Learn how cutting-edge tools from Ross Video can help you harness the power of data to you captivate your audience, boost engagement, and stay ahead in the fast-paced world of sports broadcasting.
Employing big data and real-time analytics in sports broadcasting is now seen as essential, but can be quite difficult to execute without the proper tools and expertise. This is especially true of live game coverage when timely information is necessary to keep pace with the action.
Viewers want (if not expect and demand) real-time, relevant insights to augment content, and broadcasters must deliver them to enhance viewer engagement. But it can often be hard to integrate data analytics into your broadcast workflow to deliver the right insights at the right time to your audience.
Today’s viewers expect more from their sports coverage
Partnering with the business intelligence firm Morning Consult, the global technology leader IBM recently released a comprehensive study titled “Global Sports Attitudes and Behaviors.” This study drew on survey responses from more than 18,000 fans across 10 countries to yield significant findings on data analytics in sports broadcasting.
Although 64% of surveyed fans prefer watching sports on conventional or streaming TV platforms, they often watch or listen to athletic events while using other devices to get further information. Furthermore, they singled out real-time updates as their top priority in sports coverage.
Many of these viewers fully understand that this kind of rapid, relevant information delivery is, frankly, impossible without data analytics. In fact, 63% of survey respondents called data analytics the most positive technological force in the current sports broadcast landscape.
Real-time analytics delivers immediate insights to sports fans
If they want to stay ahead of the game, today’s sports broadcasters must employ advanced solutions that deliver real-time analytics and instant, data-driven insights to viewers at home. By delivering informative content that ranges from static graphics to augmented reality elements, real-time data analytics can improve viewer experience and drive viewer engagement in countless ways. Powered by real-time graphics engines and software automation, this content can reach your audience instantly, maximizing both relevance and impact.
Speed is crucial to the modern consumer of entertainment and news, but it is particularly valuable to the sports viewer. Sports are inherently time-sensitive, so broadcasters must strive for timeliness across all aspects of their coverage. Therefore, they need solutions that can collate data quickly and seamlessly, enhance their storytelling capabilities, and keep viewers engaged and informed as the action unfolds.
How the BBC and Ross Video elevated the FA Cup Final broadcast
The FA Cup Final proved that great broadcasting isn’t just about technology, it’s about making tools serve the story. By working with Ross Video, BBC Sport delivered bold, data-rich visuals that fit seamlessly into live production, enhancing the spectacle without adding complexity
Leveraging data analytics tools to enhance the viewing experience
By taking raw sports data and presenting it on-screen in a highly digestible way, you can capture and keep viewer attention, enhance engagement with your coverage, and ultimately foster long-term consumer relationships with an ever-expanding audience.
“In recent years,” contends Johnson & Wales, “major sports organizations have turned their attention to the ways in which sports analytics can help build better relationships with their final consumer: the sports fan.”
Fortunately, broadcasters can now employ powerful tools that turn complex data into stories that viewers care about. In our article “4 Ways to Enhance Sports Storytelling Using Technology,” we explored how data analytics helps broadcasters create more engaging content. With our XPression graphics platform, broadcasters can transform live data into visuals that inform, excite, and instantly connect with their audiences.
Harness the power of real-time data analytics with Ross Video
Ross Video’s comprehensive suite of technological solutions empowers broadcasters to use big data and real-time analytics to drive dynamic storytelling. While each of these solutions is powerful in its own right, they are most effective when employed together. Ross systems have a proven ability to deliver timely, relevant content that keeps viewers engaged throughout sports broadcasts of all kinds.
Ross Video’s state-of-the-art data analytics tools
Each of the following Ross Video systems harnesses real-time data to enhance the sports viewing experience and boost engagement with your target audience. The ability to deliver real-time score updates and drive advanced analysis is crucial to maintaining audience interest throughout the game. With the right combination of Ross tools, you can do just that.
1. XPression/DataLinq™
XPression, is a real-time 3D and motion graphics solution, making it ideal for game coverage and live broadcasts. Designed for real-time rendering, it delivers data-driven graphics that enhance analysis and help tell clearer, more compelling stories. As part of a customizable production workflow, XPression integrates seamlessly with other Ross Video systems and a variety of other vendors through MOS client plugins, ensuring smooth execution of graphics creation and playout for consistent on-air results.
A key data analytics plugin, DataLinq™ enhances XPression’s real-time rendering capabilities by feeding it up-to-the-second information, enabling broadcasters to create engaging, data-driven graphics that captivate audiences. DataLinq imports data from popular scoring and stat platforms, such as Stats Perform, to display impactful graphics on both the viewer and on-set screens. DataLinq will also automatically update its graphics in real time to provide the most accurate information possible. Beyond XPression, the DataLinq network connects to many of Ross Video’s state-of-the-art production tools.
