Jordan Stephenson
South Bureau Chief
The relatively new technology is called STATS SportsVU, which is used for NBA games. It is a very in-depth player tracking device that is being used to further the viewing intricacies of NBA basketball. This technology has already started to revolutionize how the NBA is viewed and watched around the world. Every year the main goal is to try and improve this multifaceted technology.
STATS SportsVU is basically a multifaceted system of 6 high resolution cameras that is a top notch and state of the art computer vision technology. This particular technology divulges immediate and unorthodox statistics, which are solely based on player separation, distance, speed, and ball control. The main reason for all of this is so they’ll have a comprehensive data of all teams, players, and even referees now. It was first used in the NBA in 2009. Then in 2013, this technology was used for all teams in the NBA. NBA teams use all of this tracking data for player development, training, and scouting new players.
STATS SportsVU uses the way players align themselves offensively and defensively, compared to where the basketball trajectory might be located, passes made by players, and the amount of dribbles taken. All players, referees, and the basketball are tracked around 25 times a second. The next process is, the software will analyze the videos, and then it stores all the info that was recorded. Also, it then adds around one million entries every game, to its database.
STATS SportsVU allows teams to not have to track and chart a game by watching it and writing it down. This also allows for exact player positioning and tracks how close a defender might be to a particular player. This technology definitely makes the in-depth defensive stats a 100 percent more quantifiable, especially to see who has the most defense impact and who might win defensive player of the year.
Since STATS SportsVU is already the official player tracking partner of the NB, it is now currently being used by different sports networks like ESPN, NBA on TNT, Bleacher Report, NBA TV, etc. All the data contracted will be widely available to all other media outlets everywhere. This will definitely provide unforeseen insight for fans about players’ shooting, players’ passing, players’ rebounding, players’ defense, substitutions, different play calls, lineups, etc. In the past, STATS SportsVU data was only made available for the NBA teams, now it is available to everyone, everywhere.
Jordan Rosen, who is a senior Vice President at STATS SportsVU said, “we look forward to taking our partnership with the NBA to the next level by making STATS SportsVU data available to media outlets around the world.” Also, he said,”by making available a robust set of innovative data, we can provide a more sophisticated level of analytics to NBA fans across a rapidly growing number of platforms.” Steve Hellmuth, who is an NBA Executive Vice President of Operations and Technology said, “this expanded partnership with STATS will give fans new opportunities to access SportsVU’s groundbreaking statistical information across numerous media outlets, allowing them to deepen their understanding of our game.”
In 2006, the NBA and STATS had originally partnered up to bring NBA teams and players stats that they can use to get exponentially better and win a championship. STATS SportsVU is now used by NBA TV, NBA.com, the NBA app, etc. STATS LLC and the NBA had partnered up to expand their continually growing partnership. This partnership gives everyone complete access to everything pertaining to player tracking data.
The world’s leading sports technology is STATS LLC. Their main goal was to revolutionize how sports were perceived, how they were viewed, enjoyed, and even played. STATS always provided historical sports information, fantasy sports operations, every score for all games, brand activation solutions, Associated Press editorial content, and SportsVU technology. STATS headquarters are located in Chicago, Illinois. Also, it has expanded globally, to where it has multiple offices around the world.
Unlike the NBA with STATS SportsVU, the NFL’s technology is called radio-frequency identification transmitters (RFID). It was created by Zebra Technology, and since 2014, it has been put in players shoulder pads. This innovative system collects data on players speed, position, distance, etc. Theses transmitters have also been placed into footballs, to measure a variety of things. Then the data could be seen on NFL Microsoft Surface Tablets, so that they could use it to apply in-game adjustments.
STATS SportsVU was readily available to every arena from the 2013-2017 NBA season. In 2017, they added another technology to STATS SportsVU, which was called Second Spectrum. In 2013, all 30 NBA teams have installed the STATS SportsVU camera, which was made possible from the partnership between STATS LLC and the NBA. In this year’s NBA playoffs, STATS SportsVU has enhanced the way we watch playoff games. It provides different angles, views, perspectives, and backgrounds to watch the playoff game, in a more interactive way.
The 2012-13 Heat’s improbable clutch possession
Photo courtesy of sports video.org