Sony announced they agreed to enter into an official multi-year global technology partnership with the National Hockey League (NHL), North America’s professional ice hockey league.
Through this partnership, the NHL and Sony will work together to evolve the professional ice hockey experience for fans, coaches, referees, players and broadcasters by expanding animated content production using data visualization technology from Sony group company Beyond Sports, increasing the use of Hawk-Eye Innovations’ measurement and tracking technology, and investing in a variety of Sony products and technologies to bring NHL fans closer to the game than ever before.
Hawk-Eye Technology
The NHL has been using Hawk-Eye technology since 2015. Video replay technology (Synchronized Multi-Angle Replay Technology, SMART) in all 32 NHL arenas provides the speed and accuracy needed for reviewing important plays and coaching challenges, and further improvements to the technology allow for team medical care and player health and safety checks.
The data collected through the optical tracking cameras will be essential for real-time animation content creation, post-production content creation and replay technology, and will also be incorporated into the creation of future experiences, including mobile apps and XR. Hawk-Eye will continue to strengthen its technological innovations and contribute to the creation and distribution of more immersive NHL content.
The NHL and Beyond Sports began collaborating on several projects in 2018 aimed at leveraging location data from NHL EDGE, an ice hockey puck and player tracking technology.
Beyond Sports
Beyond Sports, a visualization technology initiative to track the movements of players and the ball in an actual match and recreate and broadcast them in near real time within the worldview of an anime or other work, is playing a key role in reimagining the hockey experience by delivering IP-driven content through alternative broadcasts and turning data into a powerful driver of fan engagement.
Examples of these initiatives include the Sports Emmy Award-nominated “NHL Big City Greens Classic,” the first local real-time sports animation broadcast “Tommy Hawk’s Birthday Party,” and the serialized animation broadcast “NHL HOCKEYVERSE Matchup of the Week.” In addition, NHL Blast on Roblox, an immersive metaverse using Beyond Sports’ technology, attracted more than 1 million unique users in its first month in April 2023. These activities are expanding reach to younger generations and setting a new standard for sports data integration.
Sony’s video production solutions are trusted by NHL clubs and broadcasters as a key component in capturing the game’s most defining moments through broadcast and sports photography. NHL clubs use Sony technology to deliver real-time game footage from the best camera angles to NHL fans around the world.
