Modern technologies are increasingly being used in sports broadcasts. The owners of the rights to large tournaments tend to create more video content in order to earn more efficiently on it, and the organizers of less status competitions want to broadcast with minimal time and effort. Artificial intelligence helps to solve both problems.
Automagic solution
Automagically-this is the key word that WSC Sports has been using for several years to describe the principle of its work. The Urban Dictionary interprets the term as follows: “Something happens automatically, but no one from the outside can explain exactly how.” In fact, there is an explanation. The technology is able to determine which episodes of the match are more important than others without human participation, and independently collects them into a video clip. Football is not even the most striking example. The company started in basketball, where there are much more effective actions, and it is much more difficult to collect a cut from the best.
The platform based on artificial intelligence takes into account several parameters: how does the score change after a hit (if the leader has changed – the probability that the moment is key is much higher), what is the reaction of the players and fans, whether the commentator highlights the moment with his voice, etc. During the match, a priority list is created – the most important points are at the top, the rest are below. All episodes are marked: which player is in the center of attention, what type of moment it is (a key attack, a bright action in defense, etc.). Then, depending on the task, you can form a video. For example, to pack the best moments of the match in five minutes.
In 2015, the company WSC Sports – then still at the stage of a startup, in which $1 million was invested on the rise-came to the NBA with its idea. Since then, the project has grown, covered other leagues, attracted $12 million of investment in the fall of 2016 and another $23 million three years later.
During Euro, the company collaborated mainly with broadcasters from the United States, Latin America, Africa and Asia. Broadcasters have their own priorities in each market, explains Itai Epstein, Head of WSC Sports in Central and Eastern Europe, Russia and China. “We help rights holders earn money because we give them the opportunity to produce more content,” he adds. “Our partners get access to a convenient and easy-to-use system, and then they themselves get the benefits they want.”
One of the most striking examples is the largest Norwegian TV channel NRK, which used an advanced solution in the style of Instagram Stories during the championship. This video format is easy to integrate into third-party platforms: for example, if you search for something related to the Euro in Norway through a search engine, a button will appear right on the page to launch a video with the participation of the player or team that the person is looking for.
“Recently, we have our own monetization solution: a built – in system for connecting the automatic display of commercial commercials,” adds Epstein. The company has not yet summed up the results of the Euro, but the current indicators, according to Epstein, exceed expectations.
After Euro 2020, the company intends to focus, among other things, on services for the bookmaker market – since the project has become recognizable in the American market, it is especially important for it to catch the wave of legalization of betting in the United States.
In addition, WSC, in search of alternative sources of revenue – both for itself and for customers – offers to process video archives as well. This is an undervalued content, according to the company. At the same time, old materials are usually poorly marked up, and it takes too much effort to manually work with them (to find and isolate the right one).
“Where to sign?”
In Russia, WSC Sports has two announced clients: the OTT service OKKO Sport (they own the rights to show the EPL, Coppa Italia and other tournaments), as well as the VTB United League.
“To implement the algorithm, it was only necessary to connect WSC to our statistics and video system,” says head of the VTB United League Media Department Maxim Abramov. – Games in the Condensed format became a real hit – this is a version of the game shortened to 10 minutes, in which pauses, misses, free throws are excluded, and there are only hits, only hardcore.” Abramov does not hide his surprise: with the ability to automatically mount and quickly release such highlights, a new type of content has appeared – and in popularity on YouTube, it surpasses the standard 1.5-minute cuts that were previously relied on.
“The WSC Sports technology implies autoposting of content: with pre-set settings and resolution –” explains Abramov. – Even the name of the video is generated by the program itself. This is very convenient in live mode, when several games are going on at the same time and there are simply not enough hands for everything. At the same time, we monitor all the actions of the program, our video editors help the algorithm. If we see that it is worth adding specific repetitions of the moment, superimposing music, we do it manually.”
The league started cooperating with WSC in the 2020/21 season and is already seeing the effect: this partnership is associated with a 20% increase in the audience in social networks. The number of video views has increased by 800,000: the matter is both in the more rapid output of traditional formats, and in the increase in the number of released videos – it would not be possible to master this manually.
