SPECIAL REPORT Technology
Email | Print    Type Size  -  +

Sports + tech = $$$

By Jeffrey M. O'Brien, senior editor
Last Updated: October 17, 2008: 5:29 AM ET

How is that done? It all starts with the tracking system. Three stationary cameras do the trick in baseball, but NASCAR is a more dynamic sport. To track a few dozen racecars all moving at 200 mph or more, Sportvision outfitted every vehicle with a GPS transmission device and an inertial measurement unit developed to guide smart bombs.

The data are collected and fed to the broadcast truck, allowing producers to overlay the race with graphics. The information is also processed by a rendering engine and posted online, where fans can take control of the experience, isolating a favorite driver, for example, or changing perspectives on a multicar crash to determine who was at fault. The next step will be to allow fans to drive in a live race.

In fairness, the word "live" is a bit misleading. No TV broadcast is truly live. The video feed is processed and beamed to satellites before arriving in your living room. During the delay Sportvision can insert anything from a first-down line to customized digital advertising to ... you.

"Driving in a race, you could have the 44th car. In baseball, we know the pitch. So you can take your Wii and swing at it," says Marv White, Sportvision's CTO. "Getting it to market is a big deal - we're in discussions with videogame producers. But the technology is pretty well in hand now."

There are limitations to such a product, of course, including the laws of physics. A phantom driver can't very well wipe out a real driver. And what happens when an avatar hits a two-seam fastball for a double, but the actual batter pops out to short? Adams and White are working on a ghosting system to account for such situations, allowing players to pick up in subsequent innings where they left off.

But even without the kinks ironed out, Major League Baseball sees great potential in the idea. "It would turn a dummy videogame into a real-action, real-time videogame," says Bob Bowman, CEO of MLB Advanced Media.

That's what Adams and his team are gunning for. The company is profitable and has been growing 33% a year for four years. But this trove of data could pave a way to new ad and licensing revenue with big gaming companies.

"We're allowing people to see things they didn't see before and gain more control over their experience," says Adams. "The history of media is that people appreciate more control."  To top of page

Company Price Change % Change
Ford Motor Co 8.29 0.05 0.61%
Advanced Micro Devic... 54.59 0.70 1.30%
Cisco Systems Inc 47.49 -2.44 -4.89%
General Electric Co 13.00 -0.16 -1.22%
Kraft Heinz Co 27.84 -2.20 -7.32%
Data as of 2:44pm ET
Index Last Change % Change
Dow 32,627.97 -234.33 -0.71%
Nasdaq 13,215.24 99.07 0.76%
S&P 500 3,913.10 -2.36 -0.06%
Treasuries 1.73 0.00 0.12%
Data as of 6:29am ET
More Galleries
10 of the most luxurious airline amenity kits When it comes to in-flight pampering, the amenity kits offered by these 10 airlines are the ultimate in luxury More
7 startups that want to improve your mental health From a text therapy platform to apps that push you reminders to breathe, these self-care startups offer help on a daily basis or in times of need. More
5 radical technologies that will change how you get to work From Uber's flying cars to the Hyperloop, these are some of the neatest transportation concepts in the works today. More
Sponsors

Most stock quote data provided by BATS. Market indices are shown in real time, except for the DJIA, which is delayed by two minutes. All times are ET. Disclaimer. Morningstar: © 2018 Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Factset: FactSet Research Systems Inc. 2018. All rights reserved. Chicago Mercantile Association: Certain market data is the property of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc. and its licensors. All rights reserved. Dow Jones: The Dow Jones branded indices are proprietary to and are calculated, distributed and marketed by DJI Opco, a subsidiary of S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC and have been licensed for use to S&P Opco, LLC and CNN. Standard & Poor's and S&P are registered trademarks of Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and Dow Jones is a registered trademark of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC. All content of the Dow Jones branded indices © S&P Dow Jones Indices LLC 2018 and/or its affiliates.