What are the Premier League plans for including real-time graphics and data in match broadcasts?

Watching Premier League football live on television may never be the same. Sky Sports and BT Sport aim to revolutionise the experience for viewers with the introduction of real-time graphics and on-screen stats detailing players’ performance.

The Premier League’s technology partner Genius Sports will be providing the service, linking live data and graphics to match broadcasts. Viewers will be able to see for themselves how fast players are running, the velocity of the ball when they shoot and their positioning on the field - all in real-time.

Genius Sports developed their Matchday Experience tool to offer sports fans the chance to personalise their own experience of watching a live sports event on television or an online streaming service. During a game, fans can select “live video streams with innovative tracking-based insights such as player speeds and shot velocity, real-time animations, data-driven visualisations and other related content”.

Positional data

Skeletal tracking is an innovative, new system which compiles data from multiple contact points on a player’s body. Ball tracking meanwhile is measured through a lightweight motion sensor inserted inside the ball. The radio waves it emits during a game are picked up by various local positioning systems (LPS) at numerous points on the pitch perimeter.

Stats and performance data can be delivered directly to the broadcaster’s live feed of the game in under a second. Player and ball-tracking tools for live football match transmissions are not only for the benefit of the fans. The developers add that the new technology can be helpful for everyone involved in the sport, including coaches, journalists and pundits.

Obviously, not everyone will like it. Traditional fans will be quite happy to enjoy the game as they always have without flashy graphics or being bombarded with endless stats and figures while they are trying to follow the action. It might not be for them but football has always moved with the times and real-time data feeds from ball and player tracking may soon become the norm with all sports broadcasters. Sky Sports and BT Sport plan to roll out their service in the UK in the second half of this season.