“As soon as we were shown the capabilities of the program and generated the best moments of Luka Doncic for the NBA season in three seconds, the negotiations turned into the category of” where to sign?”, says Abramov and announces a plan for the 2021/22 season to attract sponsors for specific video metrics, content for which can be created automatically. – WSC Sports is just entering the Russian market, in the first season we were given a promotional tariff, now negotiations are underway to conclude a contract for four to five years. If we manage to get sponsors interested in such content, the algorithm will be especially in demand.”
People are no longer needed
The idea of broadcasting sports events without the participation of people developed even before the pandemic, but during lockdowns it became especially relevant: when the organizers were severely limited by the staff at the arena, proposals for automating the process, for example from the Israeli company PlaySight, turned out to be even more in demand.
The system works like this: a person comes to the site once to install a camera (or several), and then you can use it remotely. The algorithm understands exactly what is happening on the field, court or court, recognizes movements and game situations – depending on this, the cameras switch and the broadcast is formed. There is also a monetization system: for example, you can sell access to records from a specific point.
In addition to streaming, an analytical configuration of the PlaySight system is also provided – 13 NBA clubs are already using it (Golden State was the first to connect, then Toronto, Detroit, Phoenix, etc.), as well as American colleges, European clubs and sports facilities of different levels in 35 sports. In addition, PlaySight has a ready-made solution for the VAR system – it is ten times cheaper, according to the company, than the services of current suppliers of FIFA, UEFA and top leagues.
The idea of PlaySight belongs to an IT specialist from Russia: Yevgeny Khazanov moved to Israel in his youth, served in the local army, worked in a company focused on military orders, and then launched his own project with two colleagues.
“I worked in a company that collaborated with pilots” – recalls Khazanov. – There was a problem: the pilot performed maneuvers in the air, and after landing he explained everything in words. It’s quite strange and inconvenient. Over time, simulating systems (for example, missile launches, shots) began to be installed on aircraft-for fixing and subsequent reconstruction of the pilot’s actions in flight. My partners and I decided to try the same thing in sports. One of them, by the way, is a former military man and a pilot, the other served in the tank forces.”
Broadcast from the briefcase
The project started with tennis. Among the partners and investors of PlaySight are Novak Djokovic, Pete Sampras, Billie Jean King, Chris Evert, Ana Ivanovic, Tommy Haas, etc. In total, the company has raised more than $20 million. “We installed the system in one of the tennis clubs, and its director is familiar with Novak Djokovic – he brought us together –” Khazanov recalls. – Novak liked our project, he decided to invest, after that it became easier with new partners. Djokovic himself not only invested, but also used PlaySight in his training, formulated wishes for improvements and improvements.”
Even at the start of the project in 2010, it was conceived as a mass one. At that time, tennis already used hawk-eye systems to view controversial hits, but they were only available to major tournaments due to the high cost. The turnkey system cost about $300,000, to rent it for one court for one tournament – $50,000, it was required to install the equipment a week before the start. The creators of PlaySight understood that in order to withstand competition, you need to carefully study the technology – this will allow you to keep a comfortable price/quality ratio and work with a wide range of customers.
The first version of PlaySight for tennis-appeared in 2013, and two or three years later the company realized that the technology is also suitable for other sports. Moreover, the users themselves wanted to expand the spectrum: a college basketball coach noticed the system on tennis courts and asked if there was a similar solution for his sport.
Thanks to the adaptability of the technology platform, the company expanded its functionality from tennis to dozens of sports within a year. The idea of convenient video recording was picked up by the NBA clubs: they try to quickly implement innovative solutions to optimize the work, for example, record a training session in live mode without the participation of operators and editors.
Original text in Russian: https://vedomostisport.ru/around/articles/2021/07/16/878411-teper-translyatsii-i-hailaiti-mozhno-delat-bez-lyudei-iskusstvennii-intellekt-spravlyaetsya-luchshe
