NHL Chief Operating Officer John Collins and Sportvision CEO Hank Adams have been discussing a way to bring digital tracking to the league since the 2009 Winter Classic game at Wrigley Field.
During the 2015 All-Star Game Weekend, a small trailer sat amongst the larger rights holder broadcast trucks in the bottom of Nationwide Arena doing just that.
In tandem with infrared cameras placed in the rafters, as well as computer chips placed in the neckline of player jerseys and in the puck itself, data was being collected that will not only provide the league a more sophisticated and accurate way to track stats, but also a way of digital interaction with fans that it feels is a key part to the NHL’s future growth.
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Sportvision techs follow tracking, data collection during NHL All-Star Game.
Photo by: IAN THOMAS / STAFF
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“What we’re trying to do more of is to tell deeper and richer stories about our players and our game,” Collins said. “With this technology, it provides an opportunity to use data and statistics to let the avid fan go deeper down the rabbit hole, as well as a way to bring casual fans in.”
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SBJ Podcast:
Hockey writer Ian Thomas and Alex Silverman talk about the NHL All-Star Game in Columbus as well as the World Cup of Hockey and the NHL's future participation in the Olympics.
The technology provides broadcasters with a host of additional data points, as well as graphical queues that aid in telling individual player stories during a game. The system is able to track player and puck movements and speeds, distances between two points and time on ice.
In that small trailer, Sportvision employees were able to toggle between different display settings, follow the tracking and collection of the data, and push along information to the NBC and Rogers production crews.
This technology, Collins explained, can help broadcasters highlight individual matchups, showing how often a star defenseman faced off against a star forward, showcasing the speed of a specific player, or demonstrating just how difficult it is for a goalie to track a deflected shot that drastically changes speeds and trajectory in less than a blink of an eye. But perhaps even more important is the key role that the accumulation of this information plays in the NHL’s push to drive more revenue out of its digital platforms.
This month, the NHL will begin to add additional advanced statistics to its website, many of which had previously been found only online on sites that scraped data from old game sheets. The league will take the opportunity to digitize the sheets, starting as far back as 2010 and potentially going even further, according to Collins. “We have everything dating back to the first game, and we want to give fans the opportunity to surf through that,” he said.
The NHL is hopeful that this Sportvision system will potentially add additional data points across the whole league. While the All-Star Game was the first test using actual professional players in a live-game setting, the league and the players union will now review the results and determine the next course of action.
The barrier to entry would be relatively low. Each arena would need to be outfitted with 10 to 12 additional cameras, and while the data on this weekend was being sent to a trailer, it could be sent to an off-site server. The NHL is expected to announce additional partnerships soon showcasing how that process and the digitization of statistics will be done more easily.
The other key component of the tracking is the ability to provide a true second-screen viewing experience for fans. In conjunction with the data that can be shown in broadcasts, the system also can potentially provide that same level of detail to fans, as well as an essentially live version of movement on the ice.
During the game, Commissioner Gary Bettman sat in the stands and experimented with the tool, akin to what you might see in the live box score that an NHL fan might peruse at a game, but with actual player and puck movements. In addition, the tool gives the option to sort through additional displays, such as total and current time on ice, and speeds of the players and the puck.
That data can be accessed at less than a second delay from live action, Sportvision said, and could potentially serve as its own app, or perhaps be integrated with an existing app, such as NHL GameCenter Live.
Ultimately, this digital push can “change the game for us,” Collins said. “This can create tons more traffic across all of our digital platforms, and tons more opportunities for revenue, whether it’s through syndication or other ways we choose to distribute it, or pair it with other content.
“Even with all we’re showing this weekend at the All-Star Game, we still feel we’re just at the tip of the iceberg.”