Tell a more compelling story with data-driven graphics backed by XPression
2. PIERO sports graphics analysis
A DataLinq-compatible computer-generated effects and graphics system built for sports coverage, PIERO uses advanced data analytics to help broadcasters break down each play and deliver insightful on-air analysis. It can present team lineups, track speed and distance, set auto-tracking spotlights, and visualize a wide range of data to enhance viewer understanding.
With 3D telestration capabilities, PIERO enables commentators to immediately analyze and clearly explain tactics, player movement, and key moments in real time. Its best-in-class graphics support 20 of the world’s most popular sports, and its touchscreen interface makes it easy for on-air talent to operate during live broadcasts.
PIERO integrates tightly with Ross Video’s Rio Replay panel and Mira server, creating a unified sports storytelling workflow. Together, PIERO, Rio Replay and Mira deliver unmatched speed and efficiency in generating dynamic analysis graphics for live playout—making complex moments clearer and more compelling for every fan.
3. Voyager virtual graphics engine
For high-end customers, Voyager delivers powerful AR and extended reality (XR) capabilities, helping you create virtual visual aids or transport viewers into immersive environments. With DataLinq, you can enrich your Voyager scenes with real-time data, enabling virtual graphics and play breakdowns that update instantly as the action unfolds. Voyager also integrates seamlessly with PIERO, allowing PIERO’s analysis graphics to be rendered directly as virtual elements inside your AR or XR environment. This enables broadcasters to showcase advanced telestration and analysis in a fully immersive, interactive space. Whether adding subtle AR enhancements to your existing set or surrounding on-air talent with a complete virtual world, Voyager brings cutting-edge storytelling tools to every production.
XR Stage at NAB Show powered by Voyager and PIERO graphics
4. Rocket Surgery Creative Services
Through customized creative and professional services, Ross Video’s Rocket Surgery offers advanced production design features tailored to the unique wants and needs of your broadcast organization. From dazzling animated graphics to innovative virtual sets and augmented reality (AR) elements, it is well-established as an industry leader with a dual focus on maximizing production value and driving viewer engagement. Using DataLinq and other data analytics tools, Rocket Surgery offers many solutions that are specifically advantageous to sports broadcasters. For example, Brushback (specifically designed for baseball) help broadcasters manage and parse data for enhanced control and trigger-driven workflows.
Real-time analytics for real-world success
Working together, the data-driven production solutions from Ross can help you deliver timely, relevant content that instantly captures a viewer’s attention and keeps them interested and invested throughout a program. Sports broadcasters around the world who want to present timely and relevant information on-screen today simply cannot ignore the potential of real-time analytics. Ross Video has helped all kinds of organizations leverage the power of real-time data to significantly elevate their sports broadcast operations, dramatically improve viewer engagement, and foster brand-loyal consumer relationships.
Real-time data integration for NBC Sports Regional Networks
With their legacy graphics platform reaching end of life, NBC Sports – Regional Networks looked for a modern solution, and the combination of XPression Graphics and PIERO Sports Analysis helped them enhance their storytelling capabilities.
The integration of XPression DataLinq™ into their workflow allowed the networks to easily enrich their broadcast graphics with real-time data. With DataLinq, XPression becomes a dynamic, data-driven platform that automatically updates on-air graphics in real time. Once a third-party data source is connected via DataLinq, XPression can automatically populate on-air graphics with up-to-the-second information from a wide range of sources, including official sports data providers, social media, and other platforms.
Keep Reading: NBC Sports – Regional Networks: One platform, every screen and studio
NBC Sports San Francisco production control room powered by XPression, PIERO and Voyager graphics systems
Supercharging NHL storytelling
When Rogers Sportsnet embarked on a mission to revolutionize the traditional hockey broadcast, it built two new studio sets in downtown Toronto featuring state-of-the-art technology, enhanced data capabilities, and increased in-broadcast versatility.
Specifically, the XPression Tessera solution has enabled the Sportsnet production team to deliver dynamic, real-time, data-driven content across the large displays in their studio, enabling them to adapt to the rapidly changing storylines of live sports.
Keep Reading: Supercharging NHL Storytelling at Rogers Sportsnet Studios
Rogers Sportsnet Studio, powered by XPression Tessera, brings adaptive, real-time graphics to the fast-paced world of sports broadcasting.
Boost your viewer engagement today
Driven by DataLinq and the power of real-time analytics, Ross Video’s XPression, PIERO, Voyager, and the professional services of Rocket Surgery all have a proven ability to enhance viewer engagement. Contact a Ross representative today to learn more.