of the players.

A report by Sergio Julián Gómez

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