NBA Summer League once again a hotbed of tech innovation

The goal is to improve the quality of gameplay, officiating, live production and viewing experience.

It's not just the temperatures that are heating up in Las Vegas this week. The annual NBA Summer League extravaganza has also seen the level of technological innovation soar. The league's basketball strategy and broadcast operations teams are collaborating on a number of experiments aimed at improving the quality of gameplay, officiating, live production and the viewing experience.

From a broadcast operations and engineering standpoint, Summer League is a valuable opportunity to try out new technology and continue to evolve, said Bernie Carlton, NBA senior director of broadcast planning and strategy. “The best thing about Summer League for us is that we don't necessarily have to broadcast everything. The opportunity to do offline testing is absolutely critical for us. It enlightens us and [allows us] It's about keeping it, throwing it away, or trying something new that you can return to in future seasons and continue to develop, iterate and improve.

Tom Ryan, NBA vice president of basketball strategy, agrees: “Summer League is an important research and development lab for us for two main purposes. The first is tactical, in that it gives us a chance to get some final practice and tweaks before the next season. The second is , allowing us to pitch some new ideas that we might see in the NBA in three or four years. It's a great forum for experimentation because we have NBA-caliber facilities and a lot of games. We can get a ton of data and a large sample size in 10 days, which is very unique.”

From Las Vegas to Secaucus and Beyond: HSAN and the Cloud

The league deployed two portable remote HSAN (High Speed ​​Arena Network) transmission kits at each Las Vegas arena and secured additional connectivity from Verizon to create a robust network connecting the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas to the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus, N.J. The network not only serves the NBA's content creation and international distribution needs, but also provides the backbone for testing taking place in Las Vegas.

The NBA is working with MediaKind and several other vendors to test JPEG XS encoding in its HSAN to improve the efficiency and overall flexibility of video transport in the future.

The NBA continues to test new cloud production workflows for both alternate feeds and multilingual broadcasts, as it did last year in Las Vegas. As part of the testing, the league is working with Microsoft Azure to run the Evertz DreamCatcher BRAVO production suite in the cloud.

“We're excited about the maturation of cloud production in terms of versioning, expanding the amount of feeds we can generate, and streamlining delivery,” Carlton says. This is a continuation from last year, and this year we're taking another step to make it even more scalable and flexible for the future.

The NBA is working with a number of other partners on cloud-based production workflows in Las Vegas, including HTML5 graphics platform Tagboard.

Next-gen viewing experiences: Cosm, C360, Quintar

The Cosm C360 camera is part of a proof-of-concept project to integrate Hawk-Eye player tracking into the C360 CX Video Hub platform.

Cosm, which signed a multi-year deal with the league last year to produce 8K shared reality experiences for fans, is testing both immersive and VR capture systems in Las Vegas for the second consecutive year.

“We're working on a number of exciting experiences with Cosm, both in the broadcast space and in emerging markets,” said Carlton. The tests aim to explore new camera angles and continue development to create the best user experience for basketball.

The Cosms C360 team is also working with the league on a proof of concept to integrate Hawk-Eye player tracking data into C360’s CX Video Hub platform to create auto-generated ISO shots.

“It's still early days, so you may not see it on broadcast, but it remains a big interest for us as a league,” Carlton said. “We see this as an opportunity to create more content and explore how we can use AI in combination with player tracking data to create a better experience for our fans.”

The NBA is also partnering with Quintar to create spatial video content for platforms like Apple Vision Pro. “We’re working with them to find new ways to create new types of content so we can reach our fans wherever they are,” Carlton said. “While we’re not sure if we’ll be releasing content from this event publicly, it’s a great opportunity to experiment and refine how we tell our story.”

Partnering with ESPN: New Cameras, Mics, and Data Visualization

ESPN will continue to produce all of this year's Summer League games (including broadcasts on NBA TV), but for the first time, all broadcasts from both the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion will be produced in Bristol, Connecticut using the REMI production model.

ESPN and the NBA are testing the new compact digital Q5X PlayerMic transmitter/receiver system with different types of lavalier microphone capsules and transmitters. Additionally, ESPN and Riedel are working with the league to enable two-way in-game conversations with players, similar to what viewers have seen in recent years during MLB broadcasts.

“We continue to work closely with ESPN on a number of testing activities. One key activity is identifying opportunities to improve access to players. This includes using Q5X microphones to improve player audio and experimenting with two-way interview conversations with players, which we've seen work well on other ESPN properties and hope to replicate,” said Carlton.

The NBA and ESPN are also exploring next steps to visually enhance linear production with data from Hawk-Eye and Sportradar tracking systems, with ESPN working with SMT on-site to test prototype workflows using Sportradar.

“We're working with Sportradar to understand how we can leverage player tracking data to provide better visualization and storytelling opportunities for our broadcast partners,” Carlton said. [NBA VP, Stats Technology Product Development] Charlie Rohlf talks about the new NBA Advanced Stats and incorporating some of these new metrics into the broadcast.

ESPN's main game camera is a Sony HDC-F5500 camera with a Fujinon Duvo 25×1000 lens. As game cameras dominate live game coverage, ESPN and the NBA are evaluating how this camera and lens combination can improve their broadcasts.

“We’ll be working collaboratively with ESPN and all of our broadcast partners on this,” Carlton said. “We’ve received a lot of feedback about what tools and features people need.

Another highlight is the extensive testing being done to backhaul high frame rate camera phases to the NBA Replay Center in Secaucus and Bristol for ESPN's REMI productions.

Basketball Strategy: Improving refereeing accuracy, efficiency, and transparency

In terms of basketball strategy, Ryan and his team are using the Summer League as a testing ground to improve the league's end-to-end officiating technology stack, paying close attention to three priorities: accuracy, efficiency, and transparency. To achieve these priorities, the league is focused on four technology pillars: continued experimentation with its Hawk-Eyes optical tracking system, building officiating-related semantics based on that data, better integrating that data into the NBA replay system, and improving live on-court official communication.

Summer League umpires test live communications technology that sends calls to fans in the stadium and those watching via broadcast. Photo: Stephen Gosling/NBAE via Getty Images

The league announced a multi-year agreement last year to deploy Sony's Hawk-Eye Innovations optical tracking systems and continues to explore new, more effective ways to capture and use player and ball tracking data.

During summer league, the Hawkeyes and the NBA are testing new high-frame-rate cameras as part of the system, as well as new camera placements that map more closely to the types of priority calls (for example, below the baseline or near the rim).

Ryan's team is integrating that data more deeply into the NBA's replay platform, combining video and data to help make faster and more transparent decisions. Additionally, the NBA continues to build out officiating semantics based on the data to help referees better understand the data.

Summer league referees wear microphones and belt packs that communicate with the NBA Replay Center to relay information to broadcasters. Photo: David Dow/NBAE via Getty Images

“We want to get a deeper understanding of things like goaltending rules: Did the ball hit the backboard first or did it hit somebody's hand? Did the ball go over the top? We'll continue to explore all of those semantics and also introduce a new last-touch model that can handle out-of-bounds calls,” Ryan said.

The NBA continues to use Summer League to test live communications technology for referees, who are outfitted with lavalier microphones, custom in-ear molds and Riedel Bolero wireless intercom beltpacks to communicate with the NBA Replay Center and relay information to broadcasters.

Ryan says this is an expansion of previous testing and covers more games than ever before. [venues]The umpires communicate their calls both to the spectators in the arena and to those watching on broadcast, and we are working to incorporate more personnel with these communications technologies so that we have a reliable mechanism for communicating with the umpires in real time.

In addition to Carlton and Ryan, NBA SVP of Broadcast Operations and Engineering Dave Barry and SVP of Media Operations and Technology Ken DeGennaro are leading the innovation effort in Las Vegas, with Victor Cerejo providing broadcast strategy and technology support.

